Make Law Firm Events Hubs of Expertise

Client events have been a staple of the law firm marketing tool kit for years. In this briefing we look at how firm’s event managers can focus content, delivery, and marketing effort to position their offer as an essential business resource.

Times are tough and your clients are looking for guidance; leaders who will help them navigate through the storm and out the other side. 2009 is an opportunity to position your events (and by association your firm) as central to your customers business.  Offer help and support now, and you will win credibility and status that will stand you in stead when the good times inevitably return. Be relevant. Be consistent. Be a model of unrivaled customer service.

It’s painful to admit, but attendees actually get as much, if not more, benefit from interaction with each other as they do from your carefully crafted programme of talks and seminars.

Law firms that provide tools to facilitate these interactions will stand out as essential, while firms that treat attendees as a passive audience to be preached at will almost certainly die a slow and painful death.

Events as a Hub of Expertise

Successful events bring the right people together, and provide an infrastructure in which productive interactions thrive. Delegates, bonded by passion, commitment, and identification with the group’s expertise share their experiences and knowledge in free-flowing, and creative ways. Fee-earners hosting events have the opportunity to learn as much from the attendees as the attendees do from your lawyers.

Successfully making your law firm marketing event a hub of expertise, allows you to claim real business benefits. As a hub of expertise your event will help clients to: Solve problems, develop new capabilities, leverage best practices, standardise practices, make time-savings, increase talent, and avoid mistakes. In return, your staff gets deep insight into the real issues your clients are dealing with on the front line every day.

Creating a hub requires a subtle approach, and your efforts should be focused on providing the tools and infrastructure that makes interaction easy, rather than trying to force it directly. The rest of this briefing looks at the specific tools your law firm can provide to help things along.

Getting Started with Blogs

Starting conversations can’t be forced, but they do need seed content to get them started. The best source is the speakers at your event talking about the issues they will cover at the event proper. Giving speakers a blog and the freedom to write what they want opens the dialogue and gets the conversation flowing. Clients can be given access to the blog via a password protected area of your website before, during and shortly after the event. At a later stage access can be opened to the public at large to invigorate discussion and serve as a marketing tool for future events and the firm in general.

Social Networking

Networking can take place on a public level by allowing clients to post in forums and comment of blog posts, or privately between individuals and small groups. Part of the booking process can include the option to create a client profile that outlines each person’s skills, experience, and interests. This helps attendees to connect with like-minded individuals both at the event and beyond.

Client Generated Content

Give clients the opportunity to create and post content relevant to the event. You may be surprised how thoughtful the results can be. There will of course be some rubbish, but this can be easily solved with the implementation of a voting system that allows other delegates to rate the content. This results in poor content sinking out of view while content of greatest value rises to the top. Delegate generated content can take many forms, but could include photo galleries, text documents and video.