It's Time to List Marketers on Firm Web Sites

By Larry Bodine

Smart law firms have begun to list their marketing and public relations staff on their Web sites, and it’s a good online marketing move. After all, a Web site is a marketing vehicle and it makes sense to list the people in charge of business development. Many CPA firms do this, but law firms are lagging behind. The law firms that list only their attorneys online are making a mistake.

Not listing marketers online is the same has having a voicemail system that omits any way to reach the operator. It’s like running an ad for the firm but leaving out the key person to contact. It’s like issuing a press release for immediate release, then deleting the names of the firm’s contact people. The marketer is someone whom clients and potential clients will naturally seek out. Making them hard to find online only hurts the firm.

Marketers are trained to prompt inquiries from potential clients, to listen to contacts to find out if they have a need the firm can fill and to direct them to the appropriate partner. The marketer, more than anyone else in the firm, is an expert at what the firm does and is familiar with all of the firm’s practices.

So put their names, phone numbers, e-mail address, bio and pictures online.

Growing movement to add marketers’ names

There is a growing chorus of voices supporting the listing of marketers online. The London-based Managing Partner’s Forum has called on firms to re-think the way they distinguish their “fee-earning” professionals from their other staff, whom they call the firm’s “unsung heroes.” The MPF has embarked on a public campaign to change attitudes in the professions about people who should more accurately be called “practice management professionals.”

“Differentiation between fee-earners and non-fee earners, talk about support staff, lawyers and non-lawyers, all reflect a culture of the past. Even in a firm where this terminology has been changed, it persists,” said Nigel Knowles, the managing partner of the English law firm DLA and chair of the MPF.

More importantly, it’s good business to list marketing professionals online. “The bottom line: today’s firms cannot stay competitive if they don’t attract—and keep—the very best management talent,” said Monica Bay, Editor-in-Chief of Law Technology News and Editorial Director, Law Firm, Inc. and Small Firm Business. “I think it’s poor business judgment to fail to list your executives, visibly, on Web sites”

“Sometimes, it's the little things that say a lot,” Bay wrote. “Fortunately, times are changing. Firms, facing acute competition, are revising their business models from private club to corporate, and migrating (albeit slowly) from ‘eat what you kill’ to collaborative cultures."

Large and small firms list marketers

Many firms, large and small, already recognize that marketers are key management members.

Weil, Gotshal & Manges, a 1,125-lawyer firm based in New York, has its WGM Directory, which offers users the opportunity to search the directory for either partners and counsel, associates or administration. See http://www.weil.com/wgm/pages/Controller.jsp?z=l&sz=0. Baker & McKenzie, a 3,200-lawyer firm with offices in 38 countries, has “Our Leadership” at www.bakerinfo.com, which lists the firm’s phone, fax and addresses for its international executive offices, plus e-mail links for the firm’s chair, executive committee, international executive management, and regional management staff.

Michael F. Harrison, of the 46-attorney Westfield, New Jersey law firm Lindabury, McCormick & Estabrook, recently added an administration page to the About Us section of their Web site that includes his contact information as the Director of Business Development. “The idea behind it was simply to make it easier to find the right contact at the firm—hence we have our billing manager, paralegals, librarian, IT director, et al. I saw from the internal searches being done on our site that people were sometimes looking for me and others. We could see no reason not to make it easier for them to find us,” he said.

Holland and Hart, a 300-lawyer firm based in Colorado, lists marketing and other staff www.hollandhart.com, according to Marketing Director Mark Beese. “We also launched our own marketing-related site at www.imagine-8.com that gives a directory of staff by function,” he said.

Monica H. Phillips, Director of Marketing for 75-lawyer Zuckerman Spaeder LLP in Washington, D.C. said, “We list biographies for all of our senior staff and paralegals on our firm Web site. Everyone is a resource and a Web site is often where others go to learn more about a firm. Our site has a link to ‘Professionals’ where you can search for individuals by a variety of fields including position.” See www.zuckerman.com

Bart Alder, Communications Manager of Hunton & Williams LLP, a law firm with 800 lawyers in 17 offices throughout the US, Europe and Asia, lists numerous firm management staffat www.hunton.com. They did this at my suggestion after I conducted a Web site audit. “It has been very well received,” Alder said.

“We list all of our management staff on our Web site. We believe it is important to demonstrate that we have an accomplished team working in many aspects to support the interests and advance the success of firm clients,” said Tammy Mangan, Marketing Manager of Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox P.L.L.C. You can find her bio at www.skgf.com. Based in Washington, D.C., the firm has over 100 patent attorneys, agents and technical specialists.

CPA firms already “get it”

Accounting firms are typically ahead of law firms when it comes to marketing, and listing the marketing staff online is widespread. Noella P. Lyne, Chief Marketing Officer of Stonefield Josephson, a 100-person CPA firm in California, is a primary contact on the Web site as well as in various marketing materials. She’s shown with her photo at www.sjaccounting.com/adCampaign.html.

“I have a stronger sense of urgency for getting back to business sources,” said Karen Love, Director-Practice Growth for PKF Texas, a firm in Houston. Importantly, she noted that the firm has 94 “team professionals,” of whom 40 are CPAs. In the drop-down menu at www.pkftexas.com she is listed as the “ambassador to the marketplace.” “It works well for us,” she said.

As Chief Marketing Officer and a partner in his firm, Marc A. Busny is listed on the firm Web site at www.tofias.com. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Tofias PC is a regional accounting and consulting firm. Marc is responsible for developing and executing the Tofias marketing strategy, overseeing the firm’s client satisfaction programs and managing its marketing and business development activities.

Porter Keadle Moore of Atlanta, Georgia, lists Director of Marketing Laura A. Snyder on their site at www.pkm.com -- including her picture and a list of hobbies and interests! PKM has seven partners and a total staff of 45.

The logic for having a marketing professional listed at Fiddler and Company, an accounting and financial consulting firm in Amherst, New York, is that she would best be able to handle the initial inquiries and direct them to the proper management as well as take the time to make the call. That’s why you’ll find Director of Marketing & New Business Development Laura Del Monte and many other professionals on the firm site.

It’s time for law firms to follow suit.

Larry Bodine is the Regional Director for North America of the PM Forum, a global organization of 3,000 marketers and professionals in the law, accounting and consulting fields. He can be reached at 630.942.0977 and Lbodine@PMForumNA.org.