MEASUREMENT IN
FIRM MARKETING
12
STRATEGIES / THE JOURNAL OF LEGAL MARKETING ◾ JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2015
FOUR CMOs EXPLAIN THE
IMPORTANCE OF MEASURING
AND TRACKING MARKETING
ACTIVITIES TO DETERMINE —
AND PROVE — RETURN ON
INVESTMENT.
LAW
Few would disagree with the old saw: “You have to spend
money to make money.” But how much money? And use it
for what? How do you decide? Enter the need to measure the
return on investment — or ROI — for your marketing and
business development spending.
We asked several CMOs for their views on using ROI in their
roles of shaping and managing their firms’ marketing and
business development efforts. What follows is their insight.
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Cynthia Kaiser
Chief Marketing Officer,
Rutan & Tucker, LLP
How important is the
measurement of the ROI of
marketing activities within
your firm?
Damien R. Enderle
Chief Marketing Officer,
Saul Ewing LLP
Lilley: Measurement of ROI is extremely
important. Positive ROI is a crucial
component in driving investment strategy
for marketing and business development
activities.
But effective change is a process. Our
journey from a communications-focused
marketing function to that of a business
development-focused marketing discipline
has been one of evolution, not revolution.
We work closely with our department and
practice group leaders to identify targets,
focus our messaging and plan marketing
tactics that are realistic and can be
measured.
Enderle: The sluggish demand for legal
services, brand parity among firms, and
increased competition for new and existing
clients are the new paradigms firms and
their marketing departments will continue to
face in 2015. Intuition, anecdotal feedback
and faith that mass communication, such as
blind advertising and marketing campaigns
based on “what other firms are doing,” are
strategies of the past. Today, our management
team and our attorneys recognize that our
marketing strategy is grounded in marketing
planning based on real information and not
gut feelings and hopeful thinking.
Kaiser: Certain marketing and business
development activities require more ROI
than others if the firm plans to continue
its investment from year to year. For
example, targeted meetings through a
third-party organization require that type of
ROI, especially those activities in a higher
price point. Advertising does not typically
produce an ROI that we measure. Our firm
thinks of advertising as a consistent way
to brand and expose our firm name. That
type of expenditure does not always allow
for ROI tracking.
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STRATEGIES / THE JOURNAL OF LEGAL MARKETING ◾ JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2015
Berardi: Determining ROI in the world
of legal services is not always so easy,
especially due to the complex nature of the
business development cycle, as well as the
lengthy period of time from initial contact
to ultimately securing new matters from an
existing or prospective client.
Given that the pathway to success is
often not exactly linear, my approach is to
collect and use data to the fullest extent
possible, but also to realize that there are
times when we simply need to rely on our
gut to make good decisions, regardless of
whether the data at hand fully supports that
particular course of action.
What are you measuring
and how? Are there any
specific tools or processes
you are using or plan to
implement?
Berardi: We measure as much as we
possibly can — that includes total number
of firm-wide pitches and RFP responses,
Tricia M. Lilley
Chief Marketing Officer,
Fox Rothschild LLP
win/loss ratios, client feedback and overall
satisfaction levels, regional and global
brand development in terms of awareness
and favorability, and much more. Essentially,
we measure anything we can potentially
use for future purposes. Rather than using
“off-the-shelf” software programs, we
tend to develop our tools in-house, using
assigned resources from the IT department,
which works on the project with designated
marketing department members.
Kaiser: The most typical way to measure
ROI is through word of mouth of the partner
in charge of that particular activity. Although
that does not always work, the partner in
charge is usually responsible and holds
significant influence for those particular
expenditures. So, it is in the partner’s
best interest to report on what ROI came
out of a particular marketing or business
development event or strategy.
Enderle: One school of thought is that all
marketing ROI can be measured and that
the standard formulas and calculations hold
Jeffrey J. Berardi
Chief Marketing Officer,
K&L Gates LLP
all the answers. If it were that easy, law
firm marketing today would be on par with
consumer product and media/technology
companies in terms of marketing proficiency.
Law firm marketing, like all professional
services marketing, is relationship-based
and much more relative in terms of how
sales originate. We began by measuring the
modest metrics on which our marketing team
can have the greatest influence such as:
◾◾ email open rates
◾◾ website click-through rates and
other analytics
◾◾ new matters resulting from client
satisfaction interviews
◾◾ proposal win rates
◾◾ repeat event attendance rates
◾◾ new matters resulting from events,
seminars and CLEs
◾◾ article placements with target
audiences
Certainly, tracking the marketing budget
investment toward these and other activities helps in calculating the hard dollar ROI.
But what about effort? Existing marketing
ROI calculators do little to account for the
resources and time involved in marketing
planning and execution.
In addition to metric measurement and
ROI calculations, we also track the time of
our marketing team against specific projects
such as proposals, communications writing
projects, events and marketing technology
projects. This helps not only with externalfacing marketing projects but also in
determining where marketing resources are
being used, including non-strategic, one-off
marketing requests by attorneys. The time
tracking analytics are a huge benefit when
planning strategy with firm leadership and
in reporting where marketing resources
beyond budget are being spent.
We are working with our CRM vendor
as part of a pilot and development group
for a new CRM opportunities module that
we hope to implement this year. This new
tool will allow us to better track several
existing and new metrics as part of an
integrated platform within our CRM tool. It
will integrate much of the tracking we are
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15
already doing, but puts it all in one place
and ties it to specific target individuals,
companies and marketing activities.
Lilley: We measure ROI from pitches/
proposals/RFPs, from events and from
specific media initiatives (traditional PR and
social media campaigns).
generated from specifically targeted
prospects and clients and/or matters.
We generally do not use any particular
tools to track ROI. We’re fairly low-tech, but
work with our blogging platform provider
and use Google Analytics for our website
stats. But in terms of tracking event ROI
and pitch/proposal ROI when it comes to
“We try to ensure that the data and research we collect
is actionable in some way. After all, the data collection
process is a means to an end, not an end in itself.”
With pitches and the like, we’re
measuring success by whether or not we
secure work. With formal RFPs, immediate
or quick answers to that question are
generally achieved. With more general
pitches, the timeline is far less precise, and
there can be significant lead or investment
time before we know whether we brought
in the work.
With events, we use a more graduated
measure of success: Were solid leads
secured? If so, have those led to a followup meeting, a pitch or a new matter? This
is a longer-term process and measurement
scheme.
Our traditional and social media
campaigns have clearly defined goals, but
they differ based on objective. For example,
we may want to raise the profile of a
particular attorney, practice or office, and a
media campaign may be designed around
that. The success of that sort of campaign
would be measured using a number of
factors involving Web statistics. On the
other hand, a social media campaign
focused on promoting a particular blog
or a mobile app we’ve launched might
be measured in terms of numbers of app
downloads or new subscribers.
We use a variety of measures to
determine ROI from our marketing and BD
activities, including Web statistics/traffic,
social media subscribers, blog subscribers
and app downloads, as well as revenue
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business and revenue generation, we are
old school: We use spreadsheets, some
homegrown databases and plenty of direct
follow up with attorneys.
How are you reporting those
analytics to the leadership
at your firm?
Lilley: We provide quarterly statistics on
blogs, the Web, marketing communications
and client alerts, and business development
efforts in a report distributed to all
attorneys. We also report, more anecdotally,
on business development success in a
biweekly newsletter to all employees and
attorneys called FoxTales. Additionally,
we routinely provide focused ROI reports
as part of strategic decision-making on
investments in individual lawyers, certain
geographies, sponsorships and initiatives.
Berardi: I typically communicate these
findings on a regular basis, using both
informal and formal methods. This includes
detailed CMO reports during management
committee meetings, presentations to the
partnership at annual retreats or during
monthly video conferences, and in various
other venues.
Additionally, there are opportunities to
present or introduce information in less
formal communications such as internal
email messages, in discussions while
conducting lawyer training programs or in
STRATEGIES / THE JOURNAL OF LEGAL MARKETING ◾ JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2015
one-on-one conversations with partners
or administrative management. The point
is to make sure our lawyers and other
stakeholders understand that our goals
and objectives are grounded in some
underlying data that help inform our actions
and behavior. My experience has been that
we usually obtain support for our activities
much more quickly if we openly share the
data that we are relying on for our decisionmaking process in a transparent manner.
Enderle: We also provide a brief, quarterly
update to our executive leadership team and
attorneys. Like anything, it is a process to
inform, educate and influence the behaviors
of our attorneys, marketing department
and firm toward marketing programs and
tactics that influence our target audiences,
clients and prospects. In the end, it is really
about moving from casting wide nets with
mass communications toward segmented
activities that reach defined audiences and
individuals.
How are you using that data
to inform future marketing
decisions?
Berardi: We try to ensure that the data and
research we collect is actionable in some
way. After all, the data collection process
is a means to an end, not an end in itself.
We review the information or research
results to assess progress (or lack thereof)
and to determine steps to address defined
goals and objectives. If the methodology
is sound, the data really shouldn’t lie,
even though the potential always exists
that it might be misleading. In short, the
data analysis process can help justify a
continued course of action if the evidence
is supportive, or it might mean that changes
should be made to the business plan if the
results are surprising or unexpected.
Lilley: We definitely are driven by ROI.
We want to see tangible results whenever
possible, and when initiatives deliver
positive ROI, we continue to support them
or replicate them.
Kaiser: Basic arithmetic shows which
strategies are working and which are
producing minimal, if any, ROI over a
two-year cycle in engaging in a particular
marketing activity. We are successful at
attracting new clients and matters, which
is easy to show and document. That
data confirms the use of these particular
activities works, and that affects future
marketing decisions.
What else can you tell us
about what your marketing
department is doing in
regards to measurement,
analytics and tracking ROI?
Kaiser: The more information and input
the marketing and business development
department receives after any activity or
strategy, the better the structure and vision
of the department grows. The firm can be
conservative about innovation, and we are
careful in our approach to the expenditure
of marketing dollars. It is best if we can
show any type of ROI.
Berardi: If you accept the basic premise
that marketing fundamentally exists to drive
revenue, then marketing should be rooted in
analytics. When data isn’t properly collected
and reported, flawed assumptions and poor
decisions likely ensue, and moreover, it will
be nearly impossible to connect marketing
or business development activities to
revenue growth.
We expect members of our marketing
department at all levels to track and
measure their efforts so that they have a
better sense of what is working and what
is not. It isn’t enough to simply gather
the data, though. Team members are also
encouraged to share their discoveries
with other members of the department, as
well as with firm leadership, and include
their thoughts on recommended action
steps in light of the data. In this way, our
professionals are empowered to ensure our
team is collectively moving the ball down
the field. ◾
“If you accept the basic premise that
marketing fundamentally exists to drive
revenue, then marketing should be rooted
in analytics. When data isn’t properly
collected and reported, flawed assumptions
and poor decisions likely ensue, and
moreover, it will be nearly impossible to
connect marketing or business development
activities to revenue growth.”
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