By Nancy Roberts Linder of Nancy Roberts Linder Consulting
Measuring the return on investment of your business development efforts and being able to demonstrate the success of such efforts in your business plan is difficult to do. Since lawyers are essentially building relationships via their experience, much of the marketing activity that raises awareness for such experience is difficult, if not impossible, to measure. For example, article writing often does not yield new business directly, but does build credibility and awareness for a lawyer's services and experience. Similarly, a public relations or media campaign yields stories about the firm and quotes from its lawyers, but most likely cannot be tied to specific new business as a result. Advertising, while typically a huge expense, often cannot be tied to specific new business initiatives. Even sponsorship of community activities or fundraising efforts, while generating goodwill, typically cannot be shown to generate specific new business. Yet, there are business development initiatives that can be measured effectively:
E-Communication
Unlike most communication delivery methods, e-communication is the one place a law firm of any size can actually measure results -- from who received the communication, to whether that person actually "opened" the e-mail or forwarded it on to someone else. While you can review a tracking report showing hits to your website, the technology behind e-mail marketing provide...
