1) Define your specialty within your larger practice areas. Although you may be capable of practicing in multiple areas of the law, you will have greater success in building a magnetic brand when you narrow your focus and become known as the “go to” person in your specialty. If you practice in the area of Intellectual Property, think “copyright specialist” for the entertainment industry instead of copyright and trademark lawyer for all industries.
2) Be clear about your target market. While you may be capable of serving “everyone” who needs your services within your specialty, you cannot market to everyone without a marketing budget the size of companies like Coca-Cola. For the greatest return from your marketing investment of time and resources, define your target audience and create messages designed to make an emotional connection with that specific audience. Use keywords, key phrases and key images to make the connection.
When selecting your target market, consider the following factors: (i) Who needs you the most? (ii) Who can afford to pay for you? and (iii) What is the mindset of your ideal clients? (e.g, visionary, risk-adverse, fearless, cautious, etc.) Each of these elements is important in narrowing your target market audience to a great fit.
3) Pay attention to the business model and offerings of those in your market in order to increase your competitive advantage. Your competitive advantages can result from enhanced client service via expedited response times; client-centric deliverables through product and service combinations and alternative billing.
4) Distill basic facts into information based products that can be sold for profit or given away as lead generation tools. Books, mini-guides and template/forms compilations are great examples of ways to package basic information that work well for lawyerpeneurs. Developing collections of information-based products is also useful because it make it easier create service and products packages that distinguish your business from others in your market.
5) Use social media and social networking strategies and techniques to create a “digital word of mouth” buzz. A thoughtful and strategic social media campaign will lead to “digital word of mouth buzz” that will systematically drive traffic to your webhubs (i.e., websites and blogs). Well-designed webhubs will lead your social networking buddies through a systematic process that converts them from buddies to clients.
