Strategy is what the sophisticated law firms frequently reserve for the external consultants and this is a huge mistake. Strategy is at the core of any company's business development activities and separating the marketing function, and the tools that marketing creates, from the overall strategy of the firm will have disastrous long-term consequences for law firms. Hiring a professional will only achieve a small portion of a firm's goals if the attorneys are not willing to embrace change themselves. Experienced marketing directors are frequently hired because of their backgrounds and their personalities but then are limited in their roles. Marketing directors are rarely allowed, or expected to contact clients.
Market research is a basic tool in corporate marketing.
Frequently, strategic marketers will be hired to perform training for the associates and partners but the firm has not first built consensus about the goals of the marketing team. The marketers come in with enthusiasm and energy only to find that it is only the marketing committee, or the managing partner, who understands the value of this training. Executive directors, management committees and marketing committees have to band together and create a marketing culture that will enable the marketing team to educate the firm in a non-hostile environment. If firms do not start realizing that there is a slow brain drain of many of the leading marketers in the industry, they will find themselves further back in the game than where they started. If you don't, you are probably not using your marketers to their full potential.