10 Strategies To Do It All When You’re ‘The Department’

If you're a solo marketer (or part of a very lean team), you already know you can't do it all. But you can prioritize with strategy, influence and creativity. Here are 10 ways small-team marketers are finding smart, strategic ways to lead, even when time, budget and staff are in short supply.

1. Set Aside Time To Strategize: Host your own retreat, working lunch or planning session solo (or with your team) to create goals for the year. Use these goals to evaluate every new request. If a major project doesn’t align, position it as outside “our annual goals,” and set it aside.

2. Pick What Pays Off: Instead of trying to do everything, ask: What will make the biggest impact? This exercise is a great excuse to revisit those items that you “do every year,” and dedicate fewer resources to activities that don’t impact the bottom line.  

3. Celebrate Small Wins: Momentum matters. When success is hard to measure, acknowledging progress in even the smallest initiative is important. By celebrating small wins, you are raising the profile of the work you do and recognizing the attorneys for their hard work, which in turn keeps them engaged.

4. Market “Marketing” Internally: We ask attorneys to have their elevator pitches at the ready; we need them too. Repeat key messages and your goals at every opportunity, especially when you need buy-in for future budget or tech.

5. Tap in to All Your Firm’s Resources: Look beyond your department. Ask receptionists to log RSVPs, mailroom staff to handle event materials and assistants to manage customer relationship management (CRM) platform updates, holiday gift lists, proofreading and scheduling.

6. Break Big Ideas into Small Steps: Large projects can be overwhelming and require more resources, budget and time than you can allow. Consider breaking it into phases. For example, with a website, you might start with an audit or homepage refresh in year one, then build consensus and secure the budget to complete the project in future stages.

7. Outsource When Necessary: What routinely falls to the bottom of your list? It might be design, search engine optimization, social media, public relations, awards, CRM/data input or business development coaching/training. You simply can’t do it all, so allocate budget to outsource lower-priority tasks to a trusted service provider.   

8. Always Have an Agenda: Use agendas to set expectations, reinforce strategy and keep meetings on track. If you know someone routinely derails the conversation, step in and steer things back.

9. Recycle Good Ideas: Don’t let a “no” kill a strong idea. Instead, wait for the right champion or another moment when it will be better received and raise it again. Remember, you are the expert. 

10. Create a Marketing Culture: Marketing is not just one person’s job. It should be a part of the firm’s DNA. Onboard staff into the process and empower attorneys to participate.

By staying one step ahead and implementing these strategies, even the smallest marketing team can drive growth.

 

Learn More About Marketing Management and Leadership with the Third Edition of the LMA Body of Knowledge The content in this feature correlates with the Marketing Management and Leadership domain in the LMA Body of Knowledge (BoK). Dive deeper and access the latest edition of the BoK online. The Third Edition of the LMA BoK showcases enhanced expertise across every domain, introduces new competencies in Client Services, Communications and Technology Management, features more advanced skills across all domains and broadens coverage of competitive and business intelligence skills. Plus, it emphasizes a stronger commitment to nurturing diversity, equity, and inclusion across the entirety of the BoK. Learn more.