Law Firm 4.0 Blog

Love your law firm marketing job more (or the "Smart-Work Matrix") - Guest post by Allen Fuqua

I spoke about project management and how it can be used in business development at the LMA SE Mini-Conference in New Orleans last Friday.  After having a glass of Pinot Noir with Allen Fuqua last week, I decided I had to include more about his Smart-Work Matrix in my presentation.  In my last blog post, the LA LMA TED summary, I promised that I would write about it here, but after sitting down with him, I insisted he go into more detail. 

Allen's material was quickly embraced by the SE LMA crowd, too.  And I hope it helps you rethink your work-day/work-week, too.

In my next post, I'll share ideas for lawyers to improve project management processes - and use them as a law firm differentiator in beauty contests and proposals. 

Guest Post by Allen Fuqua, CMO, Winstead

Every organization has a long and varied list of projects,processes, programs and coverage areas that require team members to coordinate and support.  We often see team members becoming frustrated with various projects based on any number of experiences:

1. The unwillingness of attorneys or leaders to listen to us and/or cooperate with us.
2. Being treated badly by an attorney or leader.
3. We do not know how to move a project forward and we feel vulnerable.
4. We feel that the project is wasteful of their time. 
5. We believe a project should be done differently, but can't get buy-in from attorneys.
6. We believe that the project is being led badly or incompetently by an attorney leader and we don’t know what to do.

        And the list goes on and on.

However, the reality, more often than not, is that many coordinators, managers and directors use the same orientation and execution process for everything they do.  This inability to adjust output and commitment to the nature of the different projects, and to know what a winning orientation for each project is likely to be, produces levels of stress and frustration that can lead to failure and professional anxiety.

If we can evaluate these projects, jobs and programs on an individual basis and come to a simple understanding of the make-up of each and what a winning plan would look like, I think we can increase our performance, satisfaction, and make our results more consistent and minimize our angst.

So here's my suggestion:

Use the matrix below and fill in your projects and tasks where you think they should go. Use this as your measuring stick:

Potential Value - consider the assignment based on its ability to contribute revenue to the firm and/or build important relationship(s). 

Your ability (that is, will you be allowed) to drive (a/k/a/ control) the project or provide innovation to the project.  If you are new to the firm, you may not know this -- a lot depends on culture, how lawyers and staff collaborate on things, etc.  

Once you plot your projects, use the matrix to identify the following three areas associated with any task, project or program in the associated quadrant:

               1.  What should your orientation for that project be?

2.  What defines your process for execution?

3.  What is the central success factor for the project?

As you put your various projects on the matrix, consider the recommended approach we use.  Let me review each quadrant's framework:

The Northwest Quadrant

The projects, tasks and activities in this quadrant are characterized by the potential for better than average ability to generate either new revenue or build relationships, while having a very limited ability for the marketing team to drive/control them or provide any innovation to them.

The appropriate orientation for these is:

1.  Your entire focus should be on execution; not adding value, not forcing it in a direction.  Most likely, the attorneys and leadership just want it done and aren't looking for anything other than the project getting done.

2.  Your execution process will center around a formal performance plan.  For our team, we have execution plans based on a planning model that we use to set up projects.  Once those are in place, all the associated work flows out of that plan.  We don't deviate from it and we spend no time trying to add to it.  That would be a waste of time.

3.  The success and quality of these projects in the NE quadrant is a function of your experience.  If you've done many of these, you know the game, you've seen it before and understand how it will go.  If you don't have the experience, then recruit a team member who has.  Ask them to meet with you on a regular basis (weekly at first) to review how the project is going and what execution steps you should take.  Your more experienced colleague will help you stay
disciplined.

The Northeast Quadrant

These projects are often what every marketing person dreams about.  It has great potential value and you have a sense that you will be a valuable part of the project.  However, you need to be quite sober around that second expectation.  The orientation below should help you with it.

1.  Your orientation should be aggressive and you should be trying to think one step ahead so that you can add value along the way – so you can lead.

2.  Your execution process revolves around the attorney champion of the project.  Whatever he/she says (or you convince them of) is how you move.  You suggest a process and plan, then wait for them to consider, edit and/or approve.

3.  The quality and success of this project is dependent on the trust and partnership you have with the attorney champion.  Ask questions that will reveal the lawyer’s viewpoints, objectives, concerns for the project and then provide solutions around each of those.  Note:  your ideas should be based on the words/orientations of the attorney champion.  Do not start with your opinions and experiences; always start with Q/A of the lawyers and then offer responses, feedback and opinions that are relevant to the discussion.

The Southwest Quadrant

Here the tasks offer minimal hope for significant value for the shareholders.  Additionally, no one is looking for you to do anything but make it happen or make it go away. So then:

1.  Your orientation should be first to see if you can delegate this project to a more appropriate person or department.  If you can outsource, do. If it’s a survey, see if HR or some other admin group has the majority of the data and send it to them.  Additionally, be passive in your efforts here.  Only act when you are asked to act or when timing dictates that you act.  As you know, all projects are subject to change from the attorneys, so minimize the amount of opportunities for those changes, since there is little chancefor them to turn a low value project into a high value project.  Don’t let any of these tasks be a time or energy drain.

2. Your execution process is to get attorney input and then do it.  Don't interpret, embellish or take it to the next level (save that for the Northeast Quadrant).

3. The success of these tasks will be based on your ability to get attorney input at the appropriate time and no sooner.  If you don't know what they want and you need to act, ask and do whatever they say.

The Southeast Quadrant

These are your worst nightmares.  Nobody cares about those and has any idea what they want.  They expect you to figure everything out, and when/if it gets done they won't care that it got done.

1.  Your initial orientation should be to ask a leader if in fact these task/project justifies using firm resources.  See if they will nix it.  If the project has to go forward then,

2.  Your execution orientation should be to get it done with a minimal amount of effort and resources.  Do not waste your extra efforts / creativity on these (save yourself for anything in the Northern quadrants).

3.  The project success will be dependent on an execution which is simple and speedy.  If you are challenged to figure this out, seek help from your supervisor or a senior member of your team.

Here is a sample of how we break things down at Winstead.  Contact me at [email protected] if you have questions about this.

 

 

CMO or Super Hero? (Guest blog post by Aleisha Gravit)

One of my favorite blogs, 3 Geeks and a Law Blog, originally posted this on September 25, 2012.  It was posted by one of my favorite bloggers, Toby Brown (one of the 3 Geeks and the Director of Pricing and Analytics at Akin Gump) and written by one of my favorite legal  industry marketers, Aleisha Gravit (Chief Client Services and Marketing Officer at Akin Gump). 

Aleisha's post is inspired by a recent Deloitte article entitled, "From Mad Man to Super Woman."  It is worth reading for any professional services marketer (male or female) or anyone considering professional services as a career path.  The one strange feature is that it is focused on the "super woman."  As Aleisha points out, it is a misplaced generalization.

        By Aleisha Gravit

My friend and colleague Jennifer Manton, CMO at Loeb & Loeb, shared with me a great article, ublished by Deloitte Review, titled “From Mad Man to Superwoman: The inevitable rise of the chief marketing officer in the age of the empowered customer.” I am still scratching my head about the reference to Superwoman because, while maybe once dominated by females, that is no longer the case - especially in the legal industry. Maybe Superhero would have been a better analogy.

The article discusses the evolution of marketing and the CMO and how the rise in the role of the customer impacts the marketing ecosystem.  The article resonated with me because my role has evolved significantly over the last few years as a result of clients becoming more selective in their purchases of legal services and demanding more from the relationship with their outside counsel. Philip Kotler, an influential marketing educator, said, "Marketing is not the art of finding clever ways to dispose of what you make. It is the art of creating genuine customer value."

The article really got me thinking about the law firm CMO and how the role is evolving.  Regardless of how one defines value, for the CMO of today and tomorrow, it comes down to metrics, analytics and critical thinking—core elements of any strategy.  There is a great reference in the article to CMOs gaining credibility “not by touting taglines, but by crunching numbers.”  I love this because I have always preferred to work with something tangible as opposed to ethereal.

Consider a book: the raw data/metrics are just words on the page.  Only when you begin to analyze them by looking for trends, outliers, gaps, etc, do they come alive and provide context for what is/might be occurring in the story/client relationship.  The data provides a backdrop to engage in conversations with lawyers and clients alike about the overall relationship; where, and if, it needs improving; and how to accomplish that in a mutually beneficial manner.  That’s adding value.

Are we on the verge of change in how the marketing ecosystem works within law firms?  Will firms and CMOs alike seek out more differentiation between traditional marcom and strategy?   Only time will tell. 

How law firms can grow revenue in a more client-friendly way

In a catch up conversation with Ed Schecter this morning, we discussed a subject about which we are both passionate:  how law firms can strategically grow revenue.  This isn’t a new conversation at all.  In fact, it’s a tired one that we’ve both had countless times in our careers.  The economy is slowing and mid-sized and global law firms in the U.S. and abroad are feeling it.  Double-digit revenue increases and profit margin upswings are unlikely over the next unpredictable number of months.

But firm leaders are still buoyed by the possibility of revenue generation above and beyond what they reported last year.  Here is a quick rundown of the most popular options you have available:

1. Work harder
2. Raise hourly rates
3. Improve client relationship management so you are mining all the opportunities at existing clients (a/k/a/ form client teams)
4. Hire laterals with large, portable books of business
5. Conduct business development training
6. Shed practices that are producing lower margin work
7. Shed lawyers and staff
8. Reduce overhead with wholesale cost-cutting
9. Merge and/or acquire

But for #3 above, there is no mention of clients – the very people that partners are hoping will write bigger checks to their firms.  And, other than mergers and acquisitions, there is nothing very strategic about most of these approaches, even though most mid-sized and global firms have all of them in their quivers – and at any given time, have embraced every one of these tactics as the solution to declining or flat firm revenues.

Here is one initiative that is not on the list. It is strategic, has significant revenue generation potential and can effectively influence all of the nine opportunities above.  It’s an initiative that marries people, process and technology and focuses all the attention and effort around two things:  saving lawyers time and making them more money.

(For several years, I have described what I do in that very nutshell.)

It’s a fact that the requests for proposals (RFPs), RFIs, pitches and other materials have skyrocketed in the last four years.   Marketing and business development professionals estimate the increase as four to five times higher today than in 2008.   As a result, AmLaw 100 and 200 firms are taking a fresh look at how they respond to the volume, the demand for different types of information, and practically, how it gets out the door to the prospect or client.

Proposal center and experience management projects are typically initiated by the marketing/BD/proposal team, yet often controlled (management and budget) by the IT department who are, arguably, the most removed from the buyers of legal services and the lawyers who hope to serve them.)  Consequently, these project planning sessions are too often focused on the tactical features and functionality that a particular proposal writer or business development manager wants, rather than a strategic discussion about how the firm can compete better, improve its service delivery, get closer to clients and win more often.

How does knowing what buyers of legal services want from their lawyers influence the proposal center and experience management planning process?  Consider this:

1.  Content is the most critical aspect of any proposal.  How compelling and relevant is your content around legal project management in the M&A industry, for example?  And how does it differ from your LPM content for patent litigation?  Clients say they want LPM because it has the potential of streamlining workflow, creating efficiencies and saving them money.  How are you responding to this requirement, and anticipating their next one?

2.  Experience is the most vital subset of content, but most firms struggle with how to find it, parse and sort it, and package it.  Given that buyers of legal services want to know what you’ve done, for whom you’ve done it and what you can ultimately do for them, having ready and easy access to the most germane experience should be your top priority.  In an earlier blog post, I noted that the ownership of experience management has moved from the IT department up through the firm and is now on the desks of your executive committee members.  Effectively gathering, managing, manipulating, leveraging, overseeing and packaging lawyers’ experience is one of the most strategic and client-friendly things you can do, and it will increase revenue over time. 

3.  The proposal template has significantly evolved over the last five years from a simple firm-logo-in-the-header Word document to a complex, magazine-style PowerPoint or Word document that presents the firm’s material in a graphically pleasing, visually striking way. The firm’s branding is assured, and the firm is differentiated simply because many of its competitors are way behind this design curve.  The template is created to best showcase what clients want to know about you. 

4.  Of your X-number of proposals that you’ve submitted since the first of the year, how many have you won?  How many times was your patent litigation team for the pharmaceutical industry featured in proposals that had a China component in the last 12 months?  How many proposals resulted in a formal beauty contest or in-person meeting?  Of those, how many did you win?  When you lost the litigation work to a competitor firm, how many times in the last year did you lose to that firm and that lawyer?  (Don’t you think that lawyer would be an ideal lateral candidate?  You can calculate with some certainty the dollar-amount of the business you’ve lost to him.)  Why did you lose?  When you won, why did your competitors lose – what was it they did that you should know?  (If you conduct a formal win debrief, your clients will tell you.)

If you can’t answer these questions within seconds (yes, seconds), take a step back and view your proposal center/experience management people, processes and technologies more strategically.  Every answer to every question is business intelligence that you can use to craft smarter responses that can drive future revenue.

These are just four aspects of a comprehensive proposal and experience management solution that are designed around your revenue and growth goals, and making your firm more client-friendly; but, there are many others.  Such are the planning conversations (among others) that should dictate features and functionality, and guide the design of your tools and processes. 

Back in America

I've just returned from two weeks touring and cruising Italy, plus other countries that are on the coastlines of the Mediterranean and Adriatic Seas.  It was a great immersion in ancient cultures and centuries-old cathedrals and basilicas, combined with the joy of spontaneous, contemporary exploration and choice-making.  But this post isn't about my trip.

The first thing I did when I landed in New York was pick up the Sunday New York Times and read it from cover to cover.  As a news and contemporary culture junkie, I didn't receive enough "news" via iPhone data roaming or at-sea WiFi on my vacation to prevent me from feeling fully out of the know.

So this post encapsulates what I learned that was beyond the traditional world news headlines.  There are lessons for law firms and marketers, too.

1.    One of the more interesting headlines was "The Coffin-Maker Benchmark," a story about the drop in Africa's AIDS deaths and how the U.S. is largely responsible for it because of our foreign aid funding.  The author chatted with "mortality experts" in Africa - the coffin-makers in the street markets. He quotes one as saying, "Before a lot of people were dying of AIDS ... Now there is medication, so fewer people are dying. I'm not very happy because this is my future." 

According to the article, six or so years ago, this coffin-maker sold 20 or more coffins per month.  Now it is down to five or six.  It's an interesting and unique data point to measure the success of this American funding.

Lesson for law firms:  When you are seeking proof of your marketing return on investment (ROI), seek data from multiple sources. Your most compelling arguments for or against success may be supported by data sources that surprise you.

2.    In an article called, "Don't Indulge, Be Happy," the authors report about Gallup data collected by Princeton researchers who found that Americans are NOT happier when they make more money.  They found that $75,000 was the average number that met the "comfortable standard" test, and that more money didn't increase Americans' happiness. 

Many of us might argue with this seemingly low salary ceiling, and this isn't the most interesting part of the article.  The researchers found that Americans were by far the happiest when they shared with others, when they had enough money to give away. "It's pretty simple.  Even children feel better when they share what they have."

Having more money and indulging more -- buying more for ourseslves -- "are ineffective at turning money into happiness.  A decade of research has demonstrated that if you insist on spending money on yourself, you should shift from buying stuff (TVs and cars) to experiences (trips and special evenings out).  Our own recent research shows that in addition to buying more experiences, you're better served in many cases by buying less - and buying for others."

One of the cleverest lines I've read in a long while follows:  "Indulgence is often closely trailed by its chubby sidekick, overindulgence."

Lesson for law firms:  There is a two-fold lesson here --a)  Instead of buying clients gifts this holiday season, design experiences for them - things you can do together or that they can do with their families.  b) Increase your charitable contributions budget, pro bono commitments and civic responsibilities for 2013.  Budget season is soon upon us - be more generous and reap the bountiful emotional (and other) benefits.

3.    Are you secretly shy?  In the Cultural Studies part of the Times, an article titled "The Spotlight Dims and Shyness Sets in" reveals that comedian Chris Rock is "painfully shy."  His wife says, "At a dinner party, you want to sit next to me."

In addition to Chris Rock, the article points to former Britsh Prime Minister Gordon Brown and business leaders like former Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham, who could stand up and give speeches and lead groups of people, who could be exuberant and verbose - but who self-identified as shy.

A call-out in the article says, "Some shy people are able to find their voice after a glass of wine or with a lengthy blog post."  Have you ever wondered if the proliferation of bloggers on topics ranging from animal welfare to travel to make-up and fashion - not to mention the thousands of business and law blogs - results from secret shyness in these writers?  Truly un-shy people would rather be surrounded by people than sitting quietly at their computers. In fact, when I speak to lawyers who are naturally gregarious who want to start a blog, I caution them about the solitary nature of this ubiquitous commitment.

The article states, "Social media (with the 'social' part more remote, almost oxymoronic) can be the shy person's best friend, such common respite that it has been dubbed ' electronic extroversion.'"

Lesson for law firms:  Social media isn't for all lawyers, but it can be a remarkable fit - an effective voice - for the secretly (or unsecretly) shy.  And it is likely not a great fit for your biggest extroverts.  They'll have a hard time following through.

4.    "Estate Planning for Savvy Zombies" -- isn't that a great title?  Well, it was inspired by an Iowa Law Review article called "Death and Taxes and Zombies" written by Adam Chodorow of the Arizona State University Law School.  The essay says, "This timely academic work explores the important question of whether zombies should be considered dead for purposes of the estate tax."

"If we relax the assumption that death is, in fact, permanent" . . . (don't you love that?! Relaxing the assumption that death is permanent - ha!) . . ."it turns out that there are a lot of traps for the unwary and planning opportunities for the well-advised.  Under a rule of 'merely undead not really most sincerely dead,' a wealthy person could delay paying the estate tax upon his passing into the zombie realm; those taxes would have to be paid only after a more decisive event, like having his head blown off with a shotgun."

The article continues, "'Those with assets of more than $5 million, [the author] said, should consider becoming a zombie.'"  And, it continues, peppering in advice about vampires and werewolves.

Lesson for law firms:  Scholarly articles don't have to read like ancient treatises unearthed from a Roman crypt.  If you are a lover of contemporary culture, pepper your intellectual offerings with references that keep you and your audience fully engaged.  I am still hunting for a copy of this article and will post a link when I find it.

5.    There were two articles that referenced James Bond as a role model and teacher.  The first one was called, "Why CEOs Need a Dose of James Bond," and was an interview with Joel Babbit, CEO of Mother Nature Network.

I especially liked this next quote - and agree with it.  It's about meetings - and the length of meetings.  ". . . I believe that the majority of meetings could easily be cut to a third of what they are and accomplish much more.  People just lose track after some point, and it doesn't matter what's being said.  If you go into a meeting where somebody's talking more than 15 minutes, 90 percent of the people are looking at their BlackBerrys and not paying attention."  (I'm sure RIM would appreciate that call-out given its plunging market share.)

Babbit continues, "I've also found that the higher up you go in a corporation when you have a meeting, the shorter the meetings are.  So, if you meet with somebody who's an assistant vice president, the meeting will  be two hours.  You meet with a vice president, that's an hour.  You meet with the Chief Financial Officer, it's a half-hour.  You meet with the CEO, it's 10 minutes.  That's how it works.  By the way, you often see the same thing with returning phone calls:  assistant vice president takes four days; vice president takes two days; the CFO in one day; and the CEO calls back in 10 minutes."

So, where does the James Bond role model come in?  Babbit said that he watched "Goldfinger" 100 times, and when James Bond was working on "serious stuff, like saving the world, he always enjoyed himself.  He would have a drink every night and go out on a date and would make witty remarks in the midst of crisis.  I think that's a very good business lesson."

Lesson for law firms:  If you are or want to be viewed as a senior executive, shorten your meetings by half (or more), and return your phone calls half-again faster (or more) than you normally do. 

6.    Finally, in an article called, "Got Milk?  You Don't Need it" by super-chef/author Mark Bittman, he writes about his chronic issues with acid reflux (or GERD) and chronic heartburn.  "Although treating heartburn is a business worth more than $10 billion a year, the solution may be as simple as laying off dairy," which, he notes is free.  He also notes that it is easier to digest cheese and yogurt than it is milk in its liquid form.

Lesson for law firms:  If you suffer from chronic heartburn and you are on prescription meds, it may not be the pizza with anchovies or the Steak Oscar or the screaming senior partner.  As much as I love the "Got Milk?" advertising campaign using celebrities, you might try giving milk or dairy up altogether. 

It's great to be home and back to my blog.

 

What law firms can learn from Dyson's (think vacuum cleaners) anti-branding slur.

British industrial designer, Sir James Dyson, is best known for his iconic bagless vacuum cleaner that he peddles on television. And among frequent travelers who wash their hands in airport restrooms, for the Dyson Airblade, which dries your hands as would the edge of a tornado.

But after a recent comment in which he said he didn't believe in branding - "We're only as good as our latest product. I don't believe in brand at all." - he is now famous for being the anti-branding guy.

Matt Straz, blogger of MediaPost's Online Spin, wrote yesterday, "Like a cat coughing up a hair ball, Dyson's comment caused a loud, involuntary response from the advertising world."

Let me give you some context: Dyson was speaking at Wired magazine's "Disruptive by Design" conference earlier this month. He responded to the question, "Does brand make the product or does product make the brand?" He said that "Brand was the only word that was banned at his company," then concluded with the statement above.

A Forbes.com article about his statement said, "A remarkable comment from someone who has stood in front of a camera for the last decade or more on behalf of creating his own eponymous brand of vacuum cleaners, and spending millions in the process."

The Forbes article suggests that Dyson may not understand what "brand" or "branding is, and it goes on to describe what it is. It talks about how successful brands create new rituals:

"Powerful brands have rituals. Much as Starbucks changed how we have coffee in the morning, and Ikea has changed how we interact with newly-purchased furniture, Dyson has changed the ritual of how we interact with our vacuum by handing us one that can be snapped together (or unsnapped) much like Lego blocks. The rollerball changes the way we move across the floor. The quick-open canister lets us dump right into the garbage can, rather than unleashing those nasty vacuum bags. And if you really want to get into it, there’s the ritual of innovation–and creating 5,127 prototypes, and more innovation."

I asked friend and colleague Norm Rubenstein, Partner and branding expert at the Zeughauser Group, about his take on Dyson's slur - and whether law firm leaders with an anti-branding bias might have new fodder to dispute its efficacy.  Norm says:

"There is profound irony in Dyson’s claim 'I don’t believe in brand at all.' Dyson’s company is reminiscent of Apple, a company whose followers buy products, often products they don’t need, because of their elegant marriage of form and content. In creating his high-end vacuum cleaner, Dyson has made it the ultimate status symbol: what greater triumph of brand recognition than to invest in a luxury good that lives in a closet with one’s cleaning supplies as opposed to on a desk or adorning one’s person? And once people got on the Dyson bandwagon, reinforced through traditional advertising that always has extolled the product’s innovative technology and consumer benefits, they suddenly found a need for Dyson’s chic fans, and one suspects, will require his future products in the same way as they are introduced."

Online Spin also points to Nike, who has significantly reduced its investment in traditional branding pillars, such as advertising.

"Having relied for years on mass branding messages like 'Just do it,' the company has now dramatically scaled back its investment in traditional branding. Nike has also reduced its emphasis on big brand athletes like Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, and Lance Armstrong. Instead, the company has focused on creating software and gadgets like its new Fuel wristband that measures athletic output. Instead of marketing products, Nike is using products to market itself."

To that, Norm says,

"The truth is that brand development and brand maintenance, decidedly different stages in a product’s life cycle, are opportunities to employ different tools and tactics for reinforcing brand awareness and loyalty. Products and services require significant marketing focused on developing and raising visibility in their infancy: in their adolescence, assuming they come to enjoy unaided top-of-mind recognition as both Dyson and Nike have done, they can rely on satisfied customers to help sustain their brand equity."

Social media has changed the branding landscape in ways we couldn't have imagined even four years ago. It supports both mass customization and engagement at the most powerful of all levels - person to person. And the dollar investment is a fraction of the cost of traditional broadcast and print advertising.

Norm agrees,

"The emergence of social media makes it possible for a company like Nike to shift the extent to which it has to rely on traditional branding tools. In its previous marketing, which always has been advertising-intensive, Nike has made its 'swoosh' synonymous with the achievements of admired athletes. By creating ongoing demand for its products and aligning them with a promise of quality and performance, Nike now enjoys the benefit of extensive brand equity. As the marketplace shifts and consumers now have become their own product reviewers/marketers, the company theoretically can take advantage of marketing that shifts its focus away from admired role models (who often disappoint in real life) and place it on the traditional—might one say, the average, buyer—the buyer whose endorsement in the Zagat world in which everyone’s opinion counts—can begin to redefine its approach to the marketplace."

So, what does this mean for law firms? It's challenging for law firms, even the largest of the AmLaw 100 firms, to defend their brand positions as unique among all their competitors. Is it possible? Yes, absolutely, but it requires research, rigor and patience, plus a significant and consistent investment of time and money. Law firms can take advantage of all the media that Dyson, Nike and Starbucks use - but they often don't have the stomach for it or the budget to sustain it. It also requires leadership and vision constancy - meaning, firms whose Chair and Managing Partner positions are up for grabs every two or three years will have a harder time than those firms who invest in the same leaders year after year.

Norm concluded our interview by saying,

"... For a law firm to follow the lead of a Nike and begin to shift its marketing focus, say by taking greater advantage of new media as a critical component of its marketing mix, it needs to assess the brand equity it already enjoys, and if it is not an acknowledged market leader in the spaces for which its seeks to be known (defined not by the firm, but by the market), it will need to maintain or to develop a robust strategy that well may continue to require extensive use of traditional marketing tools (e.g., thought leadership and credentialing)."

I'd say that Dyson is all about branding, even if he doesn't call it that.

 

Columbia Business School study proves that ROI is an elusive partner to marketing departments

Senior law firm marketers have been seriously talking about ROI since at least the mid-1990s. Believing in its relevance and importance to financial decision-making, this "proof" has frustratingly been like a mirage in the desert. For years we have relied on anecdotal data and stories - an RFP or pitch that was won, a lawyer who cross-sold another practice, a client interview that resulted in new work.

We have always coveted the sound financial management that corporate-America marketers have had. Well, until now. According to a just-released Marketing Measurement in Transition study by Columbia Business School Center on Global Brand Leadership and the New York American Marketing Association called "Marketing ROI in the Era of Big Data," it appears that our perception of how rock-solid corporate marketers are in their ROI tracking and management is skewed.

The researchers interviewed 253 marketing executives from large corporations and were hoping to "gain a better understanding of changing practices among large corporate marketers in the following areas: data collection and usage, marketing measurement and ROI, and the integration of digital and traditional marketing." Among others, they asked the following questions:

1. Which organizations believe that they are doing well with respect to measuring marketing ROI?
2. What are they doing that allows them to succeed in measuring marketing ROI?
3. What are some of the barriers organizations face in measuring marketing ROI?
4. How does knowing their marketing ROI affect how they view and use metrics?

The headline for the ROI section of the report is this: ROI – Marketers Know They All Need It, But Can’t Even Agree What It Is

Here is an excerpt from the results:

Marketers think that they should be measuring their marketing ROI …

Marketers know that they need to justify their decisions financially. 70% say that their marketing efforts are under greater scrutiny than ever. 39% go so far as to say that they consider it important to spend only on marketing activities where the financial effects can be measured.

…but many managers aren’t measuring marketing ROI either consistently or effectively.

Only 43% of organizations are establishing their marketing budgets based on marketing ROI analysis. By contrast, 68% base their marketing budgets in part on “historical spending,” and 28% on “gut instincts.” When it comes to specific marketing spending decisions, 21% are using financial metrics for little or none of those specific decisions, and 7% are making all or most of those spending decisions with no metrics at all.

Instead of marketing ROI, managers continue to use many traditional metrics such as recall, brand favorability, purchase intention, and willingness to recommend. Of those using some kind of universal metric, 22% make all or most of their marketing decisions with brand awareness alone.

What organizations are satisfied with their measurement of marketing ROI?

Overall, 45% of the organizations surveyed are satisfied with their ability to measure marketing ROI. Those most likely to be satisfied with their ability to measure marketing ROI are large organizations (55.5%) - sales of $25 billion or more - and service organizations (48.8%).

Only 33.1% of consumer product organizations and only 26.1% of industrial product organizations are satisfied with how they measure marketing ROI. Satisfaction depends on your viewpoint: 54% of CMO’s are satisfied with their ability to measure marketing ROI, but only 43% of those below the vice president level are satisfied – perhaps because they are closer to the problem of determining how to most effectively measure marketing ROI.

A call-out says, “37% of respondents did not include any mention of financial outcomes when asked to define what “marketing ROI” meant for their own organization.” The Advertising Age report of this study says, "...57% don't establish their budgets according to ROI measures."

The report goes on to say:

To what extent is marketing ROI used for decision-making?

Among the roughly half of marketers that are very or somewhat satisfied with their ability to measure marketing ROI, 57% use marketing ROI for their budget decisions and 59% use financial metrics to evaluate their marketing spend. 54% go as far as to say they consider it important to try to spend only when they have financial metrics.

Understanding what marketing ROI is

In the organizations surveyed, however, managers do not appear to have a consistent understanding of what marketing ROI is. When asked to define marketing ROI, 37% of the respondents did not mention financial effects and 82% did not mention that ROI consists of both financial return and spending. 31% think that just measuring the audience you reach is “marketing ROI.” Even when prompted, 19% do not think that “measuring the financial impact of our marketing” is marketing ROI.

In place of marketing ROI, many traditional measures are used. 37% of the respondents claimed that they used brand awareness as a universal metric to make marketing decisions. More troubling, of those using brand awareness, more than 60% said it was their only marketing ROI measure. To be useful, brand awareness must be coupled with some measure of brand perception. Brand awareness by itself is a lagging indicator of brand strength. Using it as the sole or main measure to make marketing decisions is truly managing by looking in the rear view mirror.

So, how do you have "ROI" without financial outcomes? You may have "return on something," but it's not ROI. (Think about your brokerage accounts. How would you like it if your stock portfolio advisor measured returns other than financial ones?) There are plenty of valid "returns" on marketing investments - things that can be measured, and thus managed. But don't call them ROI.

I'll report on how these corporate marketers are integrating digital and traditional marketing in a future post.

 

What is the dollar cost of directory referrals to your law firm website? And are the visitors worth it?

Senior marketers have been questioning the value of Martindale-Hubbell listings with increasingly loud and passionate voices. For AmLaw 100 and 200 firms, the cost ranges from a bare-bones listing in the $20,000-40,000 range to a comprehensive contract that costs well into the six-figures. And many firms have eliminated it altogether, saying “Enough is enough.” In fact, in a meeting in Houston last Friday, an AmLaw 200 executive director said, "nearly everyone on my ALA listserve across the country have dropped Martindale."

Martindale costs serious money, and it’s no wonder that the skepticism of marketers about return on investment is mounting. Martindale has never done a good job of aligning its offerings with the changing face of legal marketing and business development – especially for large firms. (As an aside, it recently eliminated the most popular and successful large firm program, Counsel to Counsel, because, I was told, Martindale executives are "focused on small law." More on this development in another post.)

Interestingly, when Chambers and Partners fully entered the U.S. market with its directory last decade, it had credibility out of the box. (According to its website, Chambers has been researching the U.S. legal market since 1999, but the U.S. directory followed later.) Because of Chambers’ solid methodology, numerous interviews with buyers of legal services about lawyers, practice groups and law firms that started in the U.K. in 1989, senior marketers and law firm management of U.S.-headquartered global firms approved the Chambers’ expenditures (and enormous investments of time each year by the marketing team - time commitments that are amebically growing) – almost without a second thought.

Last month, I participated in an American Lawyer Media webinar moderated by Elizabeth Lampert about the value of surveys, directories and rankings, which included speakers from Chambers, Best Lawyers and Morrison & Foerster. My part in the webinar was to give the corporate counsel perspective, and answer the question, “Do corporate counsel pay attention to these rankings and use the directories?”

In our world of business, we understand the rules of supply and demand. When there is market and client demand, it’s good to increase the supply of services to meet that demand. It’s a simple maxim. We now have a supply of 150 to 450 (or more) annual law firm surveys and rankings. Mine isn’t a perfect list (on the low end of that range), but I counted 38 experience or practice-based rankings, 17 lawyer rankings and directories, and 90 surveys sponsored by magazines, publications, the NLJ, ALA, ABA, NALP, Corporate Board Member and many other organizations.

What demand suggested that we needed this blizzard of statistics? A need by clients for more information? More transparency? Or do they actually cloud the true picture of a firm?

Of these 150-plus rankings and surveys, I am told by marketers that Amlaw 100-200 firms respond to an average of 25-50 requests each year. These include surveys measuring substantive experience like the Thomson League Tables and American Lawyer, feel-good surveys such as Best Places to Work and Working Mother magazine type submissions – practice and lawyer elevating ones, such as Chambers, Best Lawyers and SuperLawyers – and that is just scratching the surface.

What good are they to the law firm? At the Marketing Partner Forum last month in Miami, one leading consultant posed to the audience, “What’s the ROI on this investment of money and time on all these surveys and rankings?”

And I ask:

• Do they boost the reputation of the firm in the eyes of clients?
• Do they attract new business from prospects?
• Do they grow revenue or increase profits?

Firms typically have two diverging approaches to the individual lawyer rankings: “We will build a campaign around it and ensure that as many lawyers as possible are noticed and ranked.” Or, “Hell no – it’s frivolous and not worth the paper they’re written on.”

Most firms fall in the middle – choosing those that best elevate core practices and boost the reputations of top lawyers.

Can anyone reading this post claim that the Martindale, Chambers and other surveys and rankings have driven new clients to your firm? Or that a prospect chose your firm over another one because you had a top ranking and they didn’t? (Please post a comment if you have such a story to tell.) Note that I am not including the Thomson League Tables reporting here - I think buyers of legal services of those financial transactions do pay attention to those lists.

Ask yourself this: Do your clients and prospects read your website press releases about your 40+ lawyers ranked in this directory or that? Your website analytics will reveal how often those pages have been visited and you may be able to tell how long your visitors lingered on those pages.

How far is the divide between what lawyers want when it comes to rankings - and what buyers of legal services care about?

I first asked the questions of corporate counsel in 2007, when I interviewed more than 60 counsel in global companies around the world about how they use law firm websites. I specifically asked whether they use Martindale, Chambers and other rankings in evaluating outside counsel.

Then I asked “Do you notice law firm posts about rankings on their websites?”

In the 2007 survey, corporate counsel were using Martindale occasionally to evaluate firms and find new ones in new cities or regions where they hadn’t done business before, but no respondents said they used Chambers to find or evaluate counsel. Since 2007, conversations and interviews have suggested that after these in-house lawyers have created their short list of lawyers or firms, they may validate the referrals or seek supplemental information from Martindale and Chambers, in particular. But they also seek it from the law firm website, a Google search and LinkedIn.

In the last four years, I have had three-dozen or more discussions with corporate counsel about how they use law firm websites and what they notice on the home pages, lawyer bios and practice pages. Chambers is getting noticed only incrementally more and no one has ever mentioned Best Lawyers.

Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan LLP wanted to test the referral traffic from these three directories to their website so the marketers could make smarter investment decisions – Sutherland wanted to know, are these directories producing any tangible return? Andrea Christman, Director of Communications, ran a calculation (that she calls “unscientific,” but in my view, it’s directionally correct) of the total cost of the directory listings divided by the number of visitors referred during calendar year 2011. This resulted in a cost per website visitor (or RFI - Referrals from Investment - instead of ROI). Then she determined the cost for each ten seconds that visitors spend on the Sutherland site based on how many total minutes they stayed on the site.

I have always said that Martindale is consistently a high referrer of qualified traffic to law firm websites – even AmLaw 100-200 firms. Read my January 4, 2010 blog post called, “The Efficacy of Martindale.com as a Referrer to your Website.”

Christman found this to be true. Martindale’s per visitor cost to the firm was $12 and the cost per ten seconds of page-viewing cost the firm 52 cents.

The per visitor cost of Best Lawyers and Best Law Firms was $61 and $5.00 per ten seconds.

And the per visitor cost of Chambers was $538 and $17 per ten seconds.

Interestingly, the Martindale visitor stayed on Sutherland.com 2.8 times longer than the Google-referred visitor, and the Chambers-referred visitor spent almost 5 times longer on the site than Google.

Sutherland now has one more metric on which to evaluate its directory investments beyond what corporate counsel have said in interviews.

Any ROI calculation should be weighed against the political and cultural preferences of your partners, your reputation management goals and other factors that have nothing to do with ROI. But if you want to answer the simple question, “What are we getting for our investment of money and time?” – You now have one way of getting to a simple answer.

Mobile apps or mobile websites: What's a law firm to do??

When my company, Content Pilot, last conducted the AmLaw 100 Websites: Ten Foundational Best Practices research in Q2-3 2010, there were only four of the country's largest law firms that had mobile apps.  A few more had mobile websites, which were typically poorly designed, bare-bones renditions of their big site.  (Learn more about the Ten Foundational Best Practices by keyword searching on this blog.)

We will conduct the research again this summer, and I expect we'll see more of both.  (More on our upcoming research study and the findings about mobility and the other Foundational Best Practices later.)

Jakob Nielsen, the Internet expert on usability, writes in today's Alertbox: 

"Mobile apps currently have better usability than mobile sites, but forthcoming changes will eventually make a mobile site the superior strategy."

On its face, this is great news for law firms, which don't have the multi-million dollar Internet marketing budgets like major corporations.  The skeletal apps that we first saw from law firms had budgets estimated at $30,000 - 75,000.  I wonder if those firms think they got their money's worth - other than being among the first to bring "cool" to market.  As app development and expectations for user experience have matured, that cost is going higher and higher.  Remember, one app doesn't fit all devices - if you want your app to reach everyone, you need to design it for iPhones, Androids, BlackBerrys, and all forms of tablets (iPad, Kindle Fire, Samsung, etc.). 

If your law firm has an actual application that it wants to push to buyers of legal services, design an app.  If you simply want visitors to have a great experience with your website on a mobile device, then design a highly usable mobile website.

Nielsen says that today, apps perform better in usability testing:

"As of this writing, there's no contest: ship mobile apps if you can afford it. Our usability studies with mobile devices clearly show that users perform better with apps than with mobile sites. (Mobile sites have higher measured usability than desktop sites when used on a phone, but mobile apps score even higher.)

The empirical data is really all you need to know. It's a fact that apps beat mobile sites in testing."

Nielsen continues though, and says:

"In the future, the cost-benefit tradeoff for apps vs. mobile sites will change.

Although I just said that computers will become 100 times more powerful, this doesn't necessarily mean that the iPhone 14 will be 100 times faster than the iPhone 4S. It's more likely that hardware advances will be split between speed and other mobile priorities, especially battery lifetime. So, a future phone might be only 10 times faster (but will be thinner, lighter, and able to run much longer between charges), whereas download times will be cut by a factor 57.

The expense of mobile apps will increase because there will be more platforms to develop for. At a minimum, you'll have to support Android, iOS, and Windows Phone. Furthermore, many of these platforms will likely fork into multiple subplatforms that require different apps for a decent user experience."

Jakob Nielsen advocates up to three mobile websites for optimal usability - one each for Smart Phones, mid-sized tablets and for larger tablets.

"It's only realistic to expect even further UI diversity in the future. This will make it extremely expensive to ship mobile apps.

In contrast, mobile sites will retain some cross-platform capabilities, so you won't need as many different designs. High-end sites will need 3 mobile designs to target phones, mid-sized tablets (like Kindle Fire), and big tablets. Using ideas like responsive design will let you adapt each of these site versions to a range of screen sizes and capabilities. The same basic UI design will work for both a 6.8-inch tablet and a 7.5-inch tablet if you simply shrink or stretch things a bit. (A 5-inch phone would require a different design, with fewer features and abbreviated content.)"

So - today, my advice to law firms that want to optimize access of their websites and can afford to invest in mobility is to design the best mobile website for the highest used devices.  According to the website analytics that we follow, iPhones and iPads are still a low percentage of visitors to law firm websites.  But those visitors have steadily increased, and we believe this traffic will grow exponentially.  So - design mobile sites for Smart Phones and large tablets.

For law firms that don't have Internet mobility locked into your budget, then ensure that your current website is "mobile friendly."  Every website launched today should, at a minimum, be designed for easy access on a mobile device.

A final piece of advice about mobile website design:  Don't let a developer take your current desktop site and simply scale it back.  Those sites are typically ugly, don't perform well or deliver what visitors want, and developers are not invested in what buyers of legal services are looking for from your firm.  Hire a designer who understands buyer behavior and the plusses and minuses of website mobility and user experience.

 

The strongest law firm brands - a 2012 brand survey by Acritas

"Brand" and "branding" were words that were nearly eliminated from our lexicon during the recession.  A respected stalwart in corporate strategic business planning, law firms, when slicing initiatives and the budgets that supported branding the last two - three years, quickly erased those line items.  There was almost no looking back . . . until now. 

Acritas, a leading legal research company based in Newcastle, England that conducts credible law firm brand research studies, recently released its "U.S. Law Firm Brand Index - 2012."  You can request a copy of the free report by clicking on the link on the Acritas home page. Every law firm wants to be on a list like this, but few firms rise to the top. 

This is the article by Aric Press, Vice President and Editor-in-Chief, ALM.  My favorite bottom-line in this post is, "Clients can't hire law firms they haven't heard of."

The Strongest Law Firm Brands in the Land

Posted by Aric Press

Which law firms have the strongest brands in the United States, the world's largest legal market? According to a study released this week by Acritas, the brand research company, Skadden, followed by Jones Day, Kirkland & Ellis, Sidley Austin, and Wachtell, lead the big firm pack.

Acritas compiled its list based on answers to phone interviews with 902 clients, 667 headquartered in the U.S. These are big clients: 58 percent report revenues of at least $1-billion. They answered the following inquiries:

        • What are the first five law firms that come to mind?

        • Which three firms do you feel the most favorable toward?

        • Which firms are you most likely to consider for major M&A work ?

        • Which firms are you most likely to consider for bet-the-company litigation 
            matters?

        • Which firms do you use most for "high value" work?

        • And for overseas clients: which firms do you use most in the U.S.?

Each mention was worth a point on the Acritas ranking except for the top-of-mind question.  On that question firms earned five points for being mentioned first, four for second, etc.  Skadden has the most first mentions—40—followed by Jones Day (24); Sidley (16); Baker & McKenzie (14); Mayer Brown (13) and Hogan Lovells, Kirkland & Ellis, and Sullivan & Cromwell (12).

The fame and favorability rankings were similar but not identical.  On that ranking Jones Day placed first with 45 mentions followed by Skadden (39), Sidley (33), Morgan Lewis (32), Baker & McKenzie (30), DLA Piper and Fulbright & Jaworski (25), Hogan Lovells (24), Kirkland (23), and Gibson, Dunn and Wachtell (22).

A list of the top 25 ranked firms is included at the end of this story.  Acritas is a leading legal research company based in Newcastle, England. Much of its data is collected by phone interviews each year with general counsel and their deputies around the world.  Full disclosure: ALM Legal Intelligence sells the Acritas suite of products in the United States.  Both The American Lawyer and ALM LI are part of ALM Media. For a copy of the Acritas US Brand Index, go to www.acritas.com or request one by email from [email protected]

Law firms have brands, the only question is whether they are strong or weak.  That truism is not universally recognized however. "At the most basic level, strong brands have the power to help firms win business, build client loyalty and generate client referrals," says Lisa Hart Shepherd, the chief executive at Acritas. "Why would a law firm ignore an easily accessible aid to securing these important growth factors? Yet so many do so."

Norm Rubenstein, a partner at the Zeughauser Group, specializing in branding and marketing, is another interested party. In his view, clients are "finally objecting to the seeming fungibility of [law firm] marketing and law firms are awakening to the importance of differentiation. Firms that effectively communicate their strengths ultimately can earn the new holy grail: the short-listing advantage of unaided, top-of-mind name awareness." Or, to put it a bit more simply, clients can't hire firms they haven't heard of.

Not all clients are created equal and the Acritas rankings vary a bit based on their size. For instance, among the 122 clients interviewed with revenues greater than $6 billion, the top-of-mind order was: Skadden, Sidley, Kirkland, Gibson,Dunn and Jones Day (tied), Cravath, and Morgan, Lewis.

For all the effort and talk about building national—and international—firms, some old regional differences continued to be seen in the answers. In the western region, for instance, Gibson, Latham & Watkins, and Morrison & Foerster scored the highest, while in the south, three Texas firms—Baker Botts, Fulbright & Jaworski, and Vinson & Elkins—vied with Skadden and Jones Day for most mentions.  And traditional powerhouses showed up in certain practice areas. Most likely to be considered for big-ticket litigation: Skadden, Kirkland, Jones Day, Gibson, and Sidley. Most likely to be considered for major merger and acquisition work: Skadden, Wachtell, Jones Day, Sullivan, and Latham.

The report also underlines, again, the splintered nature of the big firm legal marketplace. The clients were asked to name three firms they’ve used for "high value" work. Together the top five—Skadden, Kirkland, Baker & McKenzie, Jones Day, and Sidley—were mentioned by only 12 percent of the clients.  That leaves a lot of clients to go around, assuming, that is, they know your name.

The Leading US Law Firm Brands 2012

1. Skadden

2. Jones Day

3. Kirkland & Ellis

4. Sidley Austin

5. Wachtell

6. Latham & Watkins

7. Baker & McKenzie

8. Morgan Lewis

9. Gibson Dunn

10. Sullivan & Cromwell

11. DLA Piper

12. Mayer Brown

13. Hogan Lovells

14. Fulbright & Jaworski

15. Cravath

16. Weil Gotshal

17. Baker Botts

18. Shearman & Sterling

19. K&L Gates

20. Vinson & Elkins

21. White & Case

22. Morrison & Foerster

23. Davis Polk

24. Wilmer

25. Simpson Thacher

One of the next big things in law firm websites: Video done right.

Everyone who knows Adam Stock, the Director of Marketing and Business Development at California law firm Allen Matkins, understands that he is an early adopter of most things technology.  He’s a capable developer, program and website designer and, in his spare time, he is Chair of the upcoming 2011 Legal Marketing Technology Conference in San Francisco – September 15, 2011.

I wanted his opinion about a new product we are launching – a mobile app (“Velocity”) that facilitates cross-selling and relevant conversations with prospects and clients just-in-time – in restaurants, bars, at conferences, meetings or in cabs.  Content Pilot is formally launching Velocity at the SF LMA Tech conference – you can read our release here.

But this blog post isn’t about Velocity, it’s about the extraordinary video strategy and campaign that Adam has created and led over the last year.  Allen Matkins’ website is not exemplar and Adam would be the first to admit it.  (The firm is in the middle of a redesign, which will be designed around video.)  View the videos on today’s site as diamonds in the rough.

In the 2010 AmLaw 100 Websites: Ten Foundational Best Practices research sponsored by Content Pilot and conducted one year ago, 28.5% of the AmLaw 100 firms then had video on their websites.  This research didn’t grade the quality of the video, just whether firms had it - and you can see that few did.  With a handful of exceptions, the videos showed lawyers talking about a development in the law, lawyers talking about firm culture or firm leaders talking about their commitment to diversity, their communities or how nice their people are.  The production value ranges from quite terrible to pretty good – but they are mostly not compelling and not differentiating. Most of the lawyers – even those with the best and enthusiastic intentions – come across as boring and dry. And the videos are always too long.

Adam says, “None of our videos show attorneys speaking into the camera – no talking heads.” 

How does one find the time to script and shoot one video, let alone dozens?  The secret is leveraging your content - doing video versions of work that you are already doing, material that you are already publishing. He states that they create four categories of videos:

1. Centered around a legal alert announcing a change in regulation or law (they do written and video alerts)
2. Business tips and insight (frequently appearing in print on a blog)
3. Press releases (also found in print on the Allen Matkins website)
4. The firm’s involvment in their communities (also noted on the firm’s website and on Allen Matkins community blog).

Generally, he continues, “We focus on information that you didn’t know you needed to know.” Adam laughs and says, “What I love about this is – these are my products!  This is what my firm sells.”  He believes (as I do) that the connection between a lawyer and a buyer of legal services can happen so much faster in video – in video done right. Visitors to your website get a visual/audio preview of what it’s like to do business with you.

Here are links to examples of each of the four video types on the Allen Matkins’ site.

1. Legal alert: AT&T v. Concepcion Supreme Court Decision Upholds Agreements to Arbitrate and Avoid Class Actions
2. Business tips/insight: Green Commercial Buildings: Attracting Environmentally Conscious Tenants
3. Press release: Allen Matkins/UCLA Anderson Forecast California Commercial Real Estate Survey: Light at the End of Tunnel
4. Community involvement: Women's Leadership Roundtable merges networking, charity and fashion - Allen Matkins Women

Knowing the time and cost associated with video scripting and production, I asked Adam about his budget.  I didn’t get a number, but he said that they did an initial test with six videos.  “They performed really well.  We buy them in bulk to save time and money – we are on our third 20-video contract.”  Adam added, “They don’t need the highest production value.”  They have to be good, but they don’t have to be music-video good. 

Allen Matkins hires an outside professional who scripts and shoots the videos. Given that they have worked on nearly 60 videos together, the process and production is extremely efficient now – the cost is half what it would be if he were producing a single video.  Adam effectively serves as the producer and is a part of every shoot.

Other firms do it differently. Adam is speaking on several panels in the next few months with two other in-house marketers who are as committed to video on their websites, but where the execution differs.  Aden Dauchess, Director of Digital Media at Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice, an AmLaw 100 firm, made the case for bringing the video resources and talent in-house (Womble’s YouTube Channel).  Graig Cortelyou, the CMO of Tully Rinckey PLLC (an employment firm headquartered in Albany, New York), works with local television news media, such as the CBS affiliate, to develop segments for the TullyLegal.com site.  There are dozens of videos on Tully’s YouTube channel.

Allen Matkins also hosts their videos on YouTube and the firm has also experimented with other distribution channels, such as releasing them on GlobeSt.com and sending them out as alerts. They track views, which typically range from 50 views on the low end to 500 for the most popular videos.

Law firms of all sizes can have a video strategy, but it must be done right. Remember that bad video is worse than no video. It might differentiate you, but not in the way you’d like.