It's the most wonderful time of the year!

Remember that old "back-to-school" ad with the dad dancing through the aisles of the office supply store? He happily tosses supplies into his cart—pencils and Post-it Notes—and rides the cart around the store, while his two kids trudge glumly along behind him.

Even though it's 23 years old (that's right—that ad aired in 1996), I still think it's one of the best ads ever.

True confession: I wasn't like those kids.

I loved September and going back to school. And I loved school supplies. Still do. I'm a sucker for new notebooks, and I've been known to hoard good pens.

Just like there are essential supplies for success in school, there are also essential tools for success in marketing.

So as the summer draws to a close and you gear up for that push to the end of the year, here's my list of essential tools to help you market your practice.

• A marketing plan. Your marketing plan sketches out how you plan to reach your target clients and what your messaging to those audiences will be, in order to create awareness and visibility for you and your practice. Ideally, it should list the specific actions you plan to take, who you expect those actions to impact, what you expect the impact to be and how you'll measure the impact. No marketing plan? No problem. (Well, actually, it is a problem, but one that you can remedy.) You can start small and build on it. Start by asking some basic questions: Who are your target clients and those who influence their decision-making? Who are you and what do you do for those clients—what problems can you solve for them Where are your clients looking for information—trade publications, blogs, social media—and how do you leverage those channels?
• An editorial calendar. Your editorial calendar works in tandem with your marketing plan, helping you stay on track with your writing and speaking. A basic editorial calendar starts with important dates around which you're building your content (for example, industry or client events, dates new legislation goes into effect), lists your topics and channels for your content (what do you want to write or speak about and where will you do that) and includes deadlines for research and drafting. It can also track tasks and responsibilities for you and anyone working with you—for example, your PR person or agency; researchers; co-panelists or co-authors; graphic design or video productions companies.
• Communications and social media policies. As lawyers, you (and your firm) have both ethical and practical duties to your clients that circumscribe what you can—and can't—say to the media and in thought-leadership pieces, including articles, speeches and presentations, blogs and podcasts, and in firm-branded content. Your professional responsibilities require that communications safeguard client confidentiality, avoid creating legal and business conflicts with clients, and adhere to applicable rules of professional ethics covering advertising, which includes your website and social media. Because missteps can pose serious risks to your reputation and client relationships, all firms, no matter how big or small, should have a communications and social media policy.
• A style guide. You follow certain rules and guidelines when you prepare legal documents, right? So doesn't it make sense to have a set of guidelines and standards for the content that you put out to the world? While most people—by which I mean lawyers and marketing professionals—have a decent enough grasp of grammar and punctuation, writing is more of an art than a science. A style guide not only promotes consistency across all of your (and your firm's) non-legal communications, it provides firm answers to the inevitable squabbles that arise between learned colleagues (love or hate the Oxford comma, I don't care, but pick a rule and stick with it!). It's also essential to maintaining your firm's brand style and messaging. Most lawyers also write like, well, lawyers—which is great for legal documents that will be read by other lawyers, but perhaps not so great for marketing. Informational content—from traditional marketing collateral like practice descriptions and bios, to informational content like alerts, blogs and social media posts—should be less dense and more accessible to nonlawyers. Developing a style guide need not be difficult or time-consuming. You can start with one of the recognized style guides—I recommend the Associated Press Stylebook, which has been adopted by many content publishers, including business marketing and public relations departments. You can supplement the AP Style Guide with a targeted internal usage and style "cheat sheet" for firm-specific issues that might not be covered by the more general guide. For example, do you prefer to call your professionals attorneys (more traditional) or lawyers (more contemporary); do your bios refer to the lawyer by last names (more formal) or first names (more approachable); and do you capitalize titles like partner and associate.
• A good editor and a good proofreading service. You can be a great writer. And you can be a great editor. You just can't do both at the same time. Everyone—including lawyers and marketing professionals who write for a living—can benefit for having someone else read their drafts and make suggestions. It's virtually impossible to catch your own mistakes once you've written (and rewritten) content. The human brain corrects mistakes automatically and you see not what you've actually written, but what you meant to write. An editor can often see problems not only with grammar, punctuation and typos, but can help identify problems with clarity, accessibility and organization. Once you and your editor have finalized your content, send it to a proofer, either within you firm or use one of the many excellent professional services. Fresh eyes (and most services have two proofers review each draft) will catch any typos or other issues that you and your editor—who have been working closely with drafts and revision—would miss.
• Up-to-date bios. Let's say that you've worked up a laser-focused marketing plan, developed the most detailed editorial calendar imaginable, and honed the best marketing content in the world. All of that won't get you the results you want (more work) if your bios (web-based bio, speakers bio and your LinkedIn profile) aren't updated and accurate. Attorney bios are by far the most viewed pages on law firm websites. And in a world where clients increasingly rely on your digital presence as their main (and sometimes sole) source of information about you, your bios stand in for you. And if they don't get the information they are seeking, don't like what they see, or your bio doesn't match up with what they've been told about you, you've lost whatever chance you might have had at landing that work. Most times, you'll never even know you were in the running or that your bio disqualified you from the start.
• Technology tools. The older my children got, the more their back-to-school shopping lists included sophisticated technology, like graphing calculators, tablets and laptops. I'm all for using technology to enhance your marketing efforts. Maybe you want to use a project management platform, a client relations management (CRM) system, search engine optimization (SEO); website analytics tracking; or a social media dashboard. That's great—as long as you have a firm grasp of the basics—your goals, your strategies, and the problems you're trying to solve—before you attempt to implement complicated, and perhaps expensive, technology.

Even if, like me, it's been a long (long, long) time since you've experienced the excitement (or dread) of back to school, September is still a great time to crack the binding on a new notebook, uncap you favorite pen and get down to the work of marketing your practice.

Meg Pritchard, the principal of CREATE: Communications—Media—Marketing, is a lawyer, writer and marketing professional who works with law firms and lawyers to develop compelling content for their marketing and business development. She can be reached at [email protected] or 215-514-3206.