LIGHTENING MARKETING

Does Marketing Come In The Economy Size?

            During World War II there was a great, and now famous, cartoon by Bill Mauldin. A battle-scarred GI Joe is saying to a medic, "I already got a Purple Heart. Can I just get a Band-Aid?"

            Marketing, too, sometimes calls for massive and heroic measures. But often, it really just calls for a Band-Aid. Often, what's needed is not the elaborate marketing operation, but instead, a lightning strike that accomplishes the simple, single marketing objective.

            Anyone with any training or education in marketing knows all the rules. The full court press. Market research. The full-fledged marketing program. The complete array of marketing tools, including brochures, public relations, articles, speeches and seminars, and probably even advertising. It's total, saturated, complete wraparound marketing.

            There's nothing wrong with this approach, and in fact, it's most often the best way to look at marketing -- so long as it all stems from the firm's own objectives.

            But what if the firm's objectives are not as long-range, or as elaborate, as that? What if the firm's marketing objectives set the sights on a less ambitious --  or even less expensive -- goal?

            What if the time frame is much shorter than is warranted by a larger program? Does current marketing experience and skill and wisdom allow for that?       

It certainly does. There are many things you can do to achieve a simple marketing or firm objective.

The Full Program Vs. The Lighting Strike

            All of the lessons of marketing that call for the full scale program are true -- if the firm's own objectives call for ...

·        Long-term growth, particularly in several practice areas

·        Substantially increasing the firm's size

·        Moving out in several practice areas at once, either through acquisition of practices or growing specific capability or expertise internally

·        Changing the nature of the practice, in terms of such factors as practice areas or techniques, clientele, geographic considerations, economic levels of the clientele

·        Investing large sums of money to substantially change all of these factors about the firm

            Still, there are those circumstances when all you want to do might achieve such valid objectives as...

·        Making an immediate impact in a new market, or new market area

·        Establishing the expertise of a specific partner or practice group in a specific specialty

·        Making a quick impact in a market for the fewest possible dollars

·        Getting a bunch of new clients quickly, particularly in a specific industry or geographic area

·        Achieving controlled and incremental growth, by design, or to avoid outgrowing the ability to handle volumes of new business

            There are other factors that might well limit the ability to launch the broad scale program, or to make that approach unwise or uneconomical, such as...

·        Too few partners willing to participate in -- or devote time to –appropriate marketing efforts

·        Lack of availability of trained marketing professionals in your affordable range

·        Time constraints, such as the need to bring in new clients quickly to make up for the unexpected loss of a major client

These are, of course, only a few of the circumstances or conditions that warrant lightening marketing -- the quick marketing fix. There are certainly others.

How Does It Work?

           First, you should recognize four basic elements of lightening marketing...

It does take a certain amount of planning. Not the elaborate 20 or 40 page document of the larger program, but a clear idea of what you want to accomplish and what you're going to do to accomplish it

            Second, there's a measure of triage involved. Since you can't do everything that you might want to do to accomplish even the simplest goals, you're going to have to go bare bones -- to eliminate some bells and whistles.

            Reputation, in the normal sense of marketing, is not of the essence here. Presumably, your firm is sound and reputable. But in this kind of marketing, firm name recognition alone won't help you much, one way or the other. Building a reputation for the single skill, in the single market you're aiming for, will help That's what lightening marketing is about.

            Third, you have six partners, with specialties in six practice areas, and a sufficient number of clients in many of those areas to constitute some kind of potential niche. The tendency is to move out at once, serving all of the partners in all of their practice areas, with at least some kind of marketing program. Forget it. You can’t do it.

            Fourth, lightening marketing is just that – the short, sharp stroke, and not the sustaining effort. It does, however, take a reasonable time to work.

            Start out by picking one specialty in one practice area. You can always expand later. You choose by considering...

·        Your own perception of potential market. True, you should do some market research. Certainly, you have some sense of what the market for that service is.

·     You have clients, you have available census figures, you have pragmatic observations of what other firms are doing. But while more extensive market research might be invaluable, you're going to have to give it up for the short term. Don't worry about it. Trust your own observations and instincts.

·        The ability and willingness of the relevant partner or partners to participate in the program. You can have the best plan and the best marketing skills, but if the responsible partner sees the effort as little more than an intrusion on his or her time, or sees marketing as something that somebody else does in his or her behalf, then forget it. Nothing you do is going to work.

·        The competitive strength you have in that practice area or industry. If your choice of marketing arena is based upon your wish list, and not on a realistic assessment of your ability to serve the market as well as -- or preferably, better than -- your competitors, then forget it. Nothing will work. Inherent in this, of course, is the competitive picture itself. If six other firms are doing intellectual property law in a community with little high tech industry, you'd better have a realistic assessment of how you're going to compete against entrenched firms. You may want to, and you may even be able to over the long run, but this isn't the long run. Save that battle for another time.

·        The marketing opportunities. Look at the tools available to you (publicity, direct mail, articles, speeches, seminars, etc.) and see if you can reach a large enough target audience in the shortest time to make an impact. For example, if you think a seminar is what you need, but everybody else is doing a seminar, then forget it. If you think by-line articles are what will work best, be sure you have the right publications available to you to go that route.

·        Dollars. It may not take a lot, but it will take some. When you know what you want, and you know what you have to do to get what you want, figure out how much it will cost. Then ask two questions -- can we afford that kind of expenditure, and will we get a decent return on investment, in terms of achieving the objectives.

·        Expectations. Most important. What can you realistically expect from your efforts? Will your objectives be met? Are they realistic? How will you measure the results? You can have the best program in the world, but if your expectations for it are unrealistic, in terms of what it takes to make the program succeed and how you define success, then there's no way you can succeed. And expectations should be clearly defined at the very beginning, not after the exercise is started.

            Who's going to do it? Is it something you can do yourself, or will you need outside professional help? And if you do have to go outside, will it take an agency? A consultant? A free lancer? Who runs the project? How much will it cost?

             In other words, just because it's a lighting effort rather than a larger scale effort, you're not absolved from the need to think it through beforehand.

What Can You Do?     

            With the objective in mind, and a clear understanding of the factors outlined, choose the appropriate tools, from among the many options.

            Remember, your choice should be realistic, in terms of what will work best, what you can do, what will accomplish the most in the least time.

            Remember also that while there are always a great many more things that can be done than you can do, choose wisely. It's triage -- save the patient most likely to survive.

            Look at some of the options...

·        Publicity. You can do a full scale publicity campaign, if you've got the money, the staff, or the agency. Or you can choose one or two activities that are within your capability and budget. For example, a simple, straightforward press release may give you just the impact you need. Or you may want the power of a by-line article in a publication that's read and respected by your target audience. Or you may have just the idea that would excite an editor of an appropriate publication to interview you. If you're doing it yourself, don't be intimidated by all the rules of publicity. The publications you're concerned with will appreciate what you have to say if it's within the interests of their readers. You don't need a press release to impart a straightforward bit of news -- a phone call or a letter will do. You don't need a PR professional to call an editor to ask if he or she would be interested in an article that would tell his readers about a simplified approach to understanding a complex legal matter. Understand that the media's job is to serve its audience -- not to serve public relations professionals.

·        Seminars. If the subject is right, and the audience is there, you can put together a simple seminar. Don't confuse a free seminar with one to which you charge admission. A paid seminar is expensive, and may go beyond what's needed to establish your expertise and reputation for your target audience. Keep it simple, focused, and clear. But remember the seminar has two jobs -- to get the prospects into a context in which they can see your expertise at first hand, and to allow you to build personal relationships with those that attend. If getting simple training in selling skills will, do it, get the training. Just make sure that you take your training from somebody who knows the difference between selling a service and selling a product. Each requires different skills.

·        Direct mail. It works if your target audience is defined, if your message is geared to a specific problem the prospect might have (and not just to what you want to sell), and if you're prepared to follow up. Unlike product marketing, nobody buys legal or accounting services from a sales letter. All your letter can do is get you the appointment to discuss your service, and presumably, to sell it.

·        Advertising works, but only if it's done professionally, if it's part of a larger program, if you're prepared to follow up. Can it work in a triage situation? Yes, but only if what you're selling is so distinctive, and so focused on the solution to a very tough problem, and so far ahead of competition, that it's impossible to ignore.

            The limits of what you can do are not the limits of formal marketing, but of your own imagination. There are no rules so cast in stone that they can't be broken effectively by an imaginative professional, but one. Focus. Don’t be distracted, no matter how tempted you are. Don’t dilute the effort, all of which should go directly to the heart of the target.

            Which is not to say that the skills and experience of the professional marketer are not of themselves invaluable. But lightening marketing is usually do-it-yourself marketing, and you may not have the time or the money to avail yourself of professional help.

            Does it work? But isn't that how today's largest firms got that way from being yesterday's smallest firms?

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