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4 Mar 2011
Law firms and thought leadership
I had the privilege of speaking at the 4th (Legal) Managing Partners Conference at Sanctuary Cove on the Queensland Gold Coast in Australia this weekend. The topic “What do you want to be famous for?” The angle I took on how you get there – thought leadership of course.
Thought leadership in the legal industry
The interesting part of the talk was what I discovered during my research and information gathering phase in the weeks preceding the presentation. I spoke to some of the heads of communication at some Australia’s largest law firms about their views on thought leadership in the Australian legal industry. This was followed by some desktop research on what six of the leading global legal firms are doing online with their thought leadership properties. The six included Allen & Overy, Baker & McKenzie, Skadden, Linklaters, Clifford Chance and Freshfields.
The legal industry spokespeople were unanimous that thought leadership across Australian legal firms is still in its infancy. While there are some great pockets of thought leadership it is generally ad hoc and not a lot of time or resources are spent on it. Contrastingly when I explored the global big six law firm, or Magic Circle firms as they are known, they seem, based on my online observations anyway, to be well on their way with their thought leadership properties.
Australian legal firms and thought leadership
Before I touch on the Magic Circle firms I want to illustrate what is happening in the thought leadership space for the legal industry down under.
This probably best illustrated by snatches of the conversations I held with four of the leading communication professionals across Australia’s leading law firms.
“It’s unsophisticated; we’re not nearly there yet.”
“Partners often have competing interests.”
“Our partners are more like media champions than thought leaders.”
“Most lawyers are reticent to stick their necks out.”
“We worry about upsetting clients.”
“It’s a time issue – the billable hour is king.”
“I don’t think the partners have seen the benefit of thought leadership yet.”
“There’s a feeling we’re giving our intellectual property away.”
Thought leadership is a growing trend in Australian law firms
It wasn’t all bad though, there were some positives. For example, there were a number of comments which indicated that thought leadership is growing and becoming more of a recognised marketing and communications tool. These included:
“Thought leadership is starting to seep through the firm.”
“The legal market is changing rapidly, there is increasing competition globally and locally and we will have to differentiate.”
“There is a golden opportunity to use older partners to drive our thought leadership efforts.”
“We’ve seen some fantastic benefits using our website for our thought leadership content.”
A mixed bag but some really positive noises for thought leadership around the corner.
The Magic Circle and thought leadership
I need to preface this by saying that my analysis is only based on quick desktop analysis of the Magic Circle firms thought leadership properties online and it is therefore limited by what I could find on their websites.
That said, all six had great content unfortunately I didn’t have the time to explore whether this content was genuine thought leading content – I am a firm believer that content alone does not make you a thought leader.
Here’s my quick summary of the six firms websites I visited:
· Linklaters– have “Year in Review”and “The Year to Come” which summarises major developments in English law and expectations for the new year. They also have Hot Topics which hosts papers across wide ranging issues.
· Freshfields– have what they call “Briefings” which are papers on various issues. They also have a separate microsite called Mobile Matters site which discusses all things mobile. It is one of the best examples of legal practice thought leadership I have seen. In addition, they have collaborated with The Economist Intelligence Unit to report on the opportunities and risks in Africa for the extractives industry.
Some great thought leadership from these two firms but there was something nagging me when I viewed these sites and it is probably best illustrated by a quote from an interview I conducted last year with Ken Blanchard. Ken is the author of over 50 books including “The one minute manager” and he said: “You can have the greatest, most innovative thoughts in the world but if nobody hears about them they’re worth squat.”
And therein lies the issue with the two firms I have just mentioned – I had to search and sift through layers to find their thought leadership material.
Make your thought leadership stand out on your web
The following firms had their thought leadership front and centre on their web sites.
· Clifford Chance – great scrolling content blocks, big and bold across the front page. They also have a very impressive webinar series covering numerous topics and featuring panels and interviews with third parties. In fact they label it their thought leadership impetus. The topics include, among others: remuneration reform in the financial services industry, trends in M&A, cross border tactics in takeovers and inbound investment in China.
· Allen & Overy– slap bang on their front page they have something called Insights. What’s great is that when you click into this you can search by topic, by country, by practice area or merely enter a search term and it will kick out all their content on that. They’ve made it very easy.
· Skadden– on their home page they have big and bold their “2011 Insights”, an annual issue of critical legal issues its clients will face in the year ahead across key areas such as governance, M&A, Capital Markets, Corporate Restructuring, Financial Regulation and Global Litigation to mention a few.
· Baker & McKenzie- front of centre of their home page they have a large title block “one step ahead of Dodd Frank”. For me though the coup de grace is that the first button top left on their home page is something called “Supporting your business”. I love it! This is not the typical me language you find on website i.e. “About Us” “Our services” “Who we are”, rather it’s all about you the client and your business.
What’s more, they have heaps of great, useful content and very easy to find – they even have a whole International negotiating handbook on their site chapter by chapter.
I would have loved to have the time to find out more about how these firms use their thought leadership material with their clients and in other forums but another time for that.
The wonderful thing is about all this content online is what it is doing for their Google rankings – I just hope they are optimising it accordingly.
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18 Jan 2010
This is the final post of a series across how to take your thought leadership position to market. The last one was on the 14/1/2010.
I spoke about six critical actions I believe need to be engaged in order to achieve this. I have covered the first five (1. Make it a strategic business imperative; 2. Know your audience; 3. Share openly; 4. Cultivate the media; 5. Write and speak about your campaign) and today I will cover the sixth and last:
- Pump up your content online
Action 6: Pump up your online content
By maximising the use of the online world for your thought leadership material, you are making your point of view easily accessible to your identified audiences and sharing it with anyone in the online world who might be interested in the topic. This could be via a blog, twitter, your website, pod cast or vlog – you name it! There are many options open to you and more are becoming mainstream every year.
The objective is to inject your brand’s/company’s personality into the debate by using social media tools to give a human face to your company’s point of view.
Importantly the web gives you the right to engage with your online audience – it is a forum where you can ask questions, your audience can ask you questions and you can have discussions with other interested parties through discussion forums, chat rooms and the ‘ask us’ facilities available on most websites.
Traditional marketing tools for campaigns have changed
The traditional levers which we have pulled as marketers, advertisers or PR practitioners to sell products and services or change behaviours, advocate causes or build brands have changed.
Word-of-mouth is by far the most powerful form of marketing a company can access, and its greatest ally is the internet.
Brands today need either to be part of or to create their own conversations online. It is becoming just as important as driving media coverage. Why? Because the internet has accelerated and amplified public opinion – rumours start and spread online.
Moreover, while newspapers, magazines, TV and radio are here today and gone tomorrow, online coverage can potentially remain filed and accessible for a long time.
Online is the domain of new, powerful content created by consumers for consumers. It is competing for our attention and trust against traditional media sources, and in some cases it is winning.
This is well illustrated in a Media Centre Global Trust Poll conducted in the US in 2006 which found that 228,000 Americans think companies do not tell the truth in advertising while 276,000 think that word-of-mouth is the best source for purchasing decisions.
Word of mouth can be powerful for your thought leadership campaign
Word-of-mouth is enshrined in social media and is now commonly recognized as the most powerful form of consumerism in the marketing mix.
If you are looking at driving a thought leadership campaign for your brand or company you need to be aware of the tools available to you online in order for you to take part in and influence this powerful medium.
Your aim should be to supercharge your thought leadership content and, in so doing, engage the company with relevant online communities and help facilitate conversations in the digital world.
A digital influence strategy should deliver four key things:
· Knowledge about what is being said about your brand/company in the digital space and the ability to track it and take part in it.
· Productive engagement with customers, stakeholders and influencers in the digital space.
· Optimised content, in order to attract the search engines and increase your ranking.
· Measurement of your digital influence campaign’s return on investment.
There are a few key things you need to consider before embarking on an online campaign:
· Senior management buy-in is critical, as they need to understand the importance of the task. This point cannot be over emphasized
· Engagement online is done in a collaborative community: it is about marketing with rather than marketing to an audience.
· Commitment – there has to be a commitment to communicating on an ongoing basis.
· Honesty and integrity are also vital. Untruths, half truths and misrepresentations are cruelly exposed online and can be damaging to your brand.
That’s the last in a series of six posts on how to take your thought leadership campaign to market, however, I know there are a lot of people out there who know an awful lot about how to do this really well. I would love to hear from you if you have any new or fresh ideas or if you merely want to add to what I’ve said already.
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13 Oct 2009
The traditional levers which we have pulled as marketers, advertisers or PR practitioners to sell products and services or change behaviours, advocate causes or build brands have changed. Brands are facing significant challenges in engaging with their consumers more effectively. Word-of-mouth is by far the most powerful form of marketing a company can access and its greatest ally is the internet.
Brands today need either to be part of or to create their own conversations online. It is becoming just as important as driving media coverage. Why? Because the internet has accelerated and amplified public opinion – rumours and, worse still, crises start and spread online.
Moreover, while newspapers, magazines, TV and radio are here today and gone tomorrow, online coverage can potentially remain accessible for a long time.
Online is the domain of new, powerful content created by consumers for consumers. It is competing for our attention and trust against traditional media sources, and in many cases it is winning.
Depending on your target audience, it is my belief that a thought leadership campaign should be doing everything it can to maximise the use of the online world. If you want to make your thought leadership campaign successful you should be making your point of view easily accessible to your audiences – to do so you should be sharing it online. This could be via a blog, your website, pod cast, social networking sites, twitter, vlogs – you name it! There are so many options and there are more proliferating every year.
The objective is to inject your brand’s/company’s personality into the debate and to give a human face to your company’s point of view. It is the place where you can engage with your online audience – a forum where you can ask questions, your audience can ask you questions and you can have discussions with other interested parties.
If the web is appropriate for your thought leadership campaign, I only say this because some thought leadership campaigns are specifically targeted at a particular audience and delivered directly to them via other methods such as roundtables or one-on-one meetings, your aim should be to supercharge your thought leadership content online. Ultimately your objective should be to engage the company with relevant online communities and help facilitate conversations in the digital world.
Any online thought leadership campaign should deliver four key things:
· Knowledge about what is being said about your brand/company in the digital space and the ability to track it and take part in it.
· Productive engagement with customers, stakeholders and influencers in the digital space.
· Optimised content, in order to attract the search engines and increase your ranking.
· Measurement of your digital influence campaign’s return on investment.
But there are a few key things you need to consider before embarking on an online thought leadership campaign:
· Senior management buy-in is critical. They need to understand the importance of the task. This point cannot be over emphasized
· Engagement online is done in a collaborative community: it is about marketing with rather than marketing to an audience.
· Commitment – there has to be a commitment to communicating on an ongoing basis.
· Honesty and integrity are key. Untruths, half truths and misrepresentations are cruelly exposed online and can be damaging to your brand.
Consumers are changing how they research and buy products – they form their own opinions and share them online. Technology has afforded customers the ability to tune out of the cluttered traditional media space and find their own answers online, basing their decisions on what they see as authentic insights and answers from other people like them – people who do not have a hidden agenda; people who share their views on brands with anyone who wants to listen.
This is the world of Web 2.0, and while marketers are compelled to pay attention, a lot of companies are taking a long time to adapt.
The change is profound and it is clear that most marketers and, as a result, their brands are struggling.
For those grappling to come to terms with the role social media should play in a brand’s communication strategy and even for those who have jumped right in, I highly recommend David Meerman Scott’s book The New Rules of Marketing and PR www.davidmeermanscott.com/books.htm
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