Branding is an essential part of any successful marketing plan. Although there’s a lot of confusion around branding, by following a few key steps, you can achieve the short- and long-term benefits that effective branding can provide.
The best brands represent an expectation in the user’s experience. Law firms who can establish their brands position themselves as leaders in their area of practice. Their messages resonate with the needs of their audience, leading to continued success.
Why Brand Your Law Firm
Branding keeps you “top of mind” while making your firm memorable to your future clients. This comes from understanding the ways to present an authentic brand voice that sets you apart from your competitors.
Your audience’s perception of your law firm is a critical part of the success (or failure) of your branding. As a result, your entire team must understand the brand along with its core values and mission.
Branding supports a wide range of goals including business development and the recruitment of talented new team members. It’s positioned across all of your firm’s contact points including its marketing materials, online presence, and client outreach.
Your brand establishes your leadership position within your industry. This carries over to the individual members of your law firm by establishing credibility, which further leads to an increased trust among your target audience.
The Branding Process
Enhancing your law firm’s brand begins by looking at your law firm, its clients, existing brand, and previous marketing strategies. Branded law firms conduct interviews with their partners, attorneys, and clients to learn what areas need to be improved.
Some perceptions may be hurting your brand. Identifying them early on and overcoming them quickly goes a long way in enhancing your law firm’s positioning. Market research gives you insights that might be otherwise overlooked.
Identifying competitors who have established strong brands of their own should also be analyzed. Look at their communication strategies, voice, and audience response.
Branding requires you to create a plan based on your findings during this discovery process. Your plan will define the actions that will be taken over time and the tools you’ll need to manage your brand.
Your brand must also be integrated into your business goals. In addition to greater recognition of your law firm, branding supports your lead generation, website conversion rates, speaking engagements, and many other aspects of your business.
Branding Best Practices
Once you’ve aligned your branding strategy with your law firm’s business goals, you can implement some common best practices for law firm branding.
Your law firm’s brand consists of the personal brands communicated by your organization’s key members. Keeping these in mind and understanding how they impact each other ensures the strength of your overall brand.
Branding elements such as logos, colors, and taglines are invaluable to your audience’s experience of your brand. Make sure these elements are used across your contact points while protecting them from common brand risks.
Negative representations of your brand can have lasting impacts on your law firm. Managing your social media activity along with those of your firm’s partners, attorneys, and staff will boost the results of your branding campaigns.
Develop contingency plans for any potential brand challenges. How will your law firm address issues that threaten your reputation and the relationships you’ve developed with your audience?
A merger and other major change can cause you to have to rebrand your law firm. By having the right brand already in place, and knowing how to manage it over time, you’ll rebrand your firm with minimal disruption to your operations or performance.
What branding strategies have helped you improve your law firm’s perception among its audience? Are there branding challenges that continue to hurt your marketing results? Let us know your questions or comments below.
Branding your law firm improves the performance of your marketing strategies. It enhances your online and offline presence, makes your firm memorable among your target audience, and help you achieve a new level of success in your industry.
