Running a law firm requires you to wear many different hats. You’re responsible for casework, HR, employee management, intake, marketing… just to name a few.
There’s a problem, though. No one human being can excel at all these different areas (and if you do, please tell us your secret). Naturally, the things you like the least will likely gets less attention. For many lawyers, that means employee management or marketing get the short end of the stick.
If you’re overworked and find yourself wearing too many hats, there is another option. You might think: “this will all just get better when the firm grows enough to hire a _______.” If only you could hand over your intake responsibilities or your marketing responsibilities to someone else, your stress would decrease, and you could focus on what you truly love.
That promised land probably feels like it’s out of reach. Hiring a rock-star employee who can run part of your firm takes a lot of time and energy—and experienced employees will run you between $40,000 and $110,000 annually, depending on your market.
What if there were a more cost-effective way to offlload some of your responsibilities to an experienced professional?
Th e answer is a Contracted Director of Marketing.
While finding someone to fill this role can be difficult, it is not impossible and can be a great way to stop spending so much of your time on marketing without having to hire and pay a full-time Marketing Director. Since you’re paying contractors, rather than employees, you also don’t have to pay taxes, HR, travel, education, etc.
What does it take to be successful at marketing? At the very least, strong marketing for your firm requires:
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• Tracking to know what is producing your results (and what isn’t)
• Systems to ensure that you’re abiding by bar ethics
• Experts to carry out the marketing (either experienced staff or vendors)
• Accountability to make sure what is supposed to be done is done
• Knowledge of best practices to maximize your potential return on investment
If you find yourself energized reading a list like that… then maybe a Contracted Director of Marketing isn’t the right fit for you and your firm.
If you read that list and feel daunted, then having an experienced marketer overseeing and directing your firm’s marketing efforts may be exactly what you need.
Here are just a few of the benefits of having a Contracted Director of Marketing managing your firm’s efforts:
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• You get an advocate for your firm with your vendors, someone who both speaks the language of vendors (which you probably do not) and who under-stands your firm.
• You get someone who can ask vendors the tough questions to ensure that your firm’s goals are being met.
• You get to “take off” one of your hats: someone else bears the responsibility of managing your marketing to meet your firm’s goals.
• You get someone with different perspectives on marketing from having worked with other clients—a wide base of experience goes a long way in the field of marketing.
• You don’t have to pay for someone to keep up with the latest marketing strategies—a Contracted Director of Marketing will be attending conferences, webinars, and constantly reading to stay up-to-date.
If you’re on board, then you may be wondering how to find this person. Here are a few ideas:
- Look for local marketers. Tap into your social networks and see if anyone in your area may be interested in directing your firm’s marketing on a contracted basis.
- Look for a person who already works in the legal space and does freelance work. Freelancers understand the ins and outs of contracted work. Someone with experience in legal marketing will take less training than a marketer without legal experience.
- Look for an agency that will fill this role, giving you access to their depth of knowledge and experience without having to pay a retainer for them to fulfill all of the work themselves. This is something we’ve done for our clients, and they’ve found the relationship incredibly valuable.
Our hope is that this turns on a light bulb for you. If you’ve been struggling to figure out what to do with your marketing, hiring a Contracted Director of Marketing might just be the solution.
Most lawyers don’t want to spend their time talking to vendors and making sure they’re doing what they say they’re going to do. Most lawyers want to spend their time doing what they went to law school for.
