Lawyer Monthly - August 2021 Edition

65 AUG 2021 | WWW.LAWYER-MONTHLY.COM Here is a tip for existing law firms, or new ones with a good grasp on current client sales and value: part of your budget needs to be tailored to your target customers and current clients. If your average customer spends £2,000 and never returns to do business with you again, you will not have much money left over for marketing and will need to cut your cloth accordingly. However, if your average client spends around £10,000 per case, and they work with you twice a year on average for 5 years, then that means your average customer value is £100,000. That is likely to increase your profit margin greatly per client, allowing you to spend more on marketing. If your clients fall into the latter category, it would also be good practice to increase your marketing budget, because higher value clients tend to need more convincing to go to a new law firm, and marketing can be an excellent way to begin and build your profile with them and eventually welcome them on board as a new customer. The last point to bear in mind is your current marketing status and infrastructure. If you are new to the marketing side of the legal world, then you might not have any dedicated resource for marketing, which will become a factor in your marketing budget. In fact, in a recent ABA survey, 97% of firms with over 100 staff reported having a marketing team, whereas in firms with under 49 employees and solo law firms that figure falls to just 37%. Only a year or so ago, 66% of law firms stated that they had either only one full-time member of staff or none dedicated to digital marketing, which is the largest growth area across all marketing. If you fall into the 66% category, then realistically you will need to consider this when creating your budget, as it is a resource that you currently do not have but almost certainly need. You do not necessarily have to employ more people; it may serve your law firm better to use an external legal marketing agency to help you with your marketing, which can keep time, costs and administration lower for your business. If you already have an entire marketing team in place, then you should naturally be able to minimise this part of your budget. Average Customer Spend and Customer Value Marketing Infrastructure and Current Status Figure 4 DIGITAL MARKETING STAFF AT LAW FIRMS IN 2020 22% 44% 34% more than 1 employee dedicated to digital marketing 1 employee dedicated to digital marketing no employees dedicated to digial marketing