ALMResearchBlog

Marketing Salaries: North American Firms Pay 24% More to Their Managers

According to a recent “snapshot survey” on marketing salaries by PM Forum, North American firms pay 24% more than U.K. firms to their managers an directors, though they pay similar amounts to junior marketers. Global firms pay the highest, as do firms with headcounts of between 1,000 and 10,000.

The survey, which had 470 marketing respondents in professional services firms worldwide, also found that law firms pay 12.3% more to marketers than accountancy firms. A free report is available by click here .

New “Success Kit” for Business Development

Not that we make a practice of promoting anyone else’s products and services, but Jim Hasset of the Legal Business Development Blog has developed the “Legal Biz Dev Success Kit,” and reviews—all positive—are popping up on a variety of sites, such as this one by Tom Kane on the Legal Marketing Blog, and this one by Kate Daisley on  Amid the Noise and Haste. A demo of  the modular course is available here. Check it out.

2008 AALL/Thomson West Excellence in Marketing Awards

Submissions are now being taken for the 2008 AALL/Thomson West excellence in Marketing Awards and thanks for the Law Librarian Blog for their announcement. The contest is open to any individual, group, library, Consortium, SIS, Caucus, Chapter, or any other group affiliated with AALL.  Award categories include: Best Brochure, Best Newsletter, Best Campaign, Best PR Tool Kit, Best Use of Technology. The deadline for entries is February 1, 2008.

2007 WebAwards for Excellence in Web Marketing

According to this report from Larry Bodine, the Web Marketing Association recently announced the winners in the 2007 WebAwards for excellence in the use of the Web for Marketing. Most notable, of course, are the law firm winners.

Womble Carlyle won the top award for Best Legal Website. And Bodine’s Law Marketing Blog has a list of all the winners in the Legal Category awards.

LSSO RainDance Conference

The Legal Sales and Service Organization wants business development and marketing folks to save the date for their next conference: May 6 – 8, 2008 in Boston at the Hilton Boston, Logan Airport. Those who register before March 14 receive preferred pricing on registration. FYI: RainDance is the industry's only leadership conference exclusively focused on driving revenue and building client loyalty. You can visit the Past Events page on their website to view speakers, topics, comments, and conference photos from past conferences. To register visit the LSSO web site, call 617-726-1500 or email [email protected] for more information.

Top Law Firms in Marketing and Communications

The Marketing the Law Firm newsletter has just released its third annual list of the MLF 50, aka/The Top Law Firms in Marketing and Communications. We can only let you know that Proskauer Rose garnered the top spot, but the story and the rest of the rankings are pay-per-view. But then again, it’s only $15, and a subscription to the newsletter is only $409 for electronic format. Elizabeth Anne “Betiayn” Tursi, the editor in chief, wrote in-depth profiles of each of the top five firms and their marketing/communications leaders. To find out more, click here.

Law Firm Client Surveys

We were intrigued by Tom Collins’ musings and suggestions (More Partner Income Blog)
about client surveys. Collins says he has read very little in the past year dealing with client surveys and wonders if the whole idea has “moved to the back of the collective mind of law firm managing partners.” We’re wondering also—and, in fact, it is one of the topics covered in our current Business Development Practices Survey, which we invite your law firm to participate in.

We ask, in our survey, not only whether your firm conducts formal client interviews and/or satisfaction surveys, but who conducts the surveys/interviews, how they are conducted, how often they are conducted, how the selection process works as to which clients are selected for surveying/interviewing, how the information is disseminated, and what the purpose is. We also ask respondents to rate client surveys/interviews for their effectiveness as a business development strategy.

Collins recommends that this strategy should be an ongoing exercise, but should not be done as a mass mailing. He also offers advice on how often to conduct surveys, and who should be surveyed or interviewed, along with a few caveats, e.g. Do not conduct surveys unless you plan to do something in response to the results.  Do not survey unless you have assigned clear responsibility and established accountability for follow up with each client regarding their survey.  To read more, click here.

To participate in this year's Business Development Practices Survey, click here. The survey covers marketing/communications efforts (budgets, staffing, strategy, and other organization concerns), as well as business development/sales efforts and trends. Participants receive the Executive Summary and a discount on the full publised report.

Best Law Firms to Work For--Especially if You Have a Family

A report spearheaded by a women's group at Yale Law School has picked the 10 most family-friendly law firms, with a midsized shop earning the top spot, according to a report that appeared recently in National Law Journal (“Milwaukee firm gets top ‘friendly’ nod”). Yale Law Women and a coalition of groups at seven other elite law schools have named Quarles & Brady the top firm based on length of maternity leave, existence of on-site child-care facilities, compensation, flexible schedules and other factors.

About a month ago, we also reported on the results of the annual Working Women’s magazine Best Places to Work  survey which, for the first time this year, had a list devoted exclusively to law firms. Alston & Bird made the top of that list.

Revamped Web Sites Getting Attention

Gibson Dunn’s revamped web site  has been getting a lot of attention. In fact, you would think that with all the attention, it must be a very flashy, ultra-modern-looking web site. But no. As described by the Cal Law blog, Legal Pad , the firm’s new web site looks “more like a literary journal or an intellectual magazine than a law firm site.” Very retro. The main page is all black type on white. No images. Legal Pad quotes one of the partners who were on the re-design team, Ted Boutrous: “We wanted to be timeless, elegant, and clear — almost a journalistic approach. You want information? Here it is, and it’s interesting." The site also features videos designed to convey the firm’s message about diversity, which they have been making an effort to promote.

Meanwhile, Saul Ewing’s revamping of its web site  was described in a story in The Legal Intelligencer (“From Flop to Hit’). According to the writer, Frances Sheldon, the Web technology administrator at the firm, “even the best Web sites begin to fade as soon as they blossom.” In 2003, Saul Ewing's Web site was so far from great that it received the scorn of Micah Buchdahl in his review of Am Law 200 law firm Web sites, she writes. And one of the goals became building a site that would grow with the firm and still be relevant two years after launch, especially in terms of the technology used. Sheldon’s “how we did it” story is interesting and useful.

Marketing and Business Development: Just Follow the List

We like numbers here at ALM Research. And wouldn’t life—and work—be so much easier if all we had to do was follow the proscriptions of a numbered list telling us what to do, or what not to do? But which one? Take your pick—or perhaps try them all:

6 Things That Drive Clients Crazy (and What You Can Do to Avoid Them) appeared among FindLaw’s law practice management articles by Edward Poll.

8 More Marketing and Management Tips appeared on the Kohn Communications Marketing and Communications blog, with all each short paragraph authored by a different writer.

10 Tips from the Consultants at Kohn Communications appeared on the Kohn Communications Marketing and Communications blog, with each tip authored by a different writer/consultant.

10 Business Tips to Help Your Legal Practice appeared on the Legal Marketing Blog (they had picked it up from the article on RainToday.com by Ruth Winett of Winett Associates).

10 Ways to Lose Good Clients was mentioned on Alison Shield’s Legal Ease Blog (it was actually the title of a now-past tele-seminar).

15 Ways to Become an Influential Blogger appeared on Kevin O’Keefe’s Real Lawyers Have Blogs blog (referencing the author of Skelliewag, a site about “creating content your site’s visitors will fall in love with”).

17 Lawyer Tips: A Mini Manifesto appeared on Larry Bodine’s Law Marketing Blog (he had picked it up from the ABA's Law Practice magazine; the list was put together by Matt Homann).