It’s all important: Legal work, client relations (internal marketing), cold market (outside) marketing, community relations, admin, CLE, and more.
My guess is you prioritize billable work, but don’t always do enough of the marketing.
Including market research. Understanding your target market and the people in it. Including your competition.
I suggest you allocate time to study your competition. It can help you do everything else better.
Study the firms in your market or niche. See what they’re doing well and what they could improve.
Start with a visit to their website. Is it professional looking, up-to-date, and informative? Does it sell visitors on the value of taking “the next step”?
Look at the structure and content of their website, review their offers, sales copy, and lead magnets.
What do they do to get visitors to call them, follow them, sign up for their next event, or subscribe to their newsletter?
Do they have a blog? How often do they publish? How long are their posts? What do they write about?
Do they have a podcast, make videos, do seminars, or speak at live events?
How do they position themself in the market? What do they say about their capabilities? What services and niches do they focus on or do they not focus at all? What do they say about you (their competition)?
Spend a couple of hours reading their content, follow them on social media, and subscribe to their newsletter. Immerse yourself in their marketing and what they do to promote their services.
Make sure you also check out their reviews (and endorsements) and see what others say about them.
While you’re at it, see if you can figure out which keywords they target in their marketing.
Study your (strongest) competition. What can you learn, what can you do that they do, what can you do better?
Take notes and study them again next year to see what they’ve changed or added.
They are your strongest competition for a reason. Do yourself a favor and find out why.
