5 Killer Strategies to Grow Your Firm’s Brand and Easily Win Clients
Ironically, many intellectual property (IP) firms advise their clients on trademark protection and other ways to protect their brand value but pay little attention to growing the firm's brand.
Some jurisdictions have regulations that proscribe advertising of legal services by law firms. However, this is not an excuse for not building your firm's brand value. There are several tried and tested approaches for reaching your target audience while complying with these rules.
Here are 5 surefire ways to grow your IP brand and win more clients:
1. Hire a law firm marketing and branding specialist
You may be a legal specialist but not a marketing and branding specialist. Therefore, the guidance of a brand specialist is invaluable. A brand specialist will offer an external, client-side perspective. Additionally, a brand specialist will bring specific knowledge and broader skill sets to the promotion of your firm.
2. Define your Target Market and Audience
There are about 7 billion people on earth, but only a fraction of these will need IP legal services. To effectively promote your services, you need to define your target audience.
Your target audience is a share of consumers that you are trying to reach with your marketing efforts. The data used to define your target audience may include age, gender, social class, purchasing power, and location.
Example of a target audience: Female entrepreneur, 18 - 40 years, living in New York, with a monthly income of $5000 - $8000, running a business in the past six months to 2 years, and looking for opportunities to protect her brand.
Who is your ideal client? What does the person or company look like? Where are they located? What IP or legal issues or concerns do they have that you can solve?
3. Define your Firm's Goals
Before developing a marketing strategy, ensure you define your marketing goals. Having clearly defined goals will help you measure the progress and efficacy of your branding efforts.
How many new clients do you want to attract each month, quarter or year? How much revenue do you want to earn? Do you want to gain market leadership within a specific period of time?
4. Develop a Brand Marketing and Business Development Strategy
Once you clearly define your marketing goals, you need to map out how to achieve these goals. Next, you need a plan that details all the actions you need to take and the investments required to achieve each goal.
In developing your strategy, you need to consider your resources and be realistic in how to maximize these resources.
Your strategy should include a target or potential client list, a marketing and business development budget, and a strategic content development plan.
5. Develop an Editorial Calendar for Your Blog and Social Media Platforms
To build your firm's brand, gain visibility, maintain your market position and grow your audience and client base, you must consistently churn out quality content.
A content calendar helps you plan your content strategically while saving valuable time.
You should organize your content based on topics or themes. Your content should also revolve around the investments you make. For instance, if the majority of your target audience attend a specific conference every year, you might want to include thought leadership around the conference's theme on your calendar before and after the conference, focusing on the legal services you are offering. You should not also forget to have representatives of your firm at the conference.
Planning a social media campaign around your content can also increase its outreach and give your firm more visibility.
Credibility is probably the single most important word in marketing. Clients will choose your firm over others if you are visible and communicate credibility. To do this, you must consistently appear before the right audience with quality, thought leadership content that cuts through the vortex of noise in the market. This grows your firm's brand value, without breaching anti-advertising regulations and helps you easily win more clients.