High-tech Marketing: Using Technology for Practice Development-part I

• Publication year: 1997
• Pages: 31
• Citation: Vol. 26 No. 4 Pg. 31

26 Colo.Law. 31 Colorado Lawyer 1997.

1997, April, Pg. 31. High-Tech Marketing: Using Technology for Practice Development-Part I

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31

Vol. 26, No. 4, Pg. 31

The Colorado Lawyer
April 1997
Vol. 26, No. 4 [Page 31]

Specialty Law Columns
Automation Annotations
High-Tech Marketing: Using Technology for Practice Development--Part I
by Sandy Ramlet

Marketing, a word that hardly was uttered in most law firms a decade ago, is now recognized as an important component of all healthy practices. From the solo general practitioner who works out of his or her home to the specialized practitioner in a large law firm, lawyers feel pressure to bring business in the door. Attorneys, once skeptical of marketing, also have been skeptical of using technology to enhance their practices. That, too, is changing. Lawyers are looking to technology as a tool for increasing the efficiency of their marketing efforts. High tech tools can improve the consistency, quality and breadth of a lawyer's business development activities

Relationship Marketing

Marketing is a broad term that encompasses all activities required for a lawyer or law firm to provide necessary services to their clients in a profitable way. Many activities fall under this spacious umbrella. Among them are advertising, public relations, brochures, newsletters publishing, public speaking, networking, and client service The terminology sometimes makes marketing seem more foreign or difficult than it really is. In fact, the core of marketing is relationships.

Clients are people. Lawyers are hu-man beings, too. Successful marketing is the matching of a person with a problem or need to a lawyer who can solve the problem or meet the need. For that to happen, the lawyer has to get to know people who have problems he or she can solve, and individuals with legal problems must come to an awareness of who, specifically, can help them. The rest is chemistry.

Take the hypothetical example of a wealthy widow and an attorney, Mary Goodwill. How can Wealthy Widow hire Ms Goodwill to update her estate plan if she has never heard of Ms. Goodwill? She needs to have a relationship. If she knows who Ms. Goodwill is, what will increase the likelihood that she retains her? The quality of that relationship. What builds relationships? Communication. The more the widow knows about Ms. Goodwill, the more likely it is that she will call her. By the same token, what if Wealthy Widow knows Ms. Goodwill and thinks she is a...