Thought leader

Saira Zaki, PR and marketing manager at Skadden Arps, Europe, introduces this month’s strategic-marketing theme with an overview of the different marketing strategies in US and UK firms, and what can be learnt from each approach.

Legal marketing has evolved in recent years, with strategies now led by marketing professionals who can well recognise a good business-development opportunity. Long gone are the days when marketing was considered a necessary evil, which involved swamping secretaries and paralegals with surveys and directories. But, of course, differences remain in the way law firms approach their individual marketing plans.

There are particular differences in marketing approaches between US and UK firms. For one, size is a major differentiating factor, with leading US firms like Skadden employing around 30 people worldwide, compared to some of the UK firms like Allen & Overy, which apparently employs well over 100 marketing staff. While this makes the US firms leaner in their approach, it does illustrate that the UK firms are way ahead in their willingness to invest.

With larger numbers of people at UK firms, segmentation by practice area and geography has proved a natural and popular strategy with many firms. At Skadden, in common with some other US firms, there is no practice subdivision, allowing a more generalist approach, although at Skadden the department is split into dedicated groups focusing on public relations, general firm marketing, events and design. It is possible that as US firms continue to develop they will become more like UK firms, opting for practice specialisation – especially as US offices in London grow. White & Case, for example, has demonstrated this trend with greater marketing specialisation as its team in London has continued to expand.

With respect to budgets, US firms tend to be more cash-conscious and set aside smaller budgets for marketing activities than the UK firms. They take a more considered approach to spending money on activities, such as press/industry events, advertising and directories, than the UK firms. As such, the US approach is, on the whole, much more targeted and less wasteful. With the recent explosion in the UK of legal publications, conferences, forums and information products, there are plenty of glittering temptations for cash-rich marketers to spend their budgets on, but, in many cases, it remains questionable whether this is money well spent. The environment for US firms couldn’t be more different. There, firms correctly remain focused on the notion that real added value comes from individual marketing skills, responsiveness to partners and, on an international level, on investment in focused projects based around brand building.

One area, perhaps, where UK firms remain ahead of US ones is in their approach to client-relationship management (CRM). While the responsibility of liaising and looking after clients should, of course, always remain that of the partners, US firms could do more to utilise their marketing departments to organise and track CRM – a strategy that the UK firms have invested in heavily in recent years. Perhaps the US firms retain a cultural reticence to do this.

The biggest challenge for all marketers remains in building mutual respect and trust with individual partners, and in tailor-making relevant, workable strategies for each business. After all, you can hire the best marketers in the world but unless partners have the confidence and the right mindset for business development, money invested in marketing is nothing more than money wasted.

Saira Zaki is PR and marketing manager for Skadden Arps, Europe. She can be reached at szaki@skadden.com