In a sea of sameness, the opportunities are endless for attorneys who want to leverage the tools and technologies that are available in today's digital marketplace. With changing client expectations across the board, simply being a good litigator or M&A attorney isn't enough to earn the trust of clients—it's table stakes. Being a generalist no longer cuts it unless you are already an established brand name, so today's attorneys need to rely on methodically building a niche practice that demonstrates industry expertise and focus to consistently drive business.

The recent 2019 State of Digital and Content Marketing Survey (co-led by Greentarget and Zeughauser Group) offers additional insights around this concept. Both C-suite executives and general counsel are increasing what they're reading, but they are using industry leaders to effectively curate their content. As Mark Heintz of X9Y Consulting Group says, "I follow people [on Twitter] who give me ideas. … I call them wellsprings of information." Now that's how every attorney wants to be viewed by their current and potential clients.

Following are some ideas that attorneys can use to identify potential buyers and build trust with their key constituents to stand out in an increasingly competitive market.

Pick a Niche and Build a Plan

As one can imagine, it's tough to be a wellspring of information across every industry and to earn the trust of the entire business world. I'd venture to call it impossible. Too many attorneys try to be a jack-of-all-trades in their marketing and business development efforts, and the result is that many are ultimately viewed as the master of none. Clients expect counsel who understand their business landscape and who demonstrate knowledge through participation in industry-focused arenas.

Gartner's Challenger Model research notes that B2B buyers are 57% through the purchase process before their first contact with a service provider—and these buyers need to be seeing that their potential counsel are out there and swimming where they are. While your target list may shrink, the value you bring to these niche buyers through a consistent and focused plan will deliver rewards for years to come.

Update Your Online Presence

At Pryor Cashman, over 85% of web traffic is to attorney bios. And, as mentioned previously, that's because the way that clients purchase legal services has drastically changed. So many attorneys view their LinkedIn and online bios as afterthoughts, but the opportunities are vast with backlink, search engine optimization and other social media strategies to raise digital profiles. The bottom line: If it's not on your bio or in your LinkedIn profile, it simply doesn't exist, because potential buyers aren't going to call you based off limited or general information unless you're a brand name.

Another related Gartner study notes that B2B buyers only spend 17% of time meeting with potential providers, which means they are increasingly checking out attorneys online and making decisions without contacting them. So keep those profiles updated, because you never know who is evaluating you—in many cases, you can be out of the game before you even knew you were in it.

Use Sales Navigator for Leads and Accounts

Once you've mastered the standard LinkedIn profile and have learned how to sort and filter your contacts by degree, location, school, company and the like, you can begin to leverage the benefits that come from LinkedIn's Sales Navigator tool. Done right, Sales Navigator can yield amazing results and keep attorneys informed in real time about top-of-mind trends, news and issues of clients and prospects. Essentially, the tool enables you to build lists of leads (people) as well as lists of accounts (companies) that you can follow—even if you haven't yet connected with them. You can create as many lists as you want, and through social listening you can begin to brainstorm and develop reachout strategies that have already been proven to resonate with these niche audiences.

For example, if you are targeting GCs of solar energy companies based in Canada, you could create a list of current and prospective GCs (leads) and companies (accounts), then check in daily or weekly to read about the key issues that are affecting them, either individually or collectively. Together with the publications you normally read about the industry, you could start to pull together a very focused reachout strategy with risk roadmaps, industry trend charts or other deliverables to show your initial value and industry acumen and set up in-person meetings as a follow-up plan. Don't be the 50th attorney to ask them out to lunch and ask what keeps them up at night—use the tools to do your own homework, then create value-added content and take them to lunch to get their take on your analyses. Your response rate will be higher, the meetings will be more fruitful, and you can use the continual feedback loop to enrich these deliverables.

Research Over Materials

When you arrange an initial meeting with a prospective buyer, don't bring a document demonstrating how great you and your firm are unless you have already been asked about a specific matter and can translate those features into the "so what" or why the client should care. I often compare this tactic to a doctor writing a prescription based off an initial phone call. You may think you know the issue, but you want to check under the hood and demonstrate you've done your homework with probing questions based off of individual, company and industry research and analysis. Another benefit of waiting on firm materials is having another touchpoint a few days later that iterates your understanding of their business and objectives. Get rid of the crutch, because I assure you those kitchen sink pitches based off semi-educated guesses are going right into the recycling bin.

The opportunities for attorneys to own issues and build niche business plans are vast, as many attorneys still rely on a generalist approach to business development. Break the mold, swim upstream, focus on a few things and do them well consistently. You'll be seeing benefits and making a name for yourself in no time.

Mike Mellor is the firmwide director of marketing and business development for Pryor Cashman, a 180-attorney midsize firm. Contact him at [email protected].