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The legal industry has experienced significant transformations in business development strategies over the last decade, largely due to advances in technology and changes in market trends.
This blog explores our top three business development strategies for successful law firms, and how to achieve them.
1. Localize your Website
Today’s legal marketplace is an increasingly global domain where firms compete for business with others all over the world.
In order to reach new clients (and support existing ones) a well-designed, easy-to-use, and language-accessible website is essential.
To ensure your clients are able to access the information they require, check contact details, or make an enquiry, they must be able to fully engage with and understand your website.
Improving online accessibility for clients is essential – your website is often the first port of call for potential clients and if they can’t navigate your site, or it looks like you’ve used free machine translation tools, then they’re more likely to click away from your site than engage your legal services.
Failing to localize your website means your brand will suffer, and so will your turnover.
Localizing your website offers the following benefits:
• Improves SEO – especially great for new markets, locations, languages, and new search engines
• Improves client experience – a localized site offers a familiar UX to clients, it is what they want and what they expect
• Greater brand trust/recognition – a professionally localized website shows your commitment to client support and engagement. Clients will recognize brand aspects from your native site, but characteristics are also localized to give a more predictable experience for a specific market
• Expand your reach – localized, multilingual legal websites offer greater reach and therefore, rewards
• Competitive advantage – gaining a competitive advantage is essential and a professionally localized site will help you do just that
• Greater conversion – securing clients is key for every law firm and a localized site encourages clients to stay browsing for longer, commit to further contact, or procure your services
Localizing content such as blog posts, reviews or video content will increase engagement as almost 75% of us want to read reviews in our native language, and it will increase turnover as 40% of us won’t even consider buying in another language.
The best way to achieve successful localization of your website is with a professional Language Services Provider (LSP).
They are able to offer advice on how to achieve your objectives, what cultural adaptions are required for each market or audience and offer good return on investment.
2. Establish Project Management Procedures
Legal matters are projects which, therefore, require managing for successful handling and delivery.
Creating an effective methodology for project management offers law firms greater operational efficiency by tracking processes and offering a systematic agenda for lawyers (and clients) to follow, while also ensuring time, cost, scope, and quality are considered and adhered to for each and every project.
Project management procedures assist with tracking how your team works and streamlining their efforts, identifying areas for improvement across the firm, increasing productivity and quality, assisting with technological development and implementation, improving client communication, and cultivating stakeholder engagement.
Law firms which successfully implement project management procedures offer more benefits to their clients, in the form of improved services and greater quality, than a firm operating without them.
Training your team really helps when it comes to implementing project management procedures, as it ensures everyone is working from the same script.
Consider courses such as: 
• Introduction to Legal Project Management
• Introduction to Business Development for Lawyers
3. Develop Good Client Relationships
Word of mouth is still the best form of advertising (and it’s free) but in order to get recommendations of this kind you’ll need to ensure your existing clients are treated well, given a great service (with perceived value for money), and establish a good relationship with every client.
Interacting with stakeholders at different levels, communicating clearly and concisely, and understanding your client’s needs and requirements are key to successful relationships.
A client-centric strategy which establishes positive, unbiased relationships, requires a team which is focussed on more than just the law.
Your team need to know how to deliver an exceptional client experience through their actions and words.
The following points are beneficial when it comes to creating good client relationships:
• Discover your unconscious bias
• Promote open communication at every level
• Identify their concerns/needs/requirements
• Understand how to manage your clients
• Gain insight into your own behaviour styles and the behaviours of those around you
• Learn about and appreciate different cultures
• Learn how to manage difficult situations and resolve conflict
• Ask clients for feedback and consider their opinions
Creating a strong and effective business development strategy is vital for law firms seeking to attract new clients, as competitive pricing and additional services are no longer sufficient motivation for many corporate clients.
They are looking for an exceptional, personal service which offers frequent and pertinent communication, transparency, responsiveness, and a solution-centred approach.
If your team can’t offer this, they’ll find a law firm that can.
The steps above are just the beginning but they will make a difference to your team, and your clients, if they are meticulously implemented and well-planned.
The team here at Creative Word Training are ready to help you fulfil your business development strategy – contact us now to find out more about the ways we can assist you.
