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'Competitive Intelligence:' CI Is Another Tool in Marketing's Arsenal for Practice Group Planning

By Patricia Ellard
April 01, 2018

It's the budgeting and planning time of year. And, if the legal industry literature is anything to go by, strategies are in for law firms. A well-defined and well-communicated strategy provides a tangible way for law firms to identify their strengths and differentiators. Once firms have determined their identity and how they want to communicate that to the market, practice and industry groups create business development plans around executing that strategy. This usually includes reviewing client targets (existing and potential), evaluating events and sponsorships to determine which ones gain most exposure, and looking for new opportunities to showcase firm expertise. Marketers are well aware of this fact and have been working with practice and industry groups toward this end-goal for a long time. The emergence of competitive intelligence (CI) functions in law firms provides marketers and business development professionals with another arsenal in their toolkit.

Below are three ways CI professionals can help advance your strategic initiatives:

  1. Include them in key meetings.
  2. Practice group plan support.
  3. Individual plan implementation.

Include Your CI Professional

We've talked before about the value of relationships. Relationships = visibility. Inviting the CI professional to participate in practice or industry groups helps them get to know the lawyers involved and understand the group's priorities. Include them on group emails, invite them to meetings, introduce them to practice group leadership. By doing this, you will not only provide a united front from the marketing team, but you'll provide the lawyers with a go-to resource for knowledge building.

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