Lawyer Branding 101

“Become the brand that people think of before they even get to typing a query into Google. Whether it’s paid listings, competitors, vertical search or anything else that may get in the way of potential customers visiting your site, try to make sure they get to you first and then remember who you are, so that they come straight back the next time.” – Kevin Gibbons (Managing Director at Blueglass)

There are various definitions of what is lawyer branding. It’s not just the color scheme on your firm’s website, but it is that too. A better definition of lawyer branding might be that your brand is every action you take or decision/statement you make while representing yourself as a lawyer or your firm.

Lawyer branding is the entirety of your target clients’ and actual clients’ experiences and perceptions of you and your firm.

But there is also the question of quality and effectiveness in lawyer branding. If you are branding yourself on your website as “a good listener,” “aggressive,” “honest,” “understanding,” “diligent” or anything else that any lawyer can and does claim freely and which cannot be disproved, you are missing a great opportunity to develop effective branding.

Marketing experts will tell you that such considerations are actually “positioning” and not “branding.”

The key to quality lawyer branding or positioning is that what you think is effective doesn’t count.  It might be effective, but it’s not effective because you think it is.  

The only perspective that counts in determining the quality of lawyer branding is what your target clients and actual clients perceive as your lawyer branding. That’s all.  Nothing else counts.

 Develop your lawyer branding and positioning by providing target clients with perceptions that they want to see – as opposed to what you think they ought to see.

ALLOW them to believe in you. To do that, you must first stand out from the lawyer crowd.