Is your law firm undergoing a rebranding exercise?
Marketing for lawyers has been heavily linked over the last decade with rebranding exercises, not necessarily to completely reinvent their identity but to respond to a significant shift in consumer demand and reflect their fresh, modern approach.
With the introduction of the Legal Services Act, I anticipate that there will be a surge in the number of smaller law practices doing precisely that. Eager to move away from the traditional “stuffed shirt” image of older firms, local solicitors will finally have to differentiate themselves in order to remain visible in what will undoubtedly become a marketplace flooded with legal service providers.
This can be a costly exercise, particularly when all you want to do is convince your target market that you can meet their needs better than any of your competitors.
Unfortunately, marketing for lawyers often misses the opportunities presented by rebranding because the true concept behind rebranding is misunderstood, with lawyers ploughing money and resources into simply redesigning their logo and ordering new stationery.
Ultimately, your main priority has to lie in offering services geared to providing expert advice and exceptional customer service, matched with value for money. However, if you recognise that you are losing clients in a particular sector or identify a significant niche which could be exploited, it may be that once you secure the right offering, you need to alter the organisation’s key messages to bring them in line with the needs of the individuals that will buy your services. Often, the most effective way of doing this is by rebranding.
Although design is certainly an integral part of this activity, the logo and tagline if you have one, reflecting the nature of the firm and its objectives; it is not the sum total of the elements required in the rebranding exercise. Rebranding is an area of marketing for lawyers that has to be explained and fully bought into. It has to be promoted from within.
Who are your clients? Where will you find them? What is it they need? What does the organisation stand for? How will it meet the needs of your clients? The answers to all these questions need to be fully understood by all staff across the entire organisation if your key brand messages are to be transmitted, understood and believed by your target market. It has to become part of your culture.
Although for many large law firms, marketing for lawyers means spending hundreds of thousands of pounds on rebranding themselves; for a smaller practice there is absolutely no need. A common sense approach, mixed with a shared vision and knowledge of the marketplace will give you a head start on understanding how to rebrand yourself and how the exercise will ensure an excellent return on investment.
Tags: Products & Services, Added Value, Legal Services Act, Branding
Link to this page: click box to highlight code
Leave a Comment
Feel free to leave some words of wisdom in the form below.
I recently spoke with Lara King of BBC Radio Humberside on the subject of Employment Law. Click on the Play button, above, to hear the interview.