Common Mistakes to Avoid in a Law Firm Marketing Plan

Here are a few tips to get you started in writing a productive attorney marketing plan.

How long should an attorney marketing plan be?

Answer: As long as it needs to be. This may sound flip, but it's not. If you can cover all the material needed to fully describe your lawyer marketing plan in 2-3 pages, that's great. If you need more space, that's OK too.

Basically, your marketing plan should be short enough that you want to keep it handy for frequent reference. A long, overly detailed marketing plan that quickly gets buried in a filing cabinet is not beneficial.

Common mistakes to avoid in a law firm marketing plan

1. Failure to specifically identify prospects by name. If you want to establish new accounts in healthcare law, for example, you should have a list of your top 50-100 healthcare prospects located in your geographic territory. This list gets even stronger when you add the name of the GC, CEO, or other hiring executive.

2. Lack of clear revenue goals. Do you want to generate $10,000 or $100,000 per month in new revenue? Clearly state your goal, and how you intend to generate this revenue.

3. Absence of a timeline. Business development always comes with a lead time. Your marketing plan should identify what you need to be doing in January, for example, for new revenue you need to see in the 2nd quarter.

4. Accountability. Most firms have some type of oversight system to monitor performance against business development goals. Whether this is the case for you or not, you may find that a "buddy system" can help you stay focused. This is particularly well suited to solos, who can work with a friendly peer. (Hint: If you don't want to disclose actual dollar figures or account numbers, use percentages to show your performance against goals.)

Once again, here is a free sample of an attorney marketing plan for your reference.