Creating an effective marketing plan is essential to your firm’s success. It can generate awareness, educate prospects and clients, and drive new business to the firm. But crafting a marketing plan is more than adding all of the cool new advertising techniques you learned on YouTube to a PowerPoint presentation. Follow these five steps to create a marketing plan for your law firm that will make a noticeable impact.

1.  Understand your firm’s goals

A marketing budget doesn’t start with marketing, it starts with the firm’s goals and objectives.

A marketing plan that aligns with the firm’s goals will directly support the firm’s objectives for the year, as well as its growth.

Questions to ask:

• What is the firm hoping to accomplish in 1, 3, and 5 years?
• What goals has the firm established for the coming year?
• What problems are firm management hoping to fix?

2.  Create marketing goals

Determine how marketing can support the firm to reach its goals.

Clearly articulating how the marketing department is contributing to the firm’s goals shows the value marketing brings to the firm.

Questions to ask:

• How can marketing help the firm reach its goals?
• What is the marketing department hoping to accomplish in 1, 3, and 5 years?
• Where is there room for growth?

3.  Select the right marketing strategies

Utilize both proven and innovative marketing initiatives when creating your marketing plan.

Use your ideal client profile to select marketing strategies that will deliver the most marketing value for the money you spend.

Questions to ask:

• What is happening in your industry?
• What innovative ideas are being implemented outside your industry?
• What untapped opportunities exist?
• What competitive advantages do you have?
• Which activities best create awareness, educate your audience, and communicate your firm’s value?
• What projects get you closest to meeting your goals?

4.  Determine what success looks like

Define the key performance indicators (K.P.I.s) that tie your strategies back to your marketing goals. 

K.P.I.s are quantifiable data that are used to identify specific objectives of a campaign, indicate the progress during a campaign, and measure the effectiveness at the end of a campaign.

Questions to ask:

• How do you associate marketing performance with established firm goals?
• What metrics accurately evaluate the outcomes of marketing initiatives?
• How will you obtain the data to monitor your K.P.I.s?

5.  Analyze and adjust

Measuring and monitoring the performance of your marketing initiatives is critical to your success.

Execution of the marketing plan isn’t the end. It is crucial to evaluate the outcomes of your initiatives and make the appropriate adjustments to meet or exceed your goals.

Questions to ask:

• What projects are getting you closest to meeting your goals?
• Which initiatives are underperforming and should be adjusted or eliminated?
• Where did you have a great R.O.I.?