And the Survey Says…If Your Law Firm is Pressured to Drive Business, You’re Not Alone

To gauge what’s happening in today’s legal marketplace, the Legal Marketing Association and Bloomberg Law surveyed 172 business development and marketing professionals and 114 lawyers, of which more than 100 were partners, at law firms with at least six attorneys. In April, they published the results in their report: Are We There Yet? Revealing the Latest Trends in Marketing and Business Development.

Law Firms are Under Pressure

The study confirms what legal marketing experts have been stating over and over again in this blog. (Consider this recent post about building a law firm marketing department.)

Technology, economic woes, and shifts in buyer behavior are driving law firms to reconsider the way they’re attaining new business. It’s no wonder half of all the attorneys responded that they’re challenged to find new client leads.

Law firms feel both internal and external pressure to reconsider their go-to-market strategies. This is why 67% of respondents said they’re increasing focus on and investing in marketing and business development efforts. A scant 6% said they were decreasing investment.

The primary reasons for increased attention is the need to generate revenue; 68% of respondents said they’re getting more internal pressure to drive more business. This could be attributed to the fact that 46% say corporate counsel is reducing the number of law firms they work with, and 36% state that corporations are handling more work in house.

And competition for that work is increasing; it’s the external pressure that’s motivating  43% of law firms to increase their marketing and business development investment. They have to keep up with law firms who are more marketing savvy.

CRM Can Take the Pressure Off, and Firms Know It

However, if they sincerely want to get an edge in the marketplace, the report points the way: Law firms need to know how to leverage CRM technology. But that’s not news to the respondents. A whopping 96% say they have or desire CRM software. And business development professionals report that business intelligence systems like CRM are their single-most valued resource.

Yet, only 48% of marketers and 61% of business development professionals report using it. Cost, complexity, lack of effective integration and proper training were the most common reasons cited for not being able to use CRMs to their potential. The study states that the full benefits of technology like CRM are not being realized due to implementation challenges and the difficulty of collecting and compiling data across systems.

How Introhive Can Help

If you want to overcome these challenges, and attain a strong competitive edge, see how Introhive Customer Relationship Automation works. It will give you a crystal-clear, 360-degree real-time view of your marketplace, with no manual data entry. It’s:

• Packaged so that you can easily understand and use the data.
• Delivered on the platforms your business development professionals and attorneys use most often, such as email or mobile, and can be customized to their preferences.
• It quickly answers the most important question: Is this relationship moving in the right direction? If not, and if a client is at risk, relationship intelligence warns end users before it’s too late, and provides the intelligence needed to take corrective action.

Find out how Introhive makes CRM smarter and easier; schedule a demo today.