The Changing Landscape of Marketing
Notes taken by Elora Schatzker, Freelance Law Firm Marketer & Catherine Mitchell, Client Development Skills Coach
Moderator Carolyn Ray of CASACOM lead professors Alan Middleton (Schulich School of Business), Ken Wong (Queen’s University) and Avi Goldfarb (Rotman School of Management) through a wide-ranging discussion of the four most important factors influencing current marketing theory and practice:
1. Globalization
2. Mobile Commerce
3. Privacy
4. Regulations
Over the course of an hour, the professors made a number of interesting observations:
- Perception of quality is different than the definition of quality. Tap into what your clients perceive as value.
- Marketing strategy tends to focus on the acquisition of new business, but it’s important to track and measure the effectiveness of marketing as a tool to protect and save business. This is evidenced by loyalty as reflected in the following measures: decreased acquisition costs, growth in share of wallet, re-engineering the buying process, referrals and customer investment.
- Celebrate the new ability to use online tracking systems to measure and track behaviour. Many large companies such as Amazon employ extremely sophisticated tools to analyze their marketplace and law firms are encouraged to follow in their footsteps.
- All marketing takes place within the context of the greater business environment. Many Canadian clients of law firms such as financial services providers have long enjoyed an oligopoly that is eroding in the face of global competition, and that law firms will be affected by this change.
- Every file should be considered in the context of the lifetime valuation of the account, and handled accordingly.
- There is a steady decline in consumer trust, noting that this phenomenon is in part a product of greater access to information which is empowering consumers to research and analyze service providers themselves.
- The rise of social media was of course another hot topic. Avi agreed that communications vehicles such as Twitter are inherently scary because it is easy to lose control of one’s message. He does contend that this is more than balanced by the fact that the volume of information exchanged on social media platforms allows firms to truly listen to and understand their markets.
- Another surprising point of agreement was that “ROI is a stupid measurement”. All three professors agreed that there are too many factors involved in reaching and converting a potential client – it is next to impossible to pinpoint the exact value of any particular marketing exercise. However, marketers are still encouraged to measure every activity to gauge its relative effect on behaviour. The panellists again noted that online activities offer a wealth of opportunities to track and measure the activities and interests of potential clients.
Responses to audience questions:
- The most important actions the MarCom function can take now:
- Focus on the inside first. Develop a sense of pride and commitment with the “untapped force” within your firm.
- Conduct a vanity search on your firms and partners to understand the perceived brand images of each.
- How to delivering on a brand promise when the firm’s services are provided by hundreds of individual lawyers:
- This is not a marketing strategy, but a business strategy. And the root of the solution is in practising quality control in hiring and acquiring. Avi also noted that M&A theorists at business schools are producing some interesting literature on this subject. Alan recommended looking to the large consultancy firms for examples of best practices.