Your law firm's best marketing tool is your client base.
"Reality-based" marketing is taking the lead over campaigns
that once dedicated millions to hiring paid celebrities to
promote your services. Why? Clients are "real" people who
can tell "real" stories about how your business helped
them, inspired them or offers the most desirable services.
Adopt a system for ongoing interviews with past and present
clients that will help you shape your marketing message,
personalize it and win your firm new business.
In addition to creating a powerful marketing tool, you also
will have established a system to continually improve or
expand your services. Don't just ask clients what they like
about the firm; ask what they don't like about the firm and
how you can improve or expand services offered to clients.
Major law firms will spend tens of thousands of dollars
each year on full-time or outside personnel to create and
conduct client reviews, and much more incorporating
findings into marketing tools. However, even solo
practitioners and small firms can capitalize on successful
client review/marketing strategies with a little "sweat
equity" investment versus a big budget.
5 Easy Steps to Market Client Reviews
1. Adopt a client interview system. The 500-lawyer firm
Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll (www.ballardspahr.com) in
Philadelphia hired a full-time "client interviewer" this
year, utilizing the services of a veteran journalist to
conduct regular interviews of existing clients to learn how
to improve services. The goal was to capture unbiased
results. Solo entrepreneurs and small law firms can use
this approach without incurring the additional expense of
hiring another full-time staff member by taking steps to
ensure that a client questionnaire is unbiased in the
questions asked, and open-ended to allow clients to
volunteer comments.
2. Integrate positive client responses into your marketing
campaign. Personal testimonials are a powerful marketing
tool, and clients you interview can become your chief
selling point. Don't just ask clients if what they like and
don't like about your firm; ask them how your firm solved a
problem for them. With their permission, fine-tune their
response into two to five paragraphs, and post this
information with a photograph (to further personalize your
client testimonial) on your Web site and in your brochures
and other handouts.
3. Integrate client testimonials into your advertising
campaign. The 13-office firm Sedgwick, Detert Moran &
Arnold (www.sdma.com) was a first-place winner this year at
the Legal Marketing Association's annual award ceremonies
in Boston for its promotional series of internal posters
that became external marketing materials. The "Women's
Forum" campaign featured on client and attorney
relationships with breezy copy and attention-getting
photographs of lawyers and clients.
4. Make client reviews part of your long-term marketing
mix. The time you invest in capturing client reviews and
using them as marketing tools can also become a strong
addition to your annual reports and to permanent features
of your Web site with special sections designed to focus on
client testimonials.
5. Update client reviews every year. Every year, update
client reviews. Your goal is to seek additional reviews
from new clients, and also to revisit clients already
interviewed for new comments and new insights on how to
make your client interview process better. This ongoing
system will allow you to continually review your operations
to ensure you are delivering services that clients desire,
while continuing to actively engage your clients' feedback,
which will build trust and loyalty while marketing your law
firm for new business.
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Ruth Klein is an award-winning business owner, best-selling
author and marketing and time management consultant whose
clients range from solo entrepreneurs to the Fortune 500.
Sign up to receive Ruth's 7 Part Mini-Course on Branding
and Productivity. http://tinyurl.com/25tqo5
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