Closing the Gap between what law firms buy and clients sell
- James Markham
- 3 days ago
- 2 min read
"Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, the trouble is I don't know which half" is a quote from John Wanamaker, a US merchant and department store pioneer
And now (some 100 years later!) O Shaped's recent Legal Buyers Report gives a decent indication of which half is which - noting the echo on page 21 the 45% of law firm M&BD efforts that have no or negative impact
The 50-55% that works:
- p32 - showing curiousity and interest in the client's business, beyond the legal work
- p64 - relatedly, being proactive
- p36 - bringing more junior members of the team to pitches and meetings
- p48 - 82% positive response to the impact of innovation
- p52 - 83% are positively influenced by recommendation from other inhouse counsel
And what doesn't:
- p33 - sense of entitlement to receive work, just for being on a panel
- p43 - sending irrelevant content to clients
- p42 - 43% of legal content marketing has no impact (but which 43%, Wanamaker...?)
- p57 - lack of honesty around fees (note also BigHand's recent survey on this point around fee transparency as well)
- pp72 - 71% say that cross selling has no or negative impact
The report is particularly illuminating for the quotes, more than the stats, and
whilst I've summarised the above for brevity, one quote I particularly liked was on p44:
"Whilst we [the client] know our business incredibly well, they [the law firm] know our sector really well – and that really adds value.”
I thought this captured the broader value in the client/firm relationship rather well. Law firms are not competing to know the business better than the people working in said business (although, some curiousity here would be good!), nor should they be cross-selling from a boiler plate list of services
But offering insight around the broader trends in the client's sector is appreciated, valuable and deepens the relationship
Link to the report below, well worth a read:
