Amy Campbell’s Web Log

Anne Malloy Tucker, chief marketing officer at Goodwin Procter, was the featured speaker at the Legal Marketing Association New England Chapter luncheon. Her 30-minute presentation titled “Facing Reality — Stretched Too Thin and Can’t Do It All” is a law firm marketer’s hit list of where to focus energies for best results. Here’s the 60-second, sound-bite version.

Have a strategy: “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.”

Balance stuff and strategy: Figure out what you can do quickly and efficiently and create the infrastructure to serve the firm in an agency style (stuff), and “allow time to pull out to do planning (strategy).”

Set and communicate goals: “You don’t want people to ask — what are these people doing?”

Concentrate on clients: (read with emphasis!) “If you do nothing else, focus on your existing clients.” “Client feedback and satisfaction surveys are the best thing you can do.”

Narrow your focus: For instance, Goodwin “chose six industry areas based on historic strength, attorney visibility, where markets are going and which practices are more commodity-proof,” for pro-active marketing dollars.

Strengthen web presence: “Your web site is the portal to your firm — people are using your site to validate and compare.”

Measure! Measure everything: financial metrics, client feedback metrics, market metrics. Avoid bad metrics — the “how manys” — quantity data is worthless on its own.

Granted, my summary misses many details. That’s why you should try to attend the next LMANE luncheon. See you there?

Mass High Tech takes a page from Seth Godin with its article Small: The New Big, which discusses how bigger isn’t always better for law firms looking to differentiate themselves. The article points out how tech boutiques sell on expertise and reduced overhead, and even in an age of law firm mergers, some firms prefer to remain small, specialized and nimble despite buyout offers from the big firms. While the phrase “small is the new big” may not have been coined by Seth Godin, he definitely has made it famous with his best selling book by the same name. Here is his original blog post from a couple years ago on the concept. May it inspire others to stop emulating what you’re not, and start emphasizing the unique value and service that you can and do offer your clients. (Disclosure: The Mass High Tech article features my client, Morse, Barnes-Brown & Pendleton.)