Lexpert magazine features articles and columns on developments in legal practice management, deals and lawsuits of interest in Canada, the law and business issues of interest to legal professionals and businesses that purchase legal services.
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LEXPERT MAGAZINE | MARCH 2016 65 | COLUMNS | MARKETING Donna Wannop, LLB, MBA, is a practice-develop- ment coach (www.donnawannop.com) who has worked exclusively with the legal profession for over 20 years. Reach her at donna@donnawannop.com. BY DONNA WANNOP a wide variety of geographic locations – oen with very different cultures and very different approaches to doing business, not to mention different positioning in their local markets – it becomes even more chal- lenging to come up with a unified brand that works for all offices across a nation, or around the globe. Law firm mergers, and their associated name changes, further complicate the issue and make branding that much more difficult. Although effective branding is increas- ingly difficult to do, it is also increasingly important that it be done. WHY IS BRANDING IMPORTANT? e benefits of effective branding are many. Branding helps a firm market itself by at- tracting the right kind of clients and by shortening the business-development cycle. When people know what a firm stands for, the firm begins to attract the right kind of people (i.e., those who would be a good "fit" for the firm, and that includes lawyers, management professionals and staff ). Branding should reflect and be consis- tent with the firm's long-term strategy. It helps a firm establish a consistent and in- tegrated positioning and business-develop- ment platform across diverse geographies and offices, which in turn helps with con- sistent marketing messaging. It helps de- velop a cohesive internal vision and gets the firm's leadership team and management moving in the same direction. Creating a memorable brand also leads clients to build relationships with firms, not just with individual lawyers, meaning that the client base is more stable and more loyal. Effective branding that focuses on unique attributes related to quality allows firms to charge premium fees. Branding should focus on things that are unique and meaningful, and valued by the firm's clients. And just as importantly, the attributes associated with the brand must resonate with the people inside the firm — because if they don't believe in what the brand represents, they cannot be effective ambassadors for the brand or for the firm. BLENDING IN AND STANDING OUT Unfortunately, when it comes to branding, almost all firms say exactly the same things and try to position themselves in exactly the same ways. If your branding revolves around: experience expertise, solutions ori- entation, innovation, industry knowledge, technology, understanding the clients' industry and business, results, partnering with clients, being a trusted advisor, value or global scope … then your strategy is one of blending in, rather than standing out. "Blend-in" firms generally compete with one another on the basis of fees — since in other respects, they are essentially indistin- guishable from one another. Effective branding is about powerful positioning, and it therefore focuses on what sets a firm apart. Accordingly, creat- ing a brand should be a high-level strategic exercise, not a minor operational exercise that revolves around picking out a font or designing a logo. BRANDING: THE BOTTOM LINE e brand must ultimately drive the strat- egy of the law firm, it must be part of all market-facing messaging and communica- tions, it must be part of the culture of the firm, and it must be reflected in the behav- iours of a firm's people. In other words, the brand must reflect what a firm is all about, and a firm must ac- tively live its brand. It's not a logo or visual style — branding goes far deeper than that, right to the core of the firm's identity MANY PEOPLE THINK of a firm's brand as being the firm's name, logo, tag- line and other visual elements that appear on the firm's marketing and communi- cations materials. While it is true that a firm's "visual identity" can help to reinforce a particular "style" or "personality" that is intended to reflect what a firm is all about, branding is about much more than simply creating a "look." Effective branding isn't about getting people to recognize the visuals, but rather getting them to recognize and appreciate the bigger, more complicated thing that lies behind the words and symbols — in other words, it's about getting them to recognize and appreciate what those words and sym- bols really stand for. INCREASED IMPORTANCE OF BRANDING In a changing market for legal services, characterized by the commoditization of the services that we provide and down- ward pressure on fees, any firm that doesn't want to be in the business of continually lowering fees and fighting tooth and nail to win the work needs to establish itself as somehow different and unique — in ways that are both meaningful and valued by clients in its target markets. at's the only approach that will support a strategy that isn't about lowering fees. Branding becomes increasingly difficult, but no less critical, as firms move toward globalization, and single firms become more highly fragmented. With offices in Not What You Think PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK