John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing blog fame has a new book out entitled Duct Tape Marketing:The World’s Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide. John was kind enough to send me a copy so I could review it and possibly blog about it as it relates to legal marketing.
I like his book very much. It is divided into three parts:
- Getting clients to “stick” with you (by helping them get to know you better, to like and trust you),
- Helping clients keep in contact and to refer you more clients, and
- Assessing what works best for you, and doing more of that.
I agree with just about all John’s advice, although most readers of this blog know that I am not a big fan of traditional advertising or direct marketing (for lawyers), which he covers in the book. I’m not against them per se, nor hold that such business development techniques don’t work. It’s just that I believe there are better, faster, more effective ways for lawyers get and retain good clients.
A distilled version of the book’s content was provided by John and posted on Guy Kawasaki’s How To Change The World blog last week. Here are John’s ten points that pretty much sums up the book:
- Narrow your market focus (concentrate on the ideal client, and how to land them. See my posts on this subject),
- Differentiate (think how you can identify what you/firm does as a simple core idea, that sets you apart of other law firms),
- Think about your strategy (take the two above and reduce them to a few words that a client can easily understand – something like an elevator speech),
- Create information that educates (your law firm materials should come across providing information in order to educate potential clients, rather than come across as a sales pitch),
- Package the experience (make your marketing strategy as visual as possible in order to create a favorable emotional response),
- Get leads from different angles (don’t put all your eggs in one basket, since clients will come to the firm in different ways. Your business development strategy should have a mix of ways potential clients can view and decide to hire your firm),
- Nurture prospects along buying path (lead potential clients along a path with a series of convincing advances made before, during and even after the sale),
- Measure everything that matters (not just costs, and revenues by client, industry, etc.; but everything like advances during the business development process. Remember: what gets measured gets done.)
- Automate for leverage (it really is important to “embrace the Internet or else.” Everyone should have a dynamic web site or even a blog in order to convey your knowledge so as to educate potential clients – see #4 above), and
- Commit to action items (strategize, plan and implement an approach; and give it a chance to succeed or fail before jumping to the next “marketing idea of the week”).
If you are interested in purchasing John’s book, you can do so here.