Building Brands: The Legal Way

In Depth

Building Brands: The Legal Way

Dr. Ranjeet Mehta | September 2009

In order to become one of the top legal firms, it is rather important to stay abreast with the need of the day – image and perception management.

Many times, the terms branding and marketing are used as if they are interchangeable. As I see it, the big difference is that branding helps you know what to say and marketing provides the vehicle to deliver the messages. Just like a politician will steer any question back to the handful of key campaign points, your brand positioning statement steers all advertising, website content, brochures, public relations, and face-to-face selling to your firm’s competitive advantages.

As per Philip Kotler in Principles of Marketing, “Brands are more than just names and symbols. Brands represent consumers’ perceptions and feelings about a product and its performance—every thing that the product or the service means to the consumer. In the final analysis brands exists in the mind of the consumer”. The real value and power of the brand exists in capturing the consumer preference and loyalty. The top brands create value preposition and competitive advantage for the company. They set your products and services apart from those of your competitors.

What Exactly Is A Brand?

If you name top legal professionals in Indian law firms like Ram Jethmalani, Kapil Sibal, Soli Sorabji or Arun Jaitley what really comes to your mind? These people have made a name for themselves in legal profession over the years by giving quality service and winning edge to their clients. A brand can be thought of as a set of perceptions that a prospective (or existing) client gets when they hear the name of your law firm or see the logo you will be designing to represent it. The important thing to remember here is that it’s not the same as the actual products or services you sell. Instead, it’s a feeling a person has- the overall perception.

Branding is based on a clear view of how your clients and prospects perceive your firm. A successful brand is perceived to have at least one meaningful and positive attribute that is unique among its competitors. An attribute is meaningful when it is involved in the decision making process of a client or prospect. It is positive when it enhances your firm’s value in their mind.

For example, if a law firm likes to tell people that they have been in business since 1950. By itself, this is a biased statement – a lot of law firms have been around that long. However, when they tell you some of their clients have been with the firm for over 57 years that might be a positive and meaningful point of difference compared to other firms. It implies consistent quality, responsiveness and excellent service.

Nine Mantras

Here are nine simple ways you can build your brand, whether you are a sole practitioner or a partner with an international law firm:

Focus your practice in specialised areas for sharper recognition.
Create a distinctive theme, characterized by a logo and the accompanying tagline.
Select clients who will reinforce your brand image.
Maintain high visibility in your marketplace through personal appearances, publishing opportunities, advertising and sponsorships.
Build your brand into all promotional materials as you seek to achieve a state of brand recognition and once you arrive, promote your brand professionally and endlessly to reinforce your market position.
A competitive analysis is required to identify what makes you different from your competitors. By studying the competition across all attributes you will identify advantages and disadvantages attached to your firm. This analysis will also show the target clients and business segments of your competitors.
Have a professional website but remember it’s not enough to have a website, you must reflect it in your brand image.
Create a good Blog. Informative blogs are good as they help your business on multiple levels. First of all, valuable content on a consistent basis will make you look like an expert and a Professional. People are looking for expert professionals, not apprentices.
Stand for something. People latch on to something they can understand and appreciate. Experts are not good at everything; they’re awesome at one thing. This allows you to better your position yourself and charge more for your services. People seek out experts, not generalists.

A successful brand will add value to the firm credentials before and after the service is provided. The brand provides positive support when the prospect evaluates the degree of risk attached to a firm, and words like “reputation,” and “trust,” are discussed.

Proper branding is critical to your long term success. A lot of people think of branding as logo development. But in reality, branding is managing the thoughts and feelings of your clients to ensure that you are what they desire. If your desired brand image isn’t what’s in the minds of your target audience, you’ve got to figure out where the gaps are and how to address them. And fixing them would be more of a herculean task because the old adage still rings true – the customer is always right!

Brands are more than just names and symbols. Brands represent consumers’ perceptions and feelings about a product and its performance—every thing that the product or the service means to the consumer. In the final analysis brands exists in the mind of the consumer.

About Author

Dr. Ranjeet Mehta

Dr. Ranjeet Mehta is Professor Marketing & Head Training at Rai Business School. He has a proven track record of Brand Marketing, New Product Launches, Brand Management, Digital Direct Marketing, Business Strategies, and Consumer Behavior.