To Be or Not To Be: What Chief Marketing Officers Reveal
Monday, July 11th, 2011At the recent ALM Marketing and Business Development Leadership Forum, a number of chief marketing officers were present to weigh in on a variety of topics relating to law firm business development activities and their approaches. During the conference, law firm CMOs were surveyed and asked to respond to a number of questions regarding their approach to marketing, hiring, and other topics–and the results were surprising.
While I will admit that there is often truth in non-scientific surveys, I find some of the responses generated as a result of this survey to be slightly misleading, and not accurately matching the realities I’ve seen in our work with hundreds of law firm CMOs over the past decade.
Below, I’ll share with you some of the specific survey results, along with my personal view on the topic:
From the survey: 60% of respondents stated they have a “strong” input into their firm’s business strategy, and 75% said their firm management is aligned with professional staff on strategy
Arguably, I believe that CMOs are both under- and overestimating these figures. Often CMOs misjudge their scope and reach in their firm’s marketing strategy; in fact, often they have a lot of input. The question is: how is it valued by the management?
From the survey: 50% of respondents agreed that a “brand” is important to decision makers
If one defines brand as a logo or tagline, it matters little to in-house decision makers. However, the reality I’ve experienced is that brand defined as firm reputation is important to more than 50% of corporate decision makers. In this sense, brands can represent quality, reputation, and other positive emotions that often win business and set a firm apart from others.
From the survey: 93% of respondents indicated their distaste for the conflict that arises over sending holiday cards
At Closers Group, we are firm believers in doing the little things that clients will notice. Sending holiday cards and other small memos or articles to say thanks or wish people the best can never do harm.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, the results from this survey/poll were not entirely scientific, but they do offer a lesson to consider. Statistics can lead to misinformation or reveal truths, but interpreting the truth in numbers takes a bit of digging and reflecting on your own experiences.

