Law Firm Marketing: Law
Firm Marketing Gone Wrong
SUMMARY
OF THIS ARTICLE:
Ego-driven "fear" and "greed"
promotional tactics are not long-term marketing visions and do not work.
- This can lead to the wrong kind of campaign which can
actually drive clients away.
- Inconsistency between what a firm says it stands for and
what it does breeds distrust and alienation.
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If providing clients with a positive
experience with your firm is the equivalent of excellent marketing, then providing clients
with a negative experience is the equivalent of running a negative ad, because when
clients choose to take their business elsewhere, they often make it their mission in life
to tell the world why.
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Unfortunately, clients may also take their
business elsewhere when marketing is not done at all or is done poorly—when there is
a palpable inconsistency between what a firm says it stands for and what it does. There is
no hiding such an inconsistency, and nothing breeds as much distrust and alienation as not
being who you say you are. Rather than look in the mirror, firms tend to ignore this
issue. In desperation, and possibly in ignorance, firms begin to engage in promotional
tactics that are either unnecessary or manipulative.
Many legal marketers choose to exploit the
emotional dimension of service marketing. While addressing the emotional component makes
sense, the wrong kind of campaign can actually drive clients away.
Campaigns that play on emotional triggers
have dominated the legal landscape in recent years. They are frequently backed by huge
advertising budgets, and they center around campaigns that are designed to appeal to fear,
greed or ego, playing to clients’ vulnerabilities. Each type of campaign is
emotionally driven and problematic in its own way. Campaigns focusing on an appeal to fear
disempower clients; an appeal to greed obsesses them; and an appeal to ego creates in them
a false sense of power. Rarely, if ever, are these approaches effective in the long
run—they appear to work in the beginning, but quickly lose steam and crash.
This article is an excerpt from Marketing the
Legal Mind (LMG Press) by Henry Dahut. Henry Dahut is the founder of www.GotTrouble.com,
a law and financial trouble portal. He can be reached at henry@henrydahut.com and www.henrydahut.com.
This article is reproduced here by Divorce
Marketing Group with their full permission. Copyright - 2007 All Rights Reserved www.HenryDahut.com.This
material is copyrighted and is NOT in the public domain. You may not reproduce or
otherwise publish this material or any part thereof, in any form or manner without prior
written consent of the author.
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