Strategic Marketing
Every organization can benefit from a well-designed strategy. For law firms, the ever-increasing levels of competition, specialization and buyer sophistication have made it essential for firms to do a better job of forecasting and planning for their future. Studies have shown that companies (and firms) that set goals, determine priorities and develop written plans consistently outperform those that do not. But it still seems that some (many? most?) firms still aren’t undertaking marketing and business development in a strategic way. For all you in-house marketing professionals out there, what’s your experience? Do you see firms approaching marketing in a more deliberate way? If so, what factors do you see driving this change? If not, what do you think are the roadblocks to firms acting more strategically?
Comments
Firms should value strategic planning even more so now with the declining economy. In many instances, firms are cutting budgets (and often the marketing budget) and hunkering down to weather the economic storm. As a result, it makes perfect sense to think about marketing in a much more strategic way and with less resources. If ever a firm was going to, this is a great time to engage in the process of discussing and setting goals and determining priorities to both advance beyond those that are not doing that now and to be well poised for when the economy turns around.
In addition to setting goals, firms should determine how they will measure ROI on the marketing activities that support these goals. Using online marketing tools (such as online advertising - Google, Yahoo!, traditional online sites and Web site traffic reports), allows for easy tracking of click-thru's and site visitors (respectively). Such reporting is becoming increasingly sophisticated and firms are able to tweak their online marketing materials to address the results of their tracking statistics. Best of all, all of this can be done at a relatively low cost compared to other, traditional ROI tracking methods - an important consideration in a down economy!
For the firms that aren't looking at this down economy as a time to hone in on strategy, what are the things that you think are worthwhile or important to focus on? Are you working to deepen relationships with existing clients? Are you positioning to grab market share? Are you doing some strategic planning but maybe referring to it by another term? Let us know what's on your mind and your plate with respect to keeping, or even growing, business during this confused and confusing time.
