Why Positioning in Law Firm Marketing Matters
Positioning is one of those little-known and less understood law firm marketing ingredients that can make a very big difference in the success of your law firm marketing approach.
But only if it is done well.
Positioning gets its name from the role it plays in law firm marketing. In essence, positioning is the unique place your firm carves out for itself in your area of practice.
- It is the perception your firm wants to instill in the client’s mind.
- It defines how your services are different from and how they are like the competition
- It spells out what place you hold in the competitive landscape.
In essence it defines how you practice your particular area of law and why clients should choose you (by the way, you can have more than one positioning statement if your firm practices more than one area of law).
The biggest mistake law firm’s make with positioning
As I mentioned above, positioning is only valuable to your law firm marketing strategy if it is done well.
All too often, positioning in law firm marketing is used to make your firm look, sound and act like every other law firm in your field of practice.
Like many business people, attorneys sometimes think there is only one “right” way to position themselves in the minds of clients.
The problem is if you look, sound and act like every other firm, you give clients no reason to choose you. In fact, if all firms were exactly alike, there would be no reason to choose at all. One firm would be the same as the next.
One has only to look in the window of the nearest vending machine to see that positioning of what seem like very similar products can make all the difference.
Who doesn’t see a difference between Coke and Pepsi? In fact, they are nearly identical products, but the perception we have of them is very different.
The truth is that there are unique reasons why clients should choose your firm.
- Perhaps it is because you specialize in a little-served niche that no one else serves.
- Perhaps yours is a personal injury firm with long-standing connections to the automotive industry that enable you to settle sooner and for a higher amount.
- Perhaps you serve as an elder care advocacy firm and you make a point of getting to know your clients on a personal level.
In each of those cases, there was something unique about the firm that would be meaningful to the end client. And that is the point.
If you want to up-level the message you deliver about your firm and increase the return on your law firm marketing investment, spend some time clarifying your law firm marketing positioning.
In my next blog, I will share some proven questions to help you define your positioning.
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