Marketing isn’t an afterthought. It’s a strategic function. And yet, many law firms still sideline the very people they’ve brought in to help them grow.
Let’s be honest: most mid-sized B2B law firms still treat marketing like admin – a “make this look pretty” exercise that delivers minimal impact. As a result, it is often handed off to the office manager who “knows Canva” or the junior associate “who is good with LinkedIn.” And when experienced marketers are brought on board, they are given a shoebox of freedom and no seat at the table.
That’s because reputation, referrals, and trusted networks do matter. In fact, they are the foundation of your firm’s success. However, today’s clients are not as likely to just take the word of a colleague anymore. They do their own homework, which means they are Googling your firm, checking out individual lawyers, reading your articles, and comparing you to competitors. And they do all that before they make the first call.
Marketing isn’t just about finding new clients outside your network. It’s also about strengthening your credibility and visibility within the existing network. Your digital presence is a living, breathing part of your firm’s reputation. As such, you need experts to manage it – marketing experts.
How Real Marketers Turn Legal Expertise Into Business Growth
Marketing isn’t about posting on LinkedIn once in a while or adding a new partner to your website. It’s an important business function that requires specialists who know the rules of the game.
Marketing professionals can:
- Crystallize your firm’s positioning and tone of voice. They help you clearly define what makes your firm unique and translate that into messaging that resonates with your ideal clients. No more generic “strategic partner” and “leading firm” buzzwords that blend your firm into the background.
- Align branding across all channels. Whether it’s your website, social media, newsletters, or industry conferences, consistency builds trust and recognition. Marketers ensure every touchpoint is optimized for seamless user experience and that it reflects your firm’s values and unique selling points.
- Unify metrics and analytics. It’s easy to track likes or newsletter open rates. Real marketers dig deeper. They measure what drives new business, track lead sources, implement A/B testing strategies to get insights, and so on. Then, they adjust tactics based on data.
- Evaluate and amplify your firm’s thought leadership. While marketers may not have the legal expertise needed to create the in-depth, complex content that lawyers produce, their value lies in making that content more engaging and visible. They can skillfully edit and package your insights to resonate with your target audience, automate distribution, and repurpose content to maximize reach, turning one article into multiple touchpoints that keep your firm visible and relevant.
Without Consistency, Marketing Is Just Noise
One-off LinkedIn posts or occasional event participation won’t do much for building or strengthening your firm’s reputation. Marketing, as a tool to amplify your brand, is a discipline that thrives on consistency.
This means developing a content calendar that outlines topics, deadlines, and channels, having dedicated resources and budget to execute the plan reliably, collecting and analyzing performance data to refine the strategy over time, building relationships with partners like legal publications, conference producers, and industry organizations, and so on.
Without this kind of consistent, strategic effort, marketing efforts will be ignored by your audience.
Good Marketing Gets Visibility. Great Marketing Gets the Right Visibility.
Visibility alone should not be the goal. Your firm can appear in every local or regional publication, but if it fails to reach key decision-makers in your target sectors, you are wasting what little time and energy you have left after a day of legal work and team meetings.
Effective marketing zeroes in on such key elements as:
- Who your ideal clients are. What are their pain points? How do they go about selecting their partners? What are they trying to achieve?
- Where they spend time and attention. Do they read specific trade publications, attend particular conferences, or engage on LinkedIn?
- How to position your firm as the ultimate solution. What types of content do they engage with? What pain points should be addressed in conference presentations?
Good marketing amplifies your firm’s visibility. Great marketing amplifies that visibility within a precisely defined market segment and turns it into credibility and engagement.
Give Marketers a Seat at the Table
If you’ve hired a marketer with real experience, don’t just give them a laundry list of tasks. Give them a seat at the table. The same way your clients trust your legal expertise, you need to trust the marketing expertise you’ve brought in.
Marketers aren’t just there to “make it look nice” or chase LinkedIn likes. They’re there to help your firm grow, shape your brand’s perception by the market, clarify your positioning, and ensure that your expertise actually reaches the right people.
So listen to their ideas. Ask their opinion. Involve them in leadership conversations. Let them challenge outdated assumptions and push your firm forward.
By Saida Ayupova, Founder, Five-o-eight
