Strategic Planning for Marketers: Your Critical Role in Strategy Development and Implementation

Few law firm executives have the potential impact on the success of law firm strategic planning that legal marketing professionals have. You understand market dynamics, have a strong handle on the firm’s competitive position, possess insights into client needs and demands, and have a breadth of knowledge about the firm’s practices and industry experience that is typically unmatched in the firm.

There are five key areas where you, as a legal marketing professional, can contribute the most value to strategic planning committees for both firm and practice group strategic plans.

1. Keeping Strategy Externally Focused

Even in the most sophisticated law firms, the tendency is often to devolve into a process of hashing out internal issues. It is often more in the comfort zone of law firm leaders to discuss compensation structure, associate development issues, technology issues, office space, etc. While these are all important to a firm’s operations, they are not necessarily strategic in nature. True strategy requires looking outward, not inward. It demands rigorous analysis of market position, competitive dynamics, profitable growth opportunities and meaningful differentiation.

Marketers can provide invaluable leadership here. You, more than most, understand how to assess the firm’s market position and identify competitive advantages. You can come to the table with the competitive intelligence necessary for fact-based decision-making. Marketers can highlight the service areas where the firm has the greatest market share and/or the best reputation. You can identify gaps in the market and suggest strategies for the firm to fill those gaps in practice, experience and expertise. You can steer the conversation back to external opportunities when the conversation inevitably swerves toward internal items.

To be clear, internal systems often need to be addressed in strategic plans. For example, if the firm decides to create a greater emphasis on business development, but the partner compensation system is heavily weighted toward personal production (rather than business generation), the compensation system will likely need some tweaks. However, only after the external strategic goals have been agreed upon will it be time to discuss and decide whether the firm’s internal systems and resources are aligned with those goals.

2. Distinguishing Between Business Strategy and Brand Strategy

Business strategy and brand strategy are critical to a firm’s continued growth and success. However, the business strategy must come first. It is common for strategic planning committees, when discussing external opportunities and differentiation, to go right to a discussion on brand strategy and excitedly start to come up with catchy (or not so catchy) taglines.

Goals around brand strategy often arise out of strategic planning processes, and there is some overlap between strategic planning and brand strategy. However, brand strategy development is very challenging without a clear, guiding strategic direction in place for the business: where will the firm invest in growth — geographically, practice-wise, talent-wise? How will the firm grow — through mergers, lateral acquisitions, or organically?

Marketing professionals can clarify when business strategy discussions creep into the territory of brand development or refinement. They can clarify the attributes and application of both types of strategy and keep the committee focused on making business decisions first.

3. Leveraging Client Intelligence for Strategic Advantage

Ideally your firm has a client listening program in place. Utilizing information solicited from clients is an essential part of developing a strategic plan. Your program should seek to identify:

• The firm’s strengths and weaknesses
• Clients’ needs in the coming years
• Client preferences for the delivery of legal services (including the use of AI and other emerging technologies)
• Clients’ perceptions of the firm’s brand attributes and which are most valuable to them

Interviews might reveal that clients are consolidating their outside counsel, creating urgency around relationship-deepening strategies. Focus groups may reveal emerging needs in an area where a firm has nascent capabilities, providing substantiation for talent acquisition goals. Utilizing an evidence-based approach makes strategic decisions easier to sell to the entire partnership.

Consider a firm that conducted systematic client interviews and discovered that its largest clients were increasingly concerned about regulatory compliance in a particular industry sector. The firm had relevant expertise but had never positioned itself around this issue. This client intelligence directly informed the strategic plan, leading to targeted capability development, strategic lateral hires and a focused marketing campaign. Within two years, the firm had established itself as a go-to resource in this area — all because marketers brought client insights to the strategic planning process.

Marketing professionals should advocate for engaging in client feedback programs to inform strategic decision-making. Whether the process identifies patterns and trends or it identifies specific, viable opportunities, the value added to the process is immeasurable.

4. Understanding Financial and Profitability Metrics

Marketing professionals who understand the law firm’s economics and profitability multiply their value to strategic planning exponentially. I recall years ago, when serving as a law firm director of marketing in an Am Law 100 firm, one of our team members who joined us from an Am Law 20 firm argued vehemently that marketers did not need to understand law firm financials. I could not disagree more. When marketing professionals can speak knowledgeably about practice area profitability, realization rates, pricing, client profitability and the economics of origination versus production, they transform from tactical marketers into strategic business advisors.

Financial literacy allows marketers to contribute meaningfully to discussions of strategic growth priorities. Should we invest in practices that have razor-thin margins due to rate pressure, lack of leverage or inefficient delivery? Should we maintain relationships with marquis clients that are unprofitable or break-even at best? Should we bolster a small practice area that is highly profitable with additional investments in talent and marketing? Participating in these important conversations also allows marketers and their teams to have more leverage in saying no to burdensome marketing and business development requests from underperforming partners or practice areas.

Understanding financials also allows marketers to identify risks for the strategic planning committee. If clients in a particular practice say they are satisfied, but the firm has experienced declining realization rates, there may be a longer-term problem that should be considered. If another practice area is growing rapidly but is experiencing declining margins, it may indicate commoditization in that practice, requiring a strategic response.

Finally, in firms without pricing professionals, marketing professionals are typically on the front lines of pricing for pitches, proposals and RFP responses. They know firsthand of opportunities where areas of improvement exist in determining the price for new engagements and can suggest solutions for a more rigorous pricing process.

5. Implementation: The True Test of a Plan’s Success

In the end, the true test of a successful strategic plan is in the implementation of its strategies and tactics; and the reality is, marketing professionals will be responsible for much of this. They will develop go-to-market plans and messaging for new practices and offices. They will create campaigns to support market share expansion efforts. They will design and implement programs to deepen client relationships and improve cross-selling. They will develop and implement the brand strategy to support reputation and business growth.

By participating in strategic planning initiatives, marketing professionals can manage expectations by providing realistic timelines for implementation and measuring results. They can advocate for adequate resources and identify specific challenges or barriers to success. They can begin implementing tactics even as the plan is being finalized to ensure a seamless transition, from planning to execution, and demonstrate some early wins.

Moving Forward

For marketing professionals seeking to establish themselves as strategic partners, the path forward requires ongoing skill development and proactive engagement. Develop your competitive intelligence capabilities. Invest in understanding your firm's financials. Design and implement robust client feedback programs. Then use these competencies to demonstrate your strategic value.

Your implementation responsibilities give you not just the right but the obligation to be a key contributor to the strategic planning committee. Hopefully, your firm not only recognizes the unique value you bring to the table but also understands that it cannot afford to not have you be a crucial part of the planning process.