Marketing Strategies & Measurement Techniques

Use this tool to maximize the results of your professional services marketing efforts.

There are myriad ways in which to market your law firm or financial services firm. However, you need focus.  More than that, you need to know that you are investing your time and money in activities that will produce marketing results. This tool will help you determine how to measure the return on investment of many different marketing activities.  Organized around The Four Pillars of Marketing™, How to Measure the ROI of Marketing will allow you to apply quantifiable, measurable techniques to the fuzzy and amorphous world of services marketing. Before you embark upon your next marketing activity, ask yourself how you will measure the results before spending a lot of time and money.  You will be glad you did!

Client Satisfaction and Retention

  • Duration of client relationships (years)
  • History of increased revenue with client
  • Client has multiple relationships within the firm
  • Percentage of clients who would refer the firm
  • Strong base of regular and ongoing client referrals
  • Positive responses to a client survey or focus growth

Client Service

  • Very few client complaints
  • Clients pay bills on time
  • Ability to respond daily to emails and phone calls
  • Clients actively refer others to the firm
  • Client service guidelines that are followed by everyone

Cross-Marketing

  • Clients utilizing multiple services of the firm
  • Professionals actively introduce clients to other lawyers
  • Clients know of the breadth of services offered
  • Professionals are aware of services a client needs
  • Compensation system rewards growing existing relationships

Referral Source Development

  • Strong base of people refer business to the firm
  • Having concise materials for referral sources to make it easy to be referred
  • Loyalty of referral sources – you are on the “short list”
  • Ability to summarize what your best referral sources have in common (industry, profession)
  • The firm’s willingness to seek out and make referrals for them
  • Professionals actively engaged in meeting with current and prospective referral sources

Networking

  • Increased referrals of A-level clients
  • Having two to three networking meetings each week
  • Loyal friends and contacts who always return your call
  • You actually enjoy staying connected to great people
  • You always make time to meet with someone who was referred to you
  • You find ways to open doors for others regularly
  • You realize effective networking is more about looking for ways to help others (versus what’s in it for you)
  • You stay in touch with people “just because” versus only calling them when you need something from them

Targeted Business Development

  • Maintaining a Top 10 list of prospective clients
  • Having a plan with each prospective client on what next steps to land their business
  • Number of proposals submitted to A-level clients each year, and won
  • Number of beauty contest presentations made each year, and won
  • Number of new clients attracted
  • Revenue of new clients
  • Strong sales pipeline with dates, action items and next steps

Proposal Development

  • The existence of a proposal archive to avoid reinventing the wheel each time
  • Current examples of representative experience for all attorneys
  • Number of proposals submitted to A-level clients each year
  • Having a client-focused approach to proposals that starts with a summary of the client’s situation and your approach to meeting the client’s needs (and not with firm history and bios)
  • Proposals tell a story because it’s about the music, not the words
  • Number of new clients attracted from competitive bidding/RFP process

Market Research

  • Taking the time to research a new client or prospect before a first meeting (website bio, LinkedIn profile, Google search)
  • Keeping an electronic “dossier” on top prospects
  • Tracking the activities of key clients or prospects via Google Alerts

Trade & Professional Involvement

  • Regular attendance at meetings
  • Member of the firm serves in a high-profile position in the organization
  • Regular speaking engagements for the group
  • Contribute articles to the association’s publication
  • New clients who hired the firm because of its perceived industry expertise
  • Strong network of contacts within the industry

Advertising

  • New clients who cite specific advertising as one of the reasons they hired the firm
  • A measurable call to action in the ad (like registering for a seminar, or in other ways making contact with the firm because of its advertising)
  • Higher name recognition in the marketplace based on independent market research
  • Increased search engine rankings (due to web-based advertising)
  • Inquiry calls into the firm

Brand Statement Development

  • Work with key leaders to uncover the “unique essence” of the firm
  • Develop a brand statement, which isn’t the same as a slogan or tag line
  • Ensure everyone in the firm, including support staff, understand the brand and know how it relates to their job and dealings with clients
  • Ensure that website copy and other marketing material reflects the brand statement and conveys the firm’s “unique essence”

Corporate Identity

  • Professional looking materials including logo, letterhead, brochures and website
  • All materials are consistent and have the same visual identity when viewed together; everything looks related
  • Your firm “becomes known” for some element of its branding or identity
  • Higher level of overall professionalism conveyed through the firm’s brand and resulting identity materials

Public Relations

  • Cost of commensurate advertising – then multiplying that number by three or four
  • Number of media impressions – how many people had the opportunity to see the article, hear the interview
  • Number of bylined articles published per year
  • Number of times firm professionals are quoted in the press
  • Number of reporters each lawyer knows and has a relationship with
  • How often the firm gets substantive coverage in publications read by A-level clients

Trade Shows

  • Number of new client or referral source leads generated as a direct result of the firm’s participation in a trade show
  • Number of visitors who leave their card or ask for additional information
  • Number of firm professionals who participate in the event
  • Also being a speaker at the event (not just a trade show vendor)
  • Level of proactive follow up after the event

Community Involvement

  • Number of attorneys serving on non-profit boards
  • Number of lawyers delivering pro bono work (hours per year)
  • Firm creates an environment and culture where volunteering is encouraged and rewarded
  • The firm’s good name in the community as a “community leader”
  • Lawyers are volunteering for organizations they are committed to and passionate about

Social Networks

  • Number of social networking sites the firm is actively involved in
  • Number of relevant groups the firm and its lawyers engage with regularly
  • Willingness to share expertise and not use social networking to directly sell or self-promote
  • Amount of time spent each day or week on the one or two social networking activities deemed most worthy of such time
  • Number of new relationships developed because of presence on social networking sites
  • Name recognition that results from more people visiting and engaging with your social pages
  • New clients generated, or new business partnerships developed because of social networking involvement
  • A fully completed profile and updates posted at least weekly

Strategic Communications

  • Communications developed for specific audiences – not broad based “firm newsletters”
  • Ability to target various segments of client base with targeted messages relevant to them
  • Responses from clients to various communications
  • Level of client retention and flow of referrals into the firm
  • Number of direct responses from clients and referral sources because of a communication
  • Opens and click through of email alerts is monitored

Marketing Database

  • Everyone is committed to keeping the data current
  • Database allows segmenting of client type for targeted communications
  • It is easy to make changes and updates to client information
  • The marketing database interacts with other firm data (like client revenue numbers)
  • Billable time is saved by not needing to send individual lists to professionals for updating
  • The database makes it easy to communicate with various groups of clients, contacts and referral sources
  • The database contains email addresses for each person

Website

  • The content is regularly updated with new blog posts at least every 10 days reflecting “thought leadership”
  • The site provides a steady stream of client inquiries
  • Clients comment on the relevance of the information contained on the website
  • The website reflects the brand statement and corporate identity of the firm
  • Website is updated with new online features, high quality images, and useful resources for clients
  • The site is search engine optimized resulting in higher rankings on Google and other search engines
  • Use Google Analytics to track and measure visitors, activity on the site, direct client inquiries from it, webinar or seminar registrations using a web-based registration option

Client Events

  • Number of clients who attend the event or view the webinar
  • Results of the event evaluation
  • Number of clients who would attend the event next year (from evaluation)
  • Number of clients who attend an event every year
  • Number of professionals from the firm who attend and actively build relationships
  • Number of new clients or new matters generated from the event
  • Commitment by all to proactively follow up with attendees
  • Adding attendees to the firm’s marketing database
  • Relationships built from the proactive follow up done by lawyers at the event
  • Clients ask “When is the next one?” and “Can I bring a colleague?”
PSM Marketing