Branding for Law Firms
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Get Branded
My kids watched Sesame Street when they were little. Sometimes the characters would engage the young viewers in an observation game—One of These Things is Not Like the Other. Kids had to find what was different in a quadrant of seemingly identical items and detect the nuances. Sometimes you had to really look hard for the differences, at other times, the dissimilarity was obvious.
And so it goes for law firm branding. Are you clearly distinguished, or is it hard to find you in the sea of attorneys in your specialty?
Defining yourself against the competition is one of the first steps in marketing and business development. Identify what makes you different, and then engrain these distinctions in your mind, the mind of your associates, the marketing department and even the front desk. This is your ‘brand’ to communicate how your firm is the best choice for clients and prospects in the most efficient and consistent manner.
Every action and reaction should reflect the way you do business, and how you are perceived while doing it. Quick—what company makes the soda in the red can with a white wave from top to bottom?
Differentiation relates directly to law firm marketing. The attorneys define the principles, while the marketing department disseminates that information to key publics in your marketplace. Your publics include:
- Existing clients
- Potential clients
- Your competition
- Junior associates
- Your staff
- General counsel at companies working in your area of specialty
- Potential new-hires
The first step in this process is to discover and define what makes you not just different, but the better choice above your competition. For some firms, a heightened level of client knowledge is enough of a differentiation factor—simply because your competitors haven’t yet thought about the concept themselves.
