A marketing plan should focus not on the firm, but on the individual practice. When this is done effectively, not only does the plan work, but this kind of program redounds to the entire firm.

Despite thousands of dollars spent on research about why people choose one professional service firm rather than another, we still know remarkably little. Professional services are, to a large extent, too amorphous to respond to simple motivation, but there are some reasonable surmises that can be made, based on both logic and experience.

Professional services marketing is not a litany of mechanics. It's a process that's designed to bring a firm and its prospective clientele together. More than just accumulating clients, the effective marketing program helps shape and secure a practice that's relevant to the dynamic needs of both the firm and the clients it serves.

They First Put In Charge Of Mailing Lists If the computer hadn't been invented, professional services marketers would have had to invent it. We depend so much, after all, on knowledge and data, and manipulating it, and accessing it, that we couldn't get past 10 A.M. without the computer to help do it all for us. '

Here's a little secret about professional services marketing. It always comes down to selling the individual clients ' one by one. And it doesn't matter if your firm is the largest or the smallest. You can talk about strategies, image, niche marketing and branding. You can talk about articles, brochures, press releases and seminars. But it always comes down to selling the individual clients ' one by one.

From major corporations, and both small and large public relations firms, comes a stream of so-called releases and other material that's so inept, and so primitive, that you must ultimately realize that those who do it right must have a vast array of skills, talents and imaginative energy. It must be difficult, because how could it be simple when so many people do it wrong? And of course, the client pays the high price of doing it wrong.

The Differences Between Marketing a Product and Marketing a Law Firm ' And Why It Matters The problem with a lot of law firm marketing is that too many marketers are still using traditional product marketing techniques, as they are taught in business schools, and ignoring the distinctive realities of law firm marketing as opposed to product marketing. But the differences between marketing a profession and marketing a product are profound. The result is that a'

Would You Buy a Used Car from This Ad? One of the great exercises in frustration is trying to get some sell into an ad, a Web site, a brochure, or any of the social media for a law or accounting firm. Anyone whose experience resides in promotion in any of these media tends to gravitate towards the hard sell ' to channel those wonderful TV pitchmen. And you can bet that it's the way'