In the September-October issue of Capital Ideas, the Communications Committee is focusing on how legal marketers address generational preferences when disseminating information, so we thought we’d reflect that same theme in our Member Profile this month. I was able to sit down with legal marketers from the Future Leaders and the Senior Leadership SIGs who offered their thoughts and best practices on generational marketing in their firms.
Meggan Maromonte, Marketing & Communications Administrator, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP
Meggan Maromonte began her legal marketing career in 2003, while in college, interning with a law firm in Pittsburgh. She was hired by past LMA president Jeanne Hammerstrom, who marked the beginning of a major shift in client communications and marketing by asking her “Are you comfortable performing online research?" Since then, Meggan has watched the legal marketing industry undergo a dramatic transformation, with technology playing a lead role in the charge.
How she and her D.C. team work with attorneys to communicate with the firm's clients is largely driven by how the client consumes information. There is no blanket or one-size-fits-all approach. However, the Skadden team works with attorneys to prepare each communication to be disseminated in any desired format, creating a format for every audience. “Most legal marketers would love to tell you the white paper is dead, but that simply isn’t true.” For example, Meggan and her team work with attorneys to leverage a white paper or memo as a baseline and then package it into a number of digestible formats including traditional and summary articles/by-lines, webinars, Q&As, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.
Meggan begins most conversations with her partners with the question, “What are your clients reading?” She then works backward, monitoring those outlets to make sure she and her team are mirroring that communication style and are being responsive to industry trends.
When looking ahead, Meggan says that Skadden is moving toward eliminating as much paper as possible for its programs, looking instead to provide materials in a PDF format, and down the road developing online tools and/or apps to deliver content.
Rachel Patterson, Marketing Coordinator, Bean, Kinney & Korman
It wasn’t long after Rachel Patterson began working at Bean, Kinney & Korman that their marketing manager recognized her enormouspotential. She began assisting with marketing initiatives and ultimately assumed many of the marketing functions once her former manager moved away.
Rachel says the Firm’s communication with clients is largely driven by the client. She sees distinct differences along practice group lines as to how the audiences consume information. For instance, some practice areas like land use and construction are into quick sound bites and the 500-words-or-less blog structure; while others like their trusts and estates practice enjoy lengthier, detailed articles; and their business practice group still sends out a printed newsletter. Rachel adds that “Facebook has become an important tool in our internal marketing efforts, where we showcase our commitment to the local community we serve.”
By Michelle McWhinney, Founder, Navigate Recruiting for the September/October 2015 issue of the Capital Ideas Newsletter.