One of the largest law firms in the Bay Area had a problem. They had a 5-person marketing department but only a handful of the 100 lawyers knew what they needed from marketing or what any marketing person could do for them. Lawyers (no offense intended – we’ve done work for many) tend to be like big cats – they hunt alone, keep their clients close and defend their territory with vigilance.
The marketing department at this large firm tried to offer support but often met with resistance except to be party planners for a firm client event. Although marketing people can and often do end up in that role, it was not the best use of their time. We were brought in to create and implement a plan that would both educate the lawyers on the benefits of the marketing department and create customized programs to bring in more new big clients with outreach.
We started by creating an Intranet in a visual format with top priority as UX for the lawyers. It had to be easy, visual and fast. We produced materials and samples that visually described marketing activities available to the lawyers. And, we made it easy for them to reach out to us by sending a daily “marketing update” email where they could choose support or materials they needed from us that week. We delivered. It was a bit like a drive-thru…
The take away: Our project was our audience. Our audience was the internal staff (in this case, lawyers). We had to adapt to their way of getting information. Not all marketing projects reach outside the organization. Some have to dig deep within to meet the ultimate end result – which was new client business.
