Today I am lucky enough to be at the LMA mid-Atlantic annual conference in Washington DC.  In just a 20 minute Ted style talk Michelle Woodyear, Director of Digital Marketing at Covington & Burling along with Chad Solomonson, VP Marketing and Alliances at RDA shared their thoughts on how marketing experts within law firms can prove their value to the legal experts in their law firms.

This talk really resonated with me.  Every week I visit marketing and BD experts at law firms and hear that it can be a challenge for them to get lawyers to act in a way that will help drive their business.  Lawyers can be 'unique' in their approach to business!

This is what I learnt today from Michelle and Chad:

Most important - Money flows in the direction of value

Always provide compelling data - particularly data that enables your lawyers to reach out to their clients. Lawyers need help to get over their uncertainty when it comes to reaching out to prospects.  If you can provide them with data points on their efforts it can be very helpful.

When you run a campaign own the metrics and explain what is most valuable to the partners. Measure, score and report! Think of web content as assets and then measure the impact.

Know who your targets are so you can judge if the assets you have online hit the targets.

All this prospect data reduces the anxiety of the lawyers.  Therefore you can explain to your lawyers that reaching out to targets is not selling but an opportunity to reach out and solve problems.

Finally, always run pilots.  That way the lawyers can see the value and be happy to invest further in your programs and campaigns.

3 key takeaways:

1. Money flows in the direction of value
2. Back up opinions with data - lawyers like to argue!
3. Change is hard - take all the key stakeholders with you.  Fail safely.  Work together with the lawyers.