Is your firm “Committed to Mediocrity™”?

Tag lines are hard – a few strategically selected words that encapsulate everything you stand for and want your target audience to know about you. It’s the slogan that tells your own people how to act, what makes them different, and help them bring in business. Does your firm have one? Does it stand out? Is it unique and memorable?

Consider FedEx’s brilliant “When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight.” Nine simple words that tell FedEx buyers precisely what they’re going to get, while simultaneously informing all of its employees what their mission is, and its vital importance.

Law firms tend toward weak platitudes like “Committed to clients” or “Results Matter!” or “When Success Matters!” These vague “we’re totally awesome” statements makes a firm feel good about itself but aren’t specific enough for your lawyers or employees, or differentiating for your target market. They apply equally to nearly every firm in the market (when don’t results matter…?). They’re easy for a committee to agree on (“Good idea; let’s tell people we’re smart!”), but they don’t set you apart in a strategic way that generates revenue. What if FedEx’s slogan was “We mail things!”?

Would Nike be as successful if it allowed a marketing committee to red-pencil “Just do it” into “When you need great shoes”? How would BMW’s vision change if “The Ultimate Driving Machine” became “Your Car Matters!”

Here are law firm tag lines from the Feb-April 2011 issues of Inside Counsel magazine, a publication where many large firms advertise.

• National Firm. Midwest Value.
• Driving Business Advantage.
• The confidence to proceed.
• Canadian Lawyers.
• Deep relationships. Forward thinking. And not just one lawyer. A team.
• More together.
• Top of Mind.
• Singular focus. Outstanding results.
• Intellectual property law by the numbers.
• Driving Business Advantage.

Do you know which law firm is “More together?” Which firm gives you “the confidence to proceed” or “drives business advantage”? How does “Top of Mind” benefit a client?

Here are some examples of brand-related messages we’ve created that are clearer and catchier. They help define the firm internally and externally. They set the tone and help the firm stand out in a meaningful way. They give the lawyers something to say in new-business meetings when the prospects ask, “How is your firm different?”

They act as the platform for a larger campaign that helps the lawyers sell new business. It aids recruiting by defining the personality type and skill set of the laterals they should seek to hire.

Below are twenty law firm tag lines to compare and consider, that support a range of firms, practices, industries, and strategies. They are, of course, just a small part of larger campaigns, but their role can be significant in setting the tone, breaking the ice, and helping create a dialogue. OK, maybe they’re not the nation’s 20 absolute best law firm tag lines, there are some pretty good ones out there, but these are a pretty good start.

Two hours. Period.™

Laner Muchin, Chicago. The world’s most-responsive law firm. A labor and employment boutique where every client phone call is returned within two hours, even less in emergencies.

Seriously Unbelievably Client Service.™

Sandberg Phoenix, St Louis. The nation’s first firm to offer clients a written service guarantee. Their clients rate them an A+ in objective surveys.

Small but mighty.™

Novack and Macey, Chicago. A small litigation powerhouse with an amazing record of success at trial.

The Art of Law.™

Williams Parker, Sarasota, FL. High-quality full-service lawyers targeting a conservative tax and estate-planning audience in arts-oriented Sarasota, FL.

A law firm that really moves.™

Goldberg Simpson, Louisville. A dynamic, entrepreneurial, full-service firm.

Bigger is good. Smarter is better.™

Schopf & Weiss, Chicago. High-powered litigation boutique that beats larger firms by finding the uniquely creative, winning strategy.

Our name is easy to remember. Our work is hard to forget.™

Bryant Miller Olive, Florida. A finance-oriented firm using an “Olive”-themed campaign to generate name recognition (See www.bmolaw.com)

Putting Imagination to Work.™

Shefsky & Froelich, Chicago. An innovative full-service law firm whose culture teaches its lawyers to find the unique solution to its clients’ problems.

Product LiABILITY™

Carlton Fields, Florida. National products liability-specific practice campaign for prominent Florida-based firm.

Ready for Trial.™

Murphy & Hourihane, Chicago. Trial-oriented litigation boutique that declares that they are “Ready for trial” in nearly the first court status call.

Fewer Lawyers. Bigger Impact.™

Massey & Gail, Chicago/DC. Dynamic litigation boutique intending to stay small and highly skilled, with minimal leverage.

Bug Law™

Crosslin Slaten & O’Connor, Alabama. Full-service firm that targeted and dominated the pest control industry.

The Label is as Important as Your Wine.™

FB Rice, Australia. IP practice, brand-protection for the Australian wine industry.

Lawyers You Want to Know.™

Gordon Arata, Louisiana/Texas. Full-service firm with a friendly, client-oriented culture. They handle tough litigation cases, but their clients love them.

Extremely Floridian™

Gray Robinson, Florida. Full-service firm with statewide coverage, and a unique understanding of Florida.

For Litigation Results. Come to our House.™

Hinkhouse Williams Walsh, Chicago. Experienced litigation boutique, building name recognition around its unique name.

Built for Speed.™

Levenfeld Pearlstein, Chicago. Aggressive, full-service firm with especially dynamic leadership.

Vedder Price. Vedder Equipped.™

Vedder Price, Chicago/NY/DC. Practice-specific name-reinforcing campaign for one of the world’s leading Global Transportation Finance practices.

The Lettuce Lawyers.™

Noland Hamerly, California. Full-service firm’s targeted agricultural industry campaign.

We make the complex simple.™

Segal McCambridge, Chicago. National class action defense firm that emphasizes winning at trial by simplifying the issues for the juries in complicated cases.

Consider whether your tag line is equally applicable to your competitors. If it is, your marketing is wasting an opportunity. Take a step back, rethink your strategy, and focus on a message that helps you stand out and achieve measurable ROI for your marketing investment.

MAY 4 UPDATE:

Honored to have been picked up in Non-Sequiturs: 05.04.11 by the must-read Above The Law Blog:

“* Law firm taglines. If I had a firm, mine would be: “If I wouldn’t vote for you, I sure as hell won’t represent you.” But that’s probably why I don’t have a firm. [Ross's Law Marketing Blog]“

A number of years ago, after speaking on marketing and branding at an association of court reporters, we’d received a lot of interest in developing some brand-related ads for smaller, local and regional court reporting companies.

There were a few large national companies that were consolidated collections of smaller companies, but much of the industry was small local companies that couldn’t afford to create the high-quality marketing materials used by the national giants.

At the request of a number of smaller court reporting companies, we developed a series of visually interesting ads and materials with headlines that could be tailored to help smaller firms convey their message and differentiation, like this Steno version.  We license them locally, providing one cost-effective solution to one of their marketing challenges. Here’s one below.  Others are online here. 

If you’re interested in learning more about them, or possibly using them to market your own court reporting service, please contact Ross Fishman at 1-947.432.3546 or moc.gnitekramnamhsifnull@ssor.

Ads and images (c) Copyright 2012 Fishman Marketing, Inc.  All rights reserved.

A number of years ago, we helped launch a dynamic Seattle litigation boutique, The Buck Law Group (the campaign is detailed here.

Led by one of the Northwest’s top trial lawyers, Peter Buck, who had decided to spin off his trial practice from the well-known firm he’d built, Buck & Gordon.  Peter was a great guy, and published an article about his career, including our role in helping strategize and market his new firm.  Quite a gracious comment.

Here’s an excerpt:

   - Peter L. Buck

A “Small but Mighty” firm.

We recently wrote about Hawley Troxell, Idaho’s largest law firm, and the split-image campaign that showed that not only were they big, they were also fast and flexible.  All true.

An ugly website won’t hurt Cravath.
It won’t harm their reputation or prevent their lawyers from getting hired. They’re Cravath - their skills aren’t in question. But when you’re the smaller or less-well-known firm, you have to look at least as good as the big firms. Frankly, I think you need to look better.

Many small firms are insecure.
We’ve often heard small-firm clients insist “Don’t say we’re small!” As though if we didn’t admit it, no one would notice.  You’re SMALL!  Don’t be embarrassed by it, OWN it. Leverage the positive attributes — lean staffing, smaller teams, increased efficiency, more partner involvement, lower hourly rates — there are lots of good messages in a small size.

Novack and Macey likes being small.
They were completely confident in the high quality of their skills.  Led by two of Chicago’s top trial lawyers, Stephen Novack and Eric Macey, they had chosen to be small, it was their foundational strategy and business model.  We selected “Small but Mighty” (yeah, they got the double entendre, get over it…) as the tag line, and illustrated it with things from nature that were disproportionately powerful for their size. Nature’s crazy – we identified a lot of other cool examples.

The first one’s above, a Tepin pepper.  It’s tiny, the size of a pea, but it’s possibly the world’s hottest pepper. It’s a nice metaphor for Novack and Macey’s trial lawyers. Small, but extremely powerful.  When we were hired to develop the branding campaign, they had just finished a brand-new website with a different company, so we simply redesigned the existing home page to add this campaign (above).

With a strong campaign, we worked with their terrific Marketing Partner, Monte Mann, to develop a variety of additional tools, including, e.g. buying wild Tepin peppers from Mexico and private-labeling them, sending out 2500 packets to the firm’s contacts, with a spicy salsa recipe and all the necessary “Don’t touch your eyes!” haz-mat warnings.  A fun and effective giveaway, many years later these are still sitting on executive credenzas all over Chicago.

With this theme, we identified plenty of other visuals, which we explored throughout the campaign.  I’ll detail them later, stay tuned.  And if your firm is ready for an integrated marketing campaign, website, or social media/SEO, give us a call!  moc.gnitekramnamhsifnull@ssor or 1.847.432.3546.

We wrote a few posts regarding the innovative new eye-tracking technology we used to test various Vedder Price marketing campaigns before developing the website for its London office and renowned Global Transportation Finance practice.

“The question wasn’t new for Fishman. He’s been relying on his 20-plus years of experience in the industry and intuition as a onetime commercial litigator to answer the question. But this time Fishman decided to use eye-map technology to support his thoughts.

“The technology, which tracks where a user’s eyes focus first and linger thelongest, is revealing for anyone in marketing. Those in the business take the resulting data as proof of what consumers process when looking at ads, packages, logos and other marketing materials, says Fishman of Highland Park, Ill.

At Fishman Marketing, we’ve been pretty proud of our work over the years.  We’ve represented hundreds of firms in integrated, multi-faceted marketing campaigns — powerful differentiation programs that helped firms of all shapes and sizes dominate their chosen practice, industry, or geographic markets.

Websites, micro-sites, print and electronic advertising campaigns, SEO and social media, public relations — soup to nuts.

Click here to take a look — see if something relates to your firm’s particular situation.  You can sort the results 20 different ways, e.g.:

• tool (e.g. website, advertisement),
• type of project (branding, recruiting, new-office),
• culture/style (e.g. edgy),
• type of firm or practice (litigation, boutique, international),
• industry (oil and gas, forestry, pest control)
• and many more.

All of them come with some background information to put them into context.

Browse around, see if any get your creative juices flowing.  And if you want to discuss them in greater detail (no secrets, obviously), give us a call, any time.

Possibly the best lawyers we’ve ever worked for.

We absolutely love these guys.

The water you’ve been drinking.  And cooking your spaghetti in.  And bathing your children in. And actually, it’s been toxic for maybe 20 years, and your own government knew about it, but never told you.

More poor families are getting help who would otherwise have had no recourse. (They’re usually poor neighborhoods.  As Shawn Collins says, “Rich people don’t have landfills in their backyards.”)

One of the draft ad concepts.

In this branding overhaul, we gave them the TPL name, developed their branding message and strategy, designed the visual platform and a couple different targeted ad campaigns.

We developed their logo/identity, created both a blog and website, handled their public relations, and developed a business-development strategy to get them into social-media conversations with the aggrieved homeowners.

Sure, as a marketing firm, it’s a win for Fishman Marketing every time one of our law firm clients get hired to handle a big piece of litigation, or prominent corporate transaction, or see their revenues skyrocket.

But when Shawn Collins, Norm Berger, Ed Manzke, or Mike Hayes get hired, it means that potentially dozens or hundreds of families won’t be breathing polluted air in their own homes or drinking polluted water much longer.

Sure, we love all of our clients and value the work that they do.

But c’mon, these guys are special. Spread the word.

More creativity is cheaper. 

Stronger visuals cost less.

See this ad?  It’s one previously used by a client, Lorne MacLean, a small firm inVancouver,BC.  Nice guy, great lawyer, handsome photo, and a simple message which is clearly detailed in the text.

The style and structure makes perfect sense, right?  It must, because it’s what most law firms tend to use.  It’s a very common category of law firm marketing materials, both print ads and websites/blogs — uninspired photo and too much text.

Law firms hire a small local agency or web developer, or have their in-house team create something under specific instructions.  It’s a lawyerly “Just the facts, Ma’am” approach, illustrated with a photo of one or more of their lawyers (or one of the 25 standard law firm cliches detailed here.). What could possibly go wrong?

The problem is, it’s a big waste of money.  Although perfectly logical, it fails to accomplish a primary goals of any ad, website, or other visual marketing tool.  It misses on all levels – the visual doesn’t grab the attention of anyone who isn’t actually pictured in the ad or directly related to them. (In this case, Lorne or his Mom, who loves him.)  No one else would notice or care.

If the visual doesn’t grab your prospects they’ll never hang around long enough to read your text or absorb your message.  Want some proof?  What type of law does this firm practice? If you don’t know, the ad’s not working.

Frankly, your firm could run this ad 1000 times and no one would ever notice it.  It’s invisible.  You could read an article directly next to it and your brain would never even register what was directly adjacent.  When you turn the page, it’s gone forever.

 

More than a waste of money, it’s a waste of opportunity.  Firms have very few chances to significantly improve their bottom line; don’t squander them.

Law firms run ads like these all the time, especially smaller firm and those in smaller communities where they don’t encounter as much great marketing that can drive more competition.

Want to see the difference?  Look at the wedding-cake ad.  It’s the same firm and message as the one above — it’s just done better.  It’s more visually impactful — more interesting and creative.  It was actually designed to grab the readers’ attention and be remembered.  And, of course, as a result, it does.

The very first time this ad runs, you’d notice it and remember it.  And if I asked you a year from now, “Do you remember that divorce firm ad?” of course you would remember it.  A great ad doesn’t require multiple insertions before it gets noticed and starts to work.  A bland visual stays bad.  How many visuals do you recall from the last publication you read?  Exactly. Very few, if any.

Standing apart is hard; it takes courage and commitment, and a sophisticated understanding of marketing.

Now compare them in context, below, mocked up together in a print publication.

Which one are you looking at?

Now consider, which variety is your firm running, either in print, or on your website or blog?

Here’s the before-and-after on a website too.

BEFORE:

Google search results are biased toward your geographic location, as well as your personal search history (and language, more on this below).

The same goes for searches for law firms — a search for “Doing business in Brazil” will provide results close to home before providing results all the way in Brazil.

That is, Google knows loosely who you are and what you’ve searched for previously, and helpfully orients its responses to accommodate.  In other words, when conducting identical searches, the responses you receive will differ from someone’s in a neighboring state, as well as the office next door.

Unfortunately, that can give lawyers and firms a false confidence regarding their placement in Google searches.  A firm ranks higher on its own computers than it does on those outside the firm. So a marketing committee can feel that they’re doing pretty well online — when they’re actually not.

In fact, Google searches for phrases like “legal services Brazil,” ”legal services sao paulo,” or “Rio de Janeiro law firm” didn’t show any reference whatsoever to this prominent, award-winning firm until page 8.  When was the last time you looked through to page 8 in a Google search?

It’s not unreasonable for someone in the US looking for a skilled law firm doing business in Brazil to search online.  They might not do that for a major practice in a major US city (e.g. “boston litigation”), but when seeking a professional that far away, Google searches are a viable option, and being on page 3 (or takes a firm completely out of competition.

I was going to be in Brazil in two months to present a few keynote presentations at the LAW annual conference, and we embarked on a 45-day campaign to raise their awareness and Google rankings. 

While our online/digital marketing experts were working behind the scenes on blog development, link-building, keyword maximizing, and other SEO tools, we simultaneously created a visual campaign to increase their connection to Brazil in the minds of their target audiences. 

The Toucan “We have a nose for Brazilian Law” image, above, is one of a series which we are using to illustrate the firm’s new blog, http://www.doingbusinessinbrazil.org/,  (Another “doing business in Brazil“ campaign image using the iconic Corcovado Cristo Redentor statue was designed strictly for use within Brazil.  It’s clever and humorous, but, using religious iconography, it is too un-PC for American sensibilities — you can find it on their main website, HERE.)