You just bought a parcel of land and are planning to build a brand new home, your dream home. Would you start building this home without an architecture or floor plan? I would hope not. And the same goes for building a website.

Blueprints are to a house, like sitemaps and wireframes are to a website. Information architecture requires a significant amount of hours of research and discovery long before the designer touches the canvas with their interactive tools.

Recruiting lateral partners is one the most important ways that a firm may increase their gross revenue, profits per partner, revenue per attorney all while adding value and importance to the firm. Recruiting a “high profile” lateral partner should be treated with equal importance as landing a new client or getting additional business from an existing client.

Simply because your title doesn’t say Marketing Strategist or Director of Strategy does not mean you should sit on your hands and not suggest strategic solutions to your internal and external clients. Consider this for example:

We all want our websites to be found, positioned and ranked high by search engines. Are you checking to see that your site is attracting traffic? Or, are your professionals sending you emails asking you why your firm’s site doesn’t appear on the first or even the second page of search results? SEO is not optional; it is critical to the success when designing or redesigning websites. We all have websites; we all have to take SEO into consideration when building our sites!

"Somewhere along the line, I will screw up. I won't return a call, answer an email or give you the attention you deserve. So when that happens, will you do me a favor and let me know? You mean a lot to me and I really value our relationship."

A couple of weeks ago, a friend a mine asked me if he could pick my brain about developing his website. After talking for a while, I realized the questions he was asking were probably common for many professional service marketers as well. While he understood the basics of developing a website, his questions were more about the big picture and what makes an effective website.

In doing research on a couple of presentations for LMA and AAM, I had the opportunity to speak to a number of in-house marketing professionals at law and accounting firms regarding the client experience they were receiving from their service providers (vendors). Many with “long-term” existing relationships were generally happy; while others felt that their providers had strict policies regarding how clients had to adhere to “their” policies and processes. As a result, the firm didn’t have much of a chance to express their firm’s needs, culture and their goals. While this may work with some service providers it could never work in a marketing communication firm.

Last week, I participated in a focus group on modern technology. (I also received some nice coin for my time!) Shortly after we began, it was easily apparent that the subject was on the awareness of Intel processors. We talked a lot about performance and how relevant and important it was to our personal and professional lives.

When I was young I remember my father teaching me the difference between wants and needs. Whenever I would ask for something he would sometimes reply, “Now, do you need that or do you want that.” Now that I’m the adult I remember his words and while I still make impulse buys, when I’m considering a major purchase the lesson of wanting or needing always sticks in the back of my mind. Just ask my wife! 

As marketing professionals, we are continually searching for ways to extend our brand and touch our clients and prospects in a cost effective way, but how do you know your tactics are effective? Now more than ever, we should be building tools into our marketing strategy to track and analyze the results.