Your law firm can have its strategic plan in place and all the goals neatly laid out – but executing them requires the right technology that can make achieving those goals easier, faster, and more efficient.
So which tech do you need? Well, that depends on a few key factors – your firm’s marketing goals, the functionality it needs to add, and what tech the firm already has in place.
I was curious what tech tool would be the number one priority for law firm marketing experts working for firms of different sizes with different needs. So I asked some experts – if you could completely deploy one tech tool in a single day that would make the biggest difference in your marketing efforts, what would it be?
As expected, there was more than one answer.
Effective Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
A fully deployed CRM that works well and is easy to use is something every law firm marketer wants. But what you need in a CRM depends on what stage your marketing is in now. It is not always an easy task to figure out which CRM is the best fit for your firm, but it remains a major priority for many law firm marketers this year.
In earlier stages of law firm marketing, most firms simply want to have a solid CRM system with robust functionality.
Amy Nielsen is Chief Marketing Officer at Skarzynski Marick & Black – a firm that’s decided to invest in marketing and tech more this year than ever before. Her wish is to find a fully functioning CRM for her firm. “When utilized optimally, a CRM system becomes a powerful tool not just to efficiently disseminate information but to extract valuable insights into client relationships and individual connections, serving to identify growth opportunities with precision.”
In later stages, start taking advantage of the more complex functionality of your firm’s CRM to move your law firm marketing’s business development and client service delivery forward.
Matthew Trump, Director of Pitches and Proposals at global firm DLA Piper, would love to have direct access via CRM to billing history, terms with each client, etc. He says, “I think a CRM system that’s up-to-date and fully integrated with billing, client terms, and other relevant information would make business development and service delivery more seamless.”
“At the end of the day, the best CRM is the one that gets used,” notes Sara Kappler, a CRM-Consultant and founder of Centric Squared, a CRM-driven marketing agency. “Most businesses have analysis paralysis when it comes to choosing a CRM. It’s easy to overcomplicate. We advise making a top 10 list of what you need it to do off the bat, like contact management and emailing. Then test out 2-3 providers and see which one your team likes the best, and go. The sooner you start, the faster you’ll reap the benefits of CRM.”
Custom A.I. Tools
If your firm has a custom CRM deployed and working smoothly, it may be time to move on to more advanced technology that can offer increasingly complex and helpful insights.
Erin Baxendale, Director of Business Development and Marketing, Clients and Industries at the global firm Sidley, wishes for an A.I. tool “that is customized just for our firm and allows us to pull, analyze, and leverage our data and information more quickly and precisely so that we have a holistic view of our client relationships in one place.”
How CMO2Go Can Help
Technology is an important piece of the marketing puzzle. We’re experts at putting together that kind of puzzle and finding the missing pieces you need. Whether it’s strategy or project execution – let’s put all the pieces together and complete it.
