Summer can be slow. You take holidays, clients take holidays, and before you know it, September is upon you and your phone isn’t ringing. Without consistent business development efforts, it can feel like your practice has taken a holiday…and that means your finances can take a hit. It’s time to ramp up your business development, but where do you start?

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Welcome to Gimbal’s Tip of the Week, where you get practical, actionable advice you can use right away to start building a more productive and profitable legal practice.

This week’s tip is to create a marketing plan.

Sure, the best time to create your marketing plan was back in May…but the second best time is now. So here we go with 5 steps to make the most of your marketing investment and attract the right clients to your firm.

1. Identify Your Business Goals

Having a marketing strategy is great, but it has to align with your business goals. What do you want to achieve in the next 6-12 months?  

2. Have Specific Marketing and Business Development Goals

Set specific goals that motivate you. For example, how many new clients do you want to bring in every month? How many business development events will you attend every month? What are your targets for year end?

3. Know Your Market

Successful law firms consistently gather information about their markets. Look for information on the size, growth, social trends, and demographics for the population you serve.

4. Profile your Ideal Client

Attract your ideal client by understanding their needs. You should know where they are, what type of legal service they’re looking for, and how much they are willing to spend. We’ve got a free step-by-step guide to help you do this.

5. Know Your Competitors

Stay ahead of the competition by tracking their services, products, pricing, and marketing tactics. Then compare your strengths and weaknesses against your competition, so you can identify areas to improve on or discover what makes you stand out.

So this week’s tip is to create (or update) your marketing plan.

Your action item this week is easy: get started! Download your free Ideal Client Guide from leanlegal.academy/clients.

Legal professionals who create and implement the right marketing strategies are more likely to increase revenue, targeting their ideal customers, and retain existing clients. They deliver more value for themselves, their firm and, most importantly, for their clients.

And that’s this week’s tip. If you want information like this once a week, sign up so you never miss a Tip of the Week.

Thanks a lot everybody! See you next week.