Marketing Ideas Worth Stealing

Speaking to a packed room at today's Chicago LMA meeting, marketing consultant Patricia Luchs spun out a list of 35 marketing ideas worth stealing.  I've known her since she was Marketing Director at Seyfarth Shaw, and her tips are solid.  Here are a few:

• No more boring firm cocktail parties.  Your events should be fun.  Patty threw a party for attendees at a trade show conference in Miami with a "Miami Vice" theme.  The invitations were attached to a water pistol.  Partygoers got sunglasses, handcuffs, rubber alligators and badges as favors.  The room was decorated with yellow police tape, a chalk outline on the floor, a human-outline shooting target and police car lights.  They even had a Don Johnson lookalike, accompanied by a scantily-clad hottie.
• Divide your marketing database into categories.  Send "A" clients a book on leadership and invite them to a firm educational event.
• On your Web site, sort content by subject not by practice group.  Newsletters, articles, press releases and brochures should be sorted so that when you have to respond to an RFP, you can find the elements easily on your site.
• Advertising: Don't run an ad less than three times and expect it to be remembered. Don't spend any money on small-size ads or on "advertorials" -- few people read them.
• Firm marketing events are "group sales calls."  If you treat them as client retention activities, you won't be able to show any return-on-investment.  The key is to follow up with attendees as well as no-shows and get a face-to-face meeting with them.
• Rather than send long, dull newsletters, distribute "one-minute memos," that take only one minute to read.  They are a good way to stay in front of clients.
• When the lawyers go out on sales calls, they must return with an "advance" -- an exact date when the lawyer and prospect will take the next step forward in the sales process.  Lawyers must understand that the sales process can take a long time.  "It's not 'hello, let's get married,'" Patty quipped.
• Hire a makeup artist when you have a "picture day" at the firm for lawyer bios.  It makes a difference.  Patty posted before and after pictures internally, and "everybody wanted the makeup artist, including the men with shiny bald spots."

There were a ton more ideas, but you had to be there.