MARKETING THE LAW FIRM

We'll start at the beginning i.e. your law firm is a Professional Services business and it is not a Product company like car makers or smartphone companies. This difference is the foundation of how you will understand the work you are in for and how you will succeed at it.

1. If you try to sell your legal services as though it is a car or if you use regular marketing practices you will fail. Here's why: product marketers can innovate and tweak their products to the limits of human intelligence such as the keypad being replaced with the touchpad on mobile devices. You cannot because the law is the law and barring a repeal you must work within the law.
This does not mean you cannot innovate you just have a different way of going about it such as adding a consulting component to your legal services.

2. A product maker knows what the market needs and can also persuade customers to buy what they do not need. This happens all the time. You cannot persuade a client to litigate so you can generate business, this is unethical and vexatious though it also happens all the time.
You can only contribute when you perceive a valid need or find a way of making a contribution to the clients' business. So, spending your time persuading as though you were a product maker will make your efforts fail.

3. The way you gather and spread information within your law firm and to your clients is a major, major source of marketing. This is simply because marketing is any contact you have with your customer and because you are banned from regular marketing, simple communication is your major means of talking about your law firm, shoeing what you do and how you go about your work.

4. When you sell a product the product stays with the customer and the seller goes about his work but where you sell your legal services, you the seller stay behind to do the work, you are the product. This also means that you can deliver the work with a twist or an improvement each time unlike a packet of spaghetti that will always be the same no mater how many times the wrapping is changed.
Thus the human factor in the delivery of the service is a variable that you can use to get an advantage over less fit law firms by being better at talking with and showing you understand the clients business and current reality.

These are a few ideas you can think of in your work. We will fill you in on more stuff on law firm marketing.