Has your firm heard the good news about industry focuses? With almost religious fervor, law firm management teams are embracing this concept (or are finally catching up to the accounting and consulting firms that have leveraged this client-centric approach for decades). Its adoption is viewed—in part—as a way to ward off headwinds facing the entire legal industry—threats of low cost disruptors, boutiques peeling off Big Law business and midsized firms cannibalizing each other. Adapting to a particularly cut-throat marketplace where attraction, retention and rate leverage all rest with the clients requires a makeover in how a firm's services are presented—along with how they are communicated and evaluated.

Balkanization Busting Benefits

John Smith does estate planning and is in the Estate Planning group.

Monica Johnson does mergers and acquisitions and is in the Corporate group.

Monique Allen does labor and employment and is in the Employment group.

They all service the same client, ABC Corp—an aviation company.

XYZ Inc.—another aviation company—has similar needs to ABC, but in looking at the firm's website and content offerings, XYZ's leadership team has no idea John, Monica and Monique's firm has any experience in its industry.

In this example, the available client and prospect-facing content—whether aimed at marketing or education—is entirely balkanized, with each attorney and practice group narrowly presented with little evidence of collaboration (let alone cross-pollination). Absent a direct referral, landing XYZ will be challenging—and even with a referral, justifying the firm's hire to a board or leadership team will take some work.

Since the dawn of law firms, there has been a tendency to organize into practice areas—a logical internal structure that encourages knowledge sharing within a given discipline. However, the average business person rarely thinks about their company's objectives or the issues they face in this way. Expecting a GC or executive to assemble a team from a broad menu of services it might need is a time waster and an impediment to engagement. Savvy firms are transitioning their market orientation and presentation from a deli menu, whereby one builds a sandwich ingredient-by-ingredient, to a chef's table, with offerings expertly prepared, paired with complementary flavors and tailored to their industry's appetite. Not to be overlooked is that the analogy applies to revenue as well: a more focused approach is a differentiator, providing a premium client experience, encouraging loyalty and, potentially, commanding higher rates.

Changing Channels

This migration to a more client-facing, industry-oriented approach is well timed given the evolution of media and communication channels. In generating exposure, firms are grappling with two key factors: (1) there are far fewer journalists and opportunities with traditional daily newspapers and non-trade print publications; and (2) there is increased competition for the media opportunities that remain. Business publications, struggling with declining ad rates, have also increasingly adopted revenue streams, such as paid “On the Move” sections, that further squeeze the available “earned” media opportunities.

While traditional media has been undergoing serious changes, social media—“shared” media—has become a bit of a Holy Grail for many firms. The conversation has moved beyond justifying participation to trying to build, track and monetize engagement. This desire has spawned new services that offer to track and “amplify” content—yielding reports that provide a narrow slice of ROI from these communications activities.

“Owned” content efforts, like client alerts and practice group blogs, have also taken on increased importance, with firms shifting from reliance on third party-placements to self-publishing content that is scraped up by aggregators and packaged for interest-based audiences. Like social media, this content can be “amplified” and measured by third-party technologies—providing another window into its performance and ROI.

An additional data point firms are accessing and using to evaluate marketing and communications ROI is website performance, leveraging platforms such as Google Analytics. These metrics provide insight into the client decision-making process, with the ability to track not only raw hits, but spikes in information consumption and conversions—from newsletter sign-ups to initial email outreach. (However, in actuality, most firms only take advantage of a sliver of these platforms', often free, powerful offerings.)

Talking Their Language

Focusing content marketing efforts within a particular industry ensures that thought leadership deliverables speak directly to business development targets, showcasing subject matter proficiency and fluency.

If our imaginary firm had an aviation industry focus, John Smith might be tapped to write an educational article on key estate planning considerations for family-owned aviation companies. Without this direction, the marketing and communications team, unaware and uninformed that XYZ is a target and that Smith does aviation work, may chase opportunities narrowly related to estate planning. Industry focuses align marketing and communications goals and activities with concrete business development objectives.

Another key efficiency gleaned from an industry approach is that the various and scattered data points that have been flowing in, through the aforementioned channels and services, are now working towards clearly defined objectives. The numbers can run side-by-side along with detailed feedback from group leaders and members on client engagement and prospect targeting. The goal, which aligns well with a challenging media landscape, is to move away from “PR for PR's sake”—chasing down opportunities that don't further business development goals. Such a shift also helps deflate “ego balloons” that have the potential to pull marketing and business development resources away from established plans.

In pivoting to a perspective that more closely mirrors that of clients and potential clients, it may be time to retire or transform practice area blogs into industry-focused channels. Instead of an IP blog and an employment blog, each with attorneys writing on broad issues, an industry bespoke blog for aviation might offer topics such as: “IP Challenges with New Turbines” and “Update on Labor Issues for Airlines Post Smith Ruling.” The goal is simple and powerful: instead of the GC of ABC reading neither blog—given limited time and limitless content to consume, personally and professionally—they may regularly peruse the firm's “In the Sky” blog, because it speaks to their industry, their concerns and is in their language. And, when they're tipped off to key IP issues, they may reach out to their firm employment contact for an introduction.

A Nimble, Numbers- and BD-Driven Approach

For firms embracing or considering embracing an industry focus, the end game is, quite simply, market relevance. This sort of re-orientation ensures that clients have a better grasp of how the firm can address their needs, work together across practices and anticipate and solve problems.

By concentrating the field of vision and honing in on specific business development goals, firms can refine their content marketing and communications programs, transforming from a “shotgun” to a sniper approach—with a better sense of when it just isn't possible to hit the target. Focusing on industries helps to knit together the reams of data that pour in to today's marketing departments and enables firms to evaluate progress toward specific business development outcomes. A communications strategy optimized for industry penetration can help transform the investment from “nice-to-have” into an essential function—with the data and deliverables to back it up.

Michael Bond is Senior Media Director for Blattel Communications, a professional services marketing and communications firm headquartered in San Francisco. He can be reached at: [email protected].