Law firms can and should coordinate their business development and blogging initiatives to generate more clients. Many law firms often silo these functions while focusing primarily on content marketing to build brand awareness and generate inbound inquiries — and less on business development to find and secure new client engagements.
Notably, 87% of marketers believe alignment between sales and marketing is important for business growth. An article in NYTLicensing provides some interesting observations about the importance of coordinating business development and marketing and how it can be done. As the article details, a significant percentage of the global adult population (and by extension, lawyers) use the internet regularly. Important for lawyers to know is — 55% of decision makers use content to vet future partners and vendors — and 47% have shared contact details in exchange for thought leadership.
Blogging for law firms is important because the general counsel and other purchasers of legal services often search the internet before making decisions about who to work with on matters where they may need to make an external legal spend. Therefore, a widely read blog with useful content becomes important for firms to distinguish themselves amid a sea of competitors. Too, content can help create knowledge of your firm’s brand and expertise — for when business development initiatives contact your key audiences.
And business development is equally important because it serves as the engine which organizes and pushes forward efforts to engage specific potential clients around representation and renumeration. Without well-functioning business development, law firms will realize fewer new client engagements. Many of the functions and goals of blogging and business development overlap. Combining these efforts, therefore, should be a high priority for law firms.
Effectively coordinate legal business development and blogging
To effectively coordinate between marking and business development, firms should identify what content business development would like to see produced by the content team – which they believe will not only attract inbound inquiries, but which also will be used by business development in outbound initiatives. Firms should ensure they also develop an editorial calendar that commits the content team to dedicating regular resources to topics identified as important by business development. Content teams will already be producing content about partner hires, events, and other PR related matters. So, this extension into coordinating with business development will not be disruptive to marketing time or resources. And it will also help tie content teams into participation in business development return on investment (ROI) gains.
With these initiatives in place, content marketing and business development will be able to work together more effectively and generate more client leads and more client signs. I have specialized in both legal business development and blogging for law firms for most of my career. Based on my experience, I understand how to effectively combine business development and blogging for the benefit of lawyers and their law firms.
If you would like to discuss how I might help your firm integrate business development and blogging effectively, please contact me.
