Category: Industry Insights

The formula for an effective law firm brand is strikingly simple: We deliver [specific service] to [specific market].

But it’s how you prove the formula that will drive success – evidence that you are the leading firm in this position, evidence that typically comes in the form of case studies that show your work in the area; biographies that convey your people’s capabilities; awards and rankings that show your market prominence.

To be sure, these all show that you know what you’re doing. But to truly level up – and to truly own your position – you should show that you know the market; that you understand its trends, issues and pressures; that you are exceptionally well-networked with the players that matter; that you have access to information and insight no one else does.

The best way to do that is through data.

And it might be easier than you think.

Data for Brand-Building: The Basics

Let’s break down some basics about data, and then apply them in the legal marketing context. When we refer to “data” in the branding sense, we’re really talking about storytelling: What are the facts and figures we can collect, collate and use to show an understanding of our market?

First, consider the two types of data:

• Qualitative data is descriptive information that can be observed, but not measured; it is gathered by interviewing or observing.
• Quantitative data concerns information that can be counted or measured; it is gathered by measuring and counting things. Quantitative data can include the quantification of qualitative data (i.e., “Eight out of 10 dentists recommend daily flossing”).

Second, consider two methods of collecting it:

• Data that already exists could include market reports, court filing data, transactional volume and more. While this data exists, your specific application of it would sort it, segment it, group it or package it in a new way. This can be a slightly lighter lift and is recommended for initial data exploration.
• Data that you create typically takes the form of surveys, polling the audiences that matter most to your market and presenting their sentiments on trending issues. (This is where you see the Venn diagram of qualitative and quantitative, the bundling of qualitative thoughts into quantitative metrics.)

How have law firms applied these tactics?

Data in Action: Legal Marketing Projects

For data that already exists, one exemplar is the Seyfarth Shaw employment team’s annual report, EEOC-Initiated Litigation, a reference that “compiles, analyzes and categorizes the major case filings and decisions involving the EEOC” in the prior year.

The data behind this report exists, and is public record; the Seyfarth Shaw team reviews it to find trends and issues relevant to employers, such as:

• Average time for conciliation
• Jurisdictions with fastest and slowest conciliation
• Allegations
• “Hot spots” for EEOC charges (by volume and adjusted per capita)

For example, in this report, an employer could learn that ADA charges are up 7 percent year over year; cases are resolved faster in Miami (37 days) than Phoenix (171 days); and Arkansas leads the nation in EEOC charges received relative to population. Layered over this is expert analysis from the Seyfarth Shaw team, building their credibility through interpretation of the data.

On the small law firm side, Wendt Law Firm, a three-attorney firm in Kansas City, positioned itself as an expert in car accidents by presenting a study, The Most Dangerous Intersections in Missouri. The study was built on collision data compiled by the Missouri State Highway Patrol. It assigned a weighted score to every crash based on the severity, then sorted crashes by intersection to build a list of the most hazardous locations in the state.

For data that must be created, consider Xakia Technologies’ Legal Operations Health Check. Xakia, a software company that seeks to make legal operations accessible to legal departments of all sizes, surveyed hundreds of in-house counsel around the world to assess their adoption of 100 best practices in 10 categories, from Technology Tools to Strategic Planning. Respondents also provided their region, size and industry, allowing for comparisons and benchmarks.

Xakia compiled its data in an e-book, Legal Operations Health Check: Benchmarking Survey and Practical Tips. For the profession at large, it was positioned as a live look at the state of legal operations worldwide; for individual legal departments, it allowed them to measure their progress against similar teams (and scout new ideas, most of which could be fulfilled by Xakia).

Data Daydreams

To get started, refer to your position: On what do you want to be the expert, and to whom?

Then: What data will make that true?

For example, if you wanted to position your firm as the leading trademark firm for consumer goods companies, and you wanted to use data that already existed, you could look at:

• Volume of trademarks filed in consumer goods categories (going up or down?)
• Average time a trademark is reviewed at the U.S Patent and Trademark Office
• Top trademark filers in the consumer goods categories
• Ten largest trademark verdicts affecting consumer goods categories

If you wanted to create your own data, you could survey various stakeholders within consumer goods – in-house counsel, product developers, marketers – to collect their perspectives. This not only feeds a quantitative bundling of qualitative data (i.e., “68 percent of consumer goods companies rate trademark protection a major priority”), it gives you a very good reason to reach out to all of these people.

Two guidelines when drafting your surveys:

• Make it easy on participants: Keep your surveys to about 12 questions, and employ multiple choice and other “light lift” formats.
• Ensure a strong sample size: Your surveys should be relevant to enough people that you can gather a respectable sample size; 100 is a good target.

Data Deployment

Given the investment of time and energy you will spend on a data project, make sure it’s positioned to generate ROI: Plan a multipronged rollout to maximize your marketing return.

Media. Journalists love a good data story, as evidenced by the latest edition of Cision’s State of the Media Report. Indeed, 40 percent of journalists say they are relying more on data this year to shape their editorial strategy than they have in previous years; 68 percent of journalists rely on their sources to provide it. When asked what type of content they wanted most from sources, 68 percent said data in the form of original research, trends and market data.

Clients and Survey Subjects. Make sure to share the survey results directly with the people who participated. It’s common to offer an incentive, such as a first look at the survey or a VIP webinar, for your participants. Beyond the participant pool, share with relevant clients; a personal email from the relationship attorney is a nice touch.

Marketing Communications. By slicing and dicing your data in multiple ways, you can continue the conversation. This can include:

• Blog posts – Xakia, for example, repurposed its health check data into a blog post on in-house counsel’s legal tech wish lists; a forecast for the future of legal operations; and more.
• Firm events – You can unveil your findings at a CLE, through a webinar or with a panel of market experts.
• External events – You can submit to speak about your survey at trade organizations, legal events and more.
• Social media – Social media feeds lend themselves to infographics and snippets of information; tease your survey and entice scrollers to your website.

Finally, don’t forget to circle back to the purpose of the data project in the first place: your authority in your given field.

What did you learn in the survey? Does it show the market moving in a new direction? How can it shape your service delivery – does it inspire a new service, package, training, audit? Does it show an area where your firm needs to bolster expertise? Does it change the way you should present your capabilities or offerings?

It’s this final step where true authority is built and continuously renewed. (Eight out of 10 dentists agree.)

When it comes to legal rainmakers, researchers have identified five specific types – and determined which is most likely to succeed.

The Rainmaker Genome Project, a survey sponsored by Intapp and conducted by DCM Insights, was shared at the 2023 Legal Marketing Association annual meeting this week. Studying more than 1,600 partners in professional services firms, the researchers charted 108 total attributes of business development, from social networking activity to use of pitch materials to strength of individual client relationships. Layered over this was performance data from the participating firms.

The result: Five statistically-defined business development approaches…and the data to show which works best.

What’s Your Type?

Expert: Described as “reluctant business developers,” Experts generally respond to established demand rather than working to create it. They look for clients with well-defined needs that match their specific skill set. They are known to include lots of details and examples in proposals to illustrate their fit for the given opportunity.

Confidant: Known for white-glove service, Confidants develop deep personal relationships, typically with the most senior individuals at a client company, such as the general counsel or CEO. They are appreciated for high levels of responsiveness and leverage their track records to expand their work.

Activator: While the Confidant builds deep one-on-one relationships, Activators construct robust networks that are deep and wide; they will engage with people at all levels of a client organization, and they seek to connect clients to their colleagues as well. They educate clients on trends and issues and proactively seek new opportunities.

Debater: The contrarians among rainmakers, Debaters bring a different point of view – but one backed up by deep subject-matter expertise. They enjoy sparring with clients on the best course of action, and they want to work with clients who will follow their lead.

Realist: Realists earn trust through candor and transparency. They will be the first to talk budget and fees, and they are comfortable telling clients and prospects “no.” Realists will walk away from projects that they deem as no-win or that they see as harmful to their teams.

Rainmakers in the Wild

While most firms will have all five types, distribution is not equal. Within the legal sector, the population skews heavily toward the Confidant, comprising 41 percent of all rainmakers. This is more than double the percentage of all other types; Activator and Realist each made up 16 percent, with Expert and Debater at 15 percent and 13 percent, respectively.

Interestingly, Confidant also is the most abundant rainmaker type in professional services at large, although by a smaller margin. Across all professional services businesses, 26 percent of rainmakers are Confidants, followed by Realist (24 percent), Activator (20 percent), Expert (18 percent) and Debater (14 percent). (With respect to the higher Realist rate, it’s not surprising that bankers and accountants may be more comfortable with budget talks than their attorney counterparts.)

So Confidant is the most common type of rainmaker – but it turns out they are not the most effective. In fact, according to the study, the Confidant type had the highest number of low performers.

At the top? The Activator, with both the highest percentage of high performers and the lowest percentage of low performers.

Those networking-savvy Activators accounted for 31.9 percent of top performers, followed by Realists, at 28 percent. (Clients like straight budget talk, too.) These two are followed, after a steep drop, by Confidants (19.2 percent), Experts (11.5 percent) and Debaters (9.5 percent).

Activate Your Inner Activator

The presenters of the study emphasized that the business development attributes they tracked were habits and behaviors, not personality traits. (The study also controlled for demographic factors, such as age, gender and location.)

Given that these are habits, this suggests the powerful notion that rainmakers can be made, not born.

Overall, Activators display a “three Cs” pattern that aspiring rainmakers would be savvy to replicate:

Connection. Again, activators build vast networks that are both deep and wide. Within their client organizations, they seek to know people at all levels, from the paralegal to the general counsel, and throughout business functions as well. (This can be a protective measure as well as a proactive one; if one connection at a company leaves, they have plenty of others.)

Within their law firms, they get to know colleagues in various offices and practice levels. Much of their rainmaking magic happens by connecting their client contacts with partners who can add new value.

Activators tend to have significant numbers of LinkedIn connections, and they regularly post (and comment). They attend business events, setting specific goals for new connections and follow-up meetings.

Creation. Activators do not wait for jump balls; they create opportunities. They follow the news, sharing regulatory, legal and industry-specific developments that could affect their clients. They proactively suggest new ways to work together, and they check in with dormant clients regularly.

Cadence. Activators are consistent – they do not turn their business development on and off with their deal flow or case volume. They are disciplined, making time every week for marketing, and ensuring all follow-up opportunities are executed.

While these habits may come more naturally to some lawyers, all are achievable with commitment and, if warranted, a little coaching. As DCM Insights’ Ted McKenna said, “Irrespective of what your personality might be, you have the ability to engage in some of these activities and act like an Activator, even if you yourself are not an Activator.”

DCM Insights continues to research business development performance in professional services. You can learn more or sign up to participate here.

So you’ve decided to redesign your law firm website. Very likely, you used data to make that decision, whether formal figures (declining page views or increasing load times), or more anecdotal information (a realization your website didn’t align with your current offerings or less-than-complimentary comparison to a rival’s site).

But before the redesign starts, collect more data. You need to do this homework to help your designers work effectively and to make sure your new site delivers on your hopes and dreams.

You’ll need a process to collect thoughts, preferences, and dislikes from key stakeholders and share that information with your web designers so the process is strategic and not disorganized.

To compile a comprehensive assessment of what your firm wants in a new website, all stakeholders need to participate. You can hold a meeting or send out a web-based questionnaire, but make sure everyone who should be heard from answers your questions.

It’s never a great scenario when you’re one day from launching the new website…then find out one of the named partners hates the color scheme. An even worse scenario: to realize you spent time and money on a site that does not advance your firm’s strategy, position you effectively, or do more than just take up virtual space.

Take inventory

First up, you’ll want to document what is on the website right now. Do an inventory of how many pages there are, and outline how they are organized.

Then ask what pages can stay, what pages need to come out, and what pages need to be added. For example, are you focusing on new practice areas since the last website launch? What content needs to be written, or re-written?

This is also a place to ask what works and what doesn’t. Is your website secure? Are there issues with loading times or how the site looks on mobile devices? Remember, the average time spent on a website is 54 seconds, according to Hubspot, and if your site isn’t making an instant impression, it’s time for a change.

Identify your website’s audience

A redesigned website needs to be more than visually appealing. It needs a purpose.

To establish this, ask what your website’s target audience is – and it’s OK if there are more than one. Just remember: Your website is not an internal directory or bulletin board; it is there to address your clients, prospects, even potential hires.

For each audience, consider what they might be looking for – and how they might find it. If potential clients primarily find you through Google, optimizing for search is imperative; if most prospects find you through referrals, that’s less of a priority.

For prospective clients, are your services organized on their terms? On the consumer side, are they accessible and easy to understand, i.e. “Divorce” vs. “Domestic Relations.” If you are wanting to court business clients, are there key industry groups where you could feature expertise? Some companies may be more likely to self-identify with “Manufacturing” rather than as a consumer of “Tort Litigation.”

If you are using the site to recruit talent, how can you make a convincing case that your firm is a great place to work? Most prospective laterals will consider more than one firm; 35 percent consider four or more firms. Consider a thoughtful Careers section that is more than just job listings.

Once your target audience is on the site, what do you want them to do? If the site is intended to be informative and educational, are there materials to download or newsletters for subscription? If the site is meant to establish contact with the firm’s attorneys, how can that be expedited?

Establish a look and feel

The final set of questions should cover aesthetics.

Start by looking at your current materials – from letterhead to reception-area signage to business cards. What are the colors and fonts involved, and should those be incorporated into the new site? (If not, are you prepared for an update to all of your other marketing materials to ensure a consistent brand presence?)

Then look outside the firm. Assume the identity of someone shopping for firms in your particular niche. What are the consistencies across your competitors’ visuals? What might be opportunities to stand out? If every firm has a navy-blue color palette and black-and-white photography, make note – you may want to pivot.

Also seek inspiration sites. These can be any website, law firm or otherwise, that stakeholders like. Ask them why they specifically chose the site as an inspiration for the redesign. In our experience, inspiration for law firm websites have come from airlines, software and even recipe sites – in fact, some of the best inspiration comes from outside the profession.

Put it all together

The right website designer will seek this information (and likely more) at the onset of your project. If they do not, proceed with caution. The best website design agencies for lawyers will want to get to know you and your goals – not just crank out a templated one-size-fits-all site.

Be prepared to share your ideas and feedback early and often. The best collaborations come from clients who bring their ideas and are not shy about saying what works (and what doesn’t) for their firms.

While every agency is different, most will look to start with a site map, which is a visual outline of the new site, and a creative brief, a document that explains the objectives, look and feel, and rationale behind the site. Review these carefully before issuing a green light: By getting them right at the beginning, you will save yourself time (and needless revisions) later.

Firesign’s award-winning creative team has extensive experience working with law firm and legal services clients to help them achieve their website redesign goals. If you have questions about how to start the process to refresh your site, contact us today.

Your law firm website is like a speed dating app for potential clients. According to Hubspot, the average time spent on a website is 54 seconds. That’s less than a minute to make a great first impression on referrals or prospects who found your firm through search engines.

That’s not a lot of time with so much on the line. So you better be sure everything loads, looks great, and is up to date.

And that leads us to this question: What’s the lifespan of a website?

The average is 2 years and 7 months, according to research by Orbit Media Studios, which tracked the interval between major redesigns on the top 200 marketing websites.

Does this mean I should redesign my website every 2½ years? Not necessarily. But here are some questions that will reveal whether your site is still performing like new or a revamp is needed.

What do the numbers say?

Your firm’s website doesn’t exist to make the attorneys feel good about themselves (though that’s a nice bonus). It’s there to convert prospective clients into business.

So if your pageviews and conversions are down, take a look at your competitors and see if their sites are doing anything differently.

Also look at your mobile traffic. While 60 percent of all web traffic comes from mobile devices, the law firm websites we manage see closer to 40 percent mobile traffic. If you’re not hitting these targets, depending on your ideal audience, your site might not have an optimal design for phone and tablet users.

Can your clients find it (and does it load)?

Remember that most visitors aren’t going to be on your site very long. Can you see a call to action (find a lawyer, contact us) before scrolling? Are your credentials and industry focuses clearly established?

Your website exists to validate referrals and connect prospects with lawyers who can help them. Make sure you’re doing the back-end work to highlight this content so potential clients aren’t wasting time when they show up on your site.

Most importantly, does your site load quickly? It doesn’t matter what’s on there if prospects tire of waiting and give up. If your load time is lagging, you may need to dig into site architecture. Are large images and autoplay videos slowing the page from loading, and distracting potential customers from the information they really need to make a decision?

And again, make sure your site has responsive design for mobile users. You don’t want to frustrate busy, on-the-go clients by forcing them to pinch and zoom into a desktop-only web layout.

Is your site secure?

Website security protocols ensure that communication between a client computer or device and the server hosting your site is secure. The protocol requires the server to present a digital certificate, proving that it is the intended destination.

If your security certificate is expired, many personal and corporate firewalls will block your website. Not only that, your website’s search ranking will decline.

Is your content timely and accurate?

This is another area to check on your website analytics reports. Declining pageviews could mean waning search performance, and not all new business comes from referrals, especially among younger clientele.

You can also address content outside of a full-scale website redesign. As we’ve said before, marketing should be a full-time endeavor to be effective, so make sure your most recent evidence that convinces clients is posted.

That means attorney bios are updated, latest credentials and endorsements are highlighted, and, if you have a blog or news section, articles that showcase your subject-matter knowledge are posted consistently to boost your search rankings.

Does the look represent who you are?

Trends come and go. If your site was designed with a predicted trend in mind, it might not be relevant for very long. It’s better to design your site around a brand identity that will last, using fonts and color choices that transcend the passage of time, and focus your energy on building a website that will speak to the audience you want to attract.

This speaks to quality, too. According to BTI Consulting, more than half – 56 percent – of law firm clients use websites to compare their lawyer to the other side. When stacked up against the competition, does your website portray a worthy, professional adversary? A bare-bones DIY site – or one with dated design and clip art – may not reflect your credentials and capabilities.

Firesign’s award-winning creative team has extensive experience in creating brand identities, logos and building and redesigning websites. If you answered no to one or more of these questions, contact us today to see how we can help get your law firm website back on track.

Just 36 percent of C-level executives find professional services content to be “very valuable,” and the reviews are tougher from the legal department: Just 25 percent of in-house counsel say the same, according to a survey conducted by Greentarget and Zeughauser Group.

You spend considerable energy and (nonbillable) time preparing law firm content; you should expect return on investment. (Or, at the least, not to alienate your target audience.)

Let’s start by looking at what goes wrong, then explore some ways to course-correct.

What Clients Don’t Want

The Greentarget-Zeughauser survey asked law firm clients – in-house counsel and C-level executives – how professional services content was “less than excellent.”

On the in-house counsel side, their three biggest complaints:

• Too salesy: 51 percent
• Not impartial: 37 percent
• Not sufficiently relevant: 36 percent

For the C-suite:

• Not sufficiently relevant: 51 percent
• Too salesy: 41 percent
• Not timely: 39 percent

With regard to these turnoffs, consider your content strategy – and some common legal marketing mistakes.

“Too salesy” is a top-three concern for both audiences. These are sophisticated individuals who understand the objective of law firm content is to generate law firm engagements. It is helpful and appropriate to provide contact information for the author, but take heed not to overdo the “call to action” throughout.

Meanwhile, both groups take offense at content that is not sufficiently relevant. Have you worked to purposefully sort and segment your contact list, or are you sending every firm blast, regardless of subject matter, to everyone on it? Your Construction clients do not care about your article on new developments in biotechnology patents – and you run the risk of showing you neither know them nor care much about them if you spam their inboxes with it.

Timeliness matters, too, and not just for the C-suite; 28 percent of in-house counsel were annoyed by old news. This is of particular concern for lawyers and law firms that generate “breaking news” updates on Supreme Court decisions or other legal developments. Realize that dozens of law firms will be sending a similar dispatch out to the same contacts, perhaps on the same day. If you cannot be the first to inform them of this news – and chances are, Law360 or another media outlet will be anyway – you must offer something else of value, from analysis to ideas to a different perspective.

If you remain committed to reporting on breaking news, do the proactive work to streamline your editing, approval, design and distribution processes, so you minimize the risk of being the 12th email about the same thing.

What Clients Actually Want

The Greentarget-Zeughauser survey also provides insight on what attracts law firm clients to consume content.

In terms of content characteristics, they want:

• Useful: Cited by 73 percent of in-house counsel and 70 percent of the C-suite;
• Current: Cited by 60 percent of in-house counsel and 57 percent of executives; and
• Compelling headline/subject line: Cited by 59 percent of in-house counsel and 60 percent of executives.

(Going back to what clients don’t want for a moment: This question also dealt with length. CEOs were more than twice as likely to favor short content over long; this was more pronounced with in-house counsel, who favored short content more than seven times over long content. These people are busy. Have mercy. Keep it short and actionable.)

The survey also points out a key discrepancy between lawyers and business people: Lawyers often think in blocks of text, but their business colleagues think in charts and dashboards. This is borne out in the Greentarget-Zeughauser study: While in-house counsel pick articles as their No. 1 content type, the C-suite has the highest affinity for interactive charts.

Again, know your audience. In addition to making sure your content subjects are relevant to the intended recipient, tailor your presentation, too. If your prospect is outside the Legal Department, work to visualize your information – and drop the legalese.

Content That Works: Four Key Questions

Of course, the goal of content marketing is not to simply avoid annoying people. You want to use it to build your authority, build an audience, and to build your book.

To do that, you need to do level-up – and to deliver information with value, information with a point of view, and, just perhaps, a little entertainment value.

For your content program, consider these four questions:

• Is it helpful? Does it provide practical, useful knowledge that empowers the reader?
• Is it memorable? Does it stand out in a sea of law firm client alerts for its perspective or personality?
• Is it approachable? Does it use direct prose that is accessible to the target audience?
• Is it human? Does it engage the reader on a human level, or could it be robot prose? Especially on social media, people are drawn to content that is warm and engaging. This doesn’t mean legal content cannot deal with serious issues; even moving content from formal third-person to a warmer second-person approach (i.e. “What you should do next”) makes a difference.

Some of our favorite legal content that delivers on these standards:

“Don’t Eat Your Weed” is a song attorneys Will Hutson and Chris Harris of the Texas-based firm of Hutson & Harris wrote around the facts of the state’s marijuana possession laws. While the lawyers are showing off their musical talent, the song isn’t about the firm or how great they are in a court of law. It’s presenting valuable information to its audience, potential criminal defendants — literally, don’t eat your weed, a possession charge is generally only a misdemeanor that can be expunged from your record.

While corporate law may not afford the same opportunity for levity, it’s not out of the question, as evidenced by the former Ford & Harrison That’s What She Said blog that recapped episodes of “The Office.” The blog’s recaps explained the HR concerns and employment law violations contained in the TV show’s plot – showing the lawyers’ expertise in a relatable and practical way, with a predictable delivery cadence.

Even dense and technical subject matter can be presented in accessible and engaging ways, without the hijinks of Jim and Dwight.

Consider Xakia’s Legal Resource Library. Xakia provides in-house legal departments with software for matter management, data analytics and reporting. To help users make the most of their software, and to improve their legal operations overall, the company offers helpful white papers and templates, such as Best-in-Class Legal Reporting, 10 Steps to a Smarter Legal Budget, and Create a Legal Technology Roadmap in 3 Steps. An e-book, Legal Operations Health Check, provides benchmarks for departments based on size, industry and geography.

Xakia’s content empowers its readers by simplifying common processes, offering templates and providing ways to test their performance against meaningful benchmarks. How could you do the same?

Make this the year that you elevate your content by breaking away from the pack – and by breaking up with those stale Supreme Court recaps.

You’ve been on your marketing game: communicating consistently, following up, executing with purpose.

And it’s working. New matters are coming in, and your team is at (or over) capacity for the foreseeable future.

You’re busy, so…you can stop marketing now, right?

Not so fast. (And we’re not just saying this because this is what we do.)

Statistics from academic research show marketing needs to be consistent, or awareness of your firm’s brand and the quality of services it provides will disappear.

A study by the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science, titled “When Brands Go Dark,” found the following:

• When brands stop broad-reach advertising for a year or longer, most likely, sales will decline: 16 percent after one year without advertising, 25 percent after two years, and 36 percent after three years.
• Sales declined more rapidly for small brands that stopped marketing.
• Larger, growing brands often were observed to continue to grow after advertising stopped, but almost all smaller, growing brands immediately began to decline.

Even though this study refers to a stop in advertising spending, the effect on stopping marketing is the same: Awareness of your law firm, your attorneys, your services, your brand will decrease.

Being out of sight and out of mind is possible for even seemingly well-known brands. It once happened to an entire state after it decided to stop marketing.

In 1993, Colorado eliminated its $12 million tourism marketing budget. According to a presentation by the state’s former tourism marketing agency, Colorado’s domestic market share plunged 30 percent in two years after the cuts, representing a loss of over $1.4 billion in annual tourism revenue. And in the summer resort segment, Colorado dropped from first place among states to 17th.

Even aware of these facts, it may still be tempting to rationalize a pause, cut or elimination of marketing spend. Here are some common reasons law firms want to stop marketing:

We just paid for a new website. Can’t we just let that speak for itself?

A new website is an important tool for law firms and legal services companies to attract new business. It’s your virtual receptionist or waiting room, and the image it projects is designed to convince clients they should work with you.

Referrals are the top driver of business development for lawyers. But after a potential client receives a word-of-mouth recommendation, they will research who they’re working with. That’s when they’ll find your website.

But do you just want to show your potential clients new drapes and furniture? While you might have practice area descriptions, thought leadership articles, testimonials, and attorney biographies published on your website, are they updated? To make the best impression on potential clients, you’ll want to present the best evidence, just like in court.

When those potential clients search your firm’s name on Google or LinkedIn, will they find relevant articles about their legal issue in the top results? Not if you’ve stopped marketing. It’s only half the battle to project an image that your firm has experience. You need marketing to make the case that you continue to demonstrate authority and provide great service.

But what about a recession? Can I pause and pick up marketing later?

With predictions of a recession making headlines in the latter months of 2022, it may be tempting to temporarily cut back on marketing with the idea of picking it up down the road.

But an article by the Harvard Business Review calls cyclical marketing (increasing spend during the good times and cutting during the bad) “today’s equivalent of bleeding – an old-fashioned but once widespread treatment that actually reduces the patient’s ability to fight disease.” Companies that did not cut their marketing spend bounced back most strongly from previous recessions, according to a study by the International Journal of Research in Marketing.

We’ve already paid for content. Why do we need more?

The best attorneys are true subject-matter experts in their niches. Perhaps you’ve paid for content marketing, and your website features several articles that demonstrate your authority on specific areas of the law.

According to BTI Consulting, nearly 60 percent of law firm clients said they use online resources to compare their lawyers to the other side. If your competition is spending on marketing and publishing new content about your legal niche and you aren’t, how will you fare in this matchup?