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Question by Juan Gónzalez-Blázquez, lawyer, partner of González-Blázquez & Barrenechea (Mexico City, Federal District)
 

The main benefit of advertising in the short term is brand awareness, which does not necessarily mean recall.

If your practice decides to invest in advertising (ads) it should do so with professional rigour, defining first of all the concept of what the practice is, framing the advertising campaign within a marketing and communication plan. I say this because the common practice among some firms is that the actual partners design an ad about their legal services, but it is not part of a global marketing and communication strategy. Doing this is tantamount to throwing money out of the window.

Several lawyers have told me that if a practice is investing in advertising it is “because business is bad”. That is absurd. The potential customers of a law practice view investment in advertising by a services company as normal. Sometimes the only people with this prejudice are the lawyers themselves. When all is said and done, it is you who decides how to invest your money. Money should be invested in activities that get the market to recognise the firm’s expertise and see it as a point of reference. Sometimes these activities are free, although they logically require an investment in time. Ads “assert” or “claim”, they do not “prove”. That is why they are secondary in legal marketing.

Nevertheless, if your law practice is the market leader, in its speciality or sector, it may periodically advertise to remind people of this mental edge or leadership over its competitors.

If above all you target specific clients, you have a law practice concept that makes you different, and investors that back your project and, by extension, your advertising campaigns, so you will also have reasons to think about investing in ads. Unfortunately, this is not so for many practices. The solution for most practices is to be imaginative, and invest in marketing activities that entail a smaller investment.

Perhaps you have sometimes wondered why, in a country such as the United States of America, law practices do so much advertising? (Advertising which other countries sometimes see as being ridiculous or aggressive, for example.) To my mind, the legal sector in the United States invests so heavily in ads because of:

—    the values of the practice of law in the United States and overcrowding in its legal market,
 

—    in some cases, firms’ ignorance in legal marketing,
 

—    the human tendency to do what the majority supposedly does,
 

—    the self-interest of communication consultants, often Agencies that are more concerned about collecting their by no means low fees in the short term than about explaining the role of advertising in legal marketing to their client, and achieving a return on investment.
 

Be imaginative. Invest in actions that help potential customers to acknowledge your professional competence and expertise. In my opinion, investing in advertising is a resource for the few, and one of the last resorts for the majority.

© 2007-2010, Francesc Dominguez, marketing consultant, partner of Dominguez & Guiu.