Unfortunately clients won’t simply gravitate to your law firm if they don’t know you exist, don’t know what you can do for them and don’t know what you stand for. Fortunately Scotland has a host of marketing services agencies that can help every law firm, big and small, make the very most of their marketing dollar. BUt how do you find the right agency for your firm? Richard Draycott looks at the pitch process.

After the cost of your offices, your people and your systems, the marketing of your firm is the one thing that will take the biggest chunk out of your bottom line. If people don’t know that you exist, what you can do, what you have done and what your core values are then they will never become a loyal and paying client.
So, what is the secret to this marketing game then? The real key is finding the right partner for you. Just like your clients want to find the right team of legal advisors, you need to find the marketing agency that is right for you.
There is a secret to this and it lies in identifying the agencies that you would potentially want to work with and then finding out if what they offer is what you are actually looking for.
The pitch process can be a minefield for firms that are not sure which direction they want to go in. It can also be a waste of time, money and resources if you don’t find the perfect partner first time out.
Before even considering appointing an agency though, there are some important issues to address. Graeme Jack, managing director of public relations consultancy Trimedia, which handles PR for DLA Piper Rudnick, said: “I think that firms operating in this sector need to work harder to identify the two or three things that make them distinctive in the market. This is the starting point from which effective marketing can then happen. It is pretty unrealistic for any firm to claim that they are good at erm… everything!
“I accept that it is hard sometimes for law firms to select and agree the two or three areas which they feel are distinctive.”
The key is to go for points of difference, which have evidence to support and legitimacy, i.e. you may be good at corporate work, but can you prove it?
Once a firm has completed this exercise – with or without the use of external marketing strategists – it is time to develop a brief, which is designed to elicit strong sustainable ideas and activity to help convey these points of difference to market.
John Hornell of Glasgow-based marketing communications firm Brightfire agrees: “You need to define what role marketing and communications can/should play in the business, both strategically and operationally, and potentially use an external resource to facilitate this sort of innovation. A firm should set objectives for the given activity/campaign and understand the return that they hope to generate. If firms can understand the return, then it can help inform the level of investment they should make. They should also try to understand, at least in broad terms, the sorts of skills they may need – a marketing consultant, a designer and technical expertise etc.”
Identifying potential agencies that you would like to work with is the next stage and there are many resources available to firms.
Jack said: “A good starting point is the PRCA – Public Relations Consultants Association - located at www.prca.org.uk. They produce guides for clients including guidance on finding an agency, briefing a consultancy and getting the best out of a consultancy. These guides apply whether you are looking for PR, advertising, direct mail, or whatever.
“They also offer a free matchmaking service called PR Review. Essentially this will deliver a shortlist of consultancies with the right skills, experience and expertise in handling PR for law firms regardless of the size of the project.
“Any PR consultancy worth their salt will be a member of the PRCA and will have attained the PRCA Consultancy Management Standard. If they haven’t you need to question why.”
“By understanding the broad project requirements this should steer the legal firm in the direction of the right resources,” said Hornell. “You can’t beat online research via industry databases, together with word of mouth recommendations.”
The next stage is narrowing down the potential agencies you have identified to a manageable number that you can invite to present ideas and even creative work. But, your research early on into the skills of these companies will save your precious time when the pitching process starts.
Before compiling a pitch list Hornell suggests: “Undertake initial meetings with a wider number of agencies and understand more about there business, their approach and ‘fit’ with your plans. Consider their track record, personalities are important – can they work together?”
Jack suggests: “It makes sense to look at relevant work the consultancies have done for other clients, talk to colleagues in other firms about their agency experiences, and do some desk research to check the voracity of the claims made in each agency’s credentials pack.”
So, the day of the presentations arrives and you are sat with your managing partner waiting for the show to begin. But how should you handle the pitch to ensure you get the best out of the agencies and ultimately find your perfect partner?
Lizzy Lambley of Indigo PR, which handles PR for Pagan Osborne, said: “Open up the presentation into a discussion about the profession, the issues and opportunities their sector faces. Debating your communications needs, you’ll know the agency that is most interested and enthusiastic about your business. That’s the one to choose.
“What is important is how an agency intends to drive the account. The last thing any firm wants is to find that it has to keep asking what the agency is doing or telling them what to do. The best PR consultancies will be proactive: constantly wanting to know more about the business, creating opportunities, putting forward ideas and chasing you for feedback. Ultimately taking ownership of a campaign and PR programme.”
Hornell believes that being concise early on will pay dividends later in the process. He said: “Select no more than three agencies to pitch formally for the work. Provide as much clarity as possible on the work you want to undertake by documenting your requirements. Beforehand write down your key criteria for selecting the winning agency and try to score each agency objectively on each measure. For example understanding of brief, creativity, project plan, price and so on.”
Jack agrees that investing time in being specific with what you want from your pitching agencies will help all parties concerned: “The outputs from a pitching process will largely be shaped by the content of the brief, so place a focus on this. Be clear in the brief about what you expect the agencies to respond with, for example strategic proposals, some creative ideas or a full creative pitch. Make clear to agencies the criteria on which you will judge them. Make the budget explicit from the outset. This is sometimes an awkward area but I don’t understand why. It makes absolute sense to ask agencies to pitch on the same basis.”
So, you’ve seen the pitches and identified the agency you want to work with. How do you ensure that the relationships will go from strength to strength and that there are no complications?
Jack said: ”Once an appointment is made, negotiate and agree the contract and welcome the winning agency into the start of a long-lasting and mutually satisfying relationship.
“Arrange for induction meetings to create familiarity and start the process of building relationships. Agree realistic objectives and put measurements of effectiveness in place.
“Don’t forget to keep the relationship fresh by the strategic use of brainstorms, away days and, from time to time, ask your agency what they are doing to maintain their creative edge?”
Lambley added: “Once you’ve made the commitment to a PR agency, don’t stifle the relationship by holding back! Open, honest, free flowing two-way communication based on mutual trust and respect is vital for such a relationship to thrive. The agency needs to know what is going on within the client firm in order to identify stories or to offer constructive support or advice, and the client needs to be assured that it is kept informed of progress in a timely way.”
Hornell puts the onus on the agency to make the partnership a success: “In my experience a strong working relationship can be developed through meeting targets and delivering on the project. In the early stages the onus is on the agency to prove that they have been worthy of the appointment. The agency needs to win the confidence and trust of the client and these are the building blocks for future work and expanding the relationship.”
So, there we have it, a few words of advice on finding your perfect partner. Of course, there also comes a time when your brand needs a fresh pair of eyes to look at it and move it forward. Then it’s time to answer that big question: When do I know it is time to split with my agency? But that’s a whole different feature!

BRIGHTFIRE
Integrate to innovate
Before you undertake your next marketing program, there are some key steps you may want to consider.
Innovate to compete
New entrants and acquisitive challengers are pushing the pace of innovation. Before you think about simply raising the profile of your firm, first consider how you might develop your core service offering, key markets, service delivery processes and client service initiatives. New marketing innovation can help form the platform for your next marketing program and drive business growth.
Integrate communications
Clients increasingly interact through a range of media including web sites, e-zines, email, newsletters, seminars, and brochures. It’s important to make sure that you achieve brand, message and channel integration to deliver a consistent brand experience to your clients.
Interact to succeed
Your ability to interact intelligently with your clients across media will be determined by the quality of your data and how it is organised. With the right marketing approach you can reach your clients more regularly, with greater efficiency, and personalise content relevant to their situation. The benefit should be greater cross selling opportunities, client retention, and growth.
Innovate, integrate and interact and you will be well on your way to marketing success.

INDIGO PR
What value your reputation?
Our reputations are important to us. Personally, it is something precious that we treasure and work to protect.
But what value does a reputation have to a legal business or firm?
Think about why you choose to do business with a particular business. It could be because of the services they offer or that you enjoy working with them. However, with the increasing incidence of corporate scandal, against the backdrop of a slow and competitive economy, it’s increasingly likely that you choose them because of their reputation. That’s why there is a new understanding that reputations are an asset to be carefully managed and protected.
The reality is that once lost, a reputation is extremely difficult to re-build. As a result, managing reputations has a serious part to play in today’s communications strategies, the strength of an organisation in the marketplace – and potentially on a business’s bottom line. It reflects and promotes what a company or firm stands for and what it thinks. But more than media relations and traditional PR, strategies for reputation management have a greater depth because they also seek to build and protect.
Reputation management is a focussed ‘behind the scenes’ activity that achieves third party endorsement in a substantive and credible way. Through carefully implemented contact programmes, it promotes understanding of a firm’s position on key issues and clarity on actions and decisions taken. Audiences take in the obvious as well as the not so obvious: peer groups, political bodies, industry influencers and the media.
It’s not all about short-term gain, but the long-term strength of a company or firm. Reputation management can mean the difference between surviving a crisis (big or small) or becoming the victim of misinformation and bad publicity. What’s that worth to your business?

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HOOKSON
Empower your Brand Sense
The power of branding has repeatedly proven that there is a direct relationship between strong branding and superior profitability and firm value. A correctly positioned brand will benefit from the following client privileges:

1. Access – get to the decision makers directly.
2. Latitude – clients place more trust with well-
branded firms letting them work on other projects they don’t necessary have the experience for.
3. Recovery – they get the opportunity to ‘recover’
from their mistake or poor customer service.
4. Scale – a smart brand knows how, when
and to whom they need to emphasize scale and size in order to build trust. It’s that extra amount of trust that a branded company has that gives them the permission to take on bigger projects than competitors.
5. Set Standards – clients will invest with firms
who they believe are leading in their field.

Branding is not your corporate name, logo, website or brochure. These are elements of your corporate identity and ways which can help build your brand. Branding’s value is focused squarely on events before and after a sales presentation. Branding substantially boosts a firm’s entry into a prospective client’s short list and helps insure that, once a client enters the firm’s roster, they stay there and expand in value.
Considering that, on average, only 3%-10% of your prospect base is even aware of your existence (let alone your competency), a branding effort that doubles that and then helps ensure continued account success merits serious consideration.
To find out how branding can help achieve your firms’ potential, contact June at Hookson on 0131 524 7940 and schedule a presentation.