The Importance of a Consistent Brand

We often address the prioritization of marketing budgets with our law firm clients. Many marketers will sell you whatever you want, but your marketing spend should be prioritized strategically. A law firm must create and build its brand to get the most bang for its buck on marketing. By focusing on branding and consistency, each marketing effort will complement the other, thus leveraging or maximizing its potential.

A great example of this thought process is digital advertising.

Lawyers see other lawyers engaging in digital advertising or realize that the money they are spending on other advertising and mass marketing (billboards, television, radio, non-specific print ads, internet listings, etc.) is not working efficiently or effectively. So, at best, they formulate a budget and set out to buy some ads. And there are plenty of agencies that will happily take their money. Perhaps they will even do a good job – driving relevant traffic to the lawyers’ websites. But those potential clients (or referral sources) get to those websites and experience an abrupt shift.

Clicking on the ad may take them to a landing page not connected to the lawyer’s website.

They want to learn more about the lawyer or the firm but cannot. Maybe they were interested in something other than the kind of case advertised. But they find out nothing about whether the lawyer does that work.

Or perhaps clicking on the ad takes them to the lawyers’ websites, but they look nothing like the ads or don’t address the type of case or service that the ad did.

Is this the correct site? What is this lawyer trying to pull?

Consumers are sophisticated. While they may not be able to put their fingers on it, they can tell when things are “off” or there is inconsistency in the marketing material.

These variances may be in quality, color, graphics, message, tone, or “feel.” Rather than complementing each other, the inconsistencies between marketing tools defeat each other.

Consistent branding doesn’t require a logo – but it helps. However, if the logo is not quite the same (color, relative size, texture, shape, etc.), they too can cause problems.

Does this mean that all marketing must be done by professionals? No.

It does mean that all marketing efforts should be done professionally. And hiring professionals does not guarantee that they will be.

A one-stop marketing shop is ideal. One shop that understands what your brand is attempting to convey, why it is important, and what it says about the firm and its lawyers. But if your one shop cannot do it all or does but doesn’t get what you are trying to do, then having someone who can translate and manage is critical. You need a marketing partner you can trust. One that won’t simply sell you what you want but will help you with what you need. One that gets it. We do. Call us.