Featured · Strategy
Different strategies for different stages of a firm
Advice about law firm marketing strategy is usually written as though all firms faced the same problem. They do not. A two-year-old practice and a forty-year-old one with a strong local name need almost opposite things, and applying the wrong one wastes a year.
There are four recognisable stages. Identifying yours settles most of the question of what to do first.
The four stages, and what each needs
Find yours by the symptom rather than by size or age, because firms move through these at very different rates.
New. No reputation, no reviews, no rankings, and time. The task is proof of existence: reviews, a complete profile, a handful of real pages, and telling everybody you know. Paid search is often the only channel that can produce anything in year one.
Growing. Some reputation, uneven demand, and the beginnings of a referral network. The task is consistency: one narrow specialism to be known for, and the habits that compound.
Established. Steady referral flow, a name locally, and usually a website that no longer reflects any of it. The task is conversion — capturing demand that already exists and is being lost at the site and the telephone.
Crowded. Established, but in a market where several firms are doing all of this competently. The task is differentiation, which usually means narrowing rather than spending more.
Most firms misidentify themselves as one stage earlier than they are, and buy acquisition when the constraint is conversion.
The most common and expensive misdiagnosis is an established firm buying more traffic. The demand already exists; it is being lost between arriving and being answered, and no additional spend fixes that.
The second most common is a new firm buying search work that cannot produce for a year, when a small paid budget and a review habit would have produced something in the first quarter.
What does not work at each stage
Applying the right tactic at the wrong stage is the usual failure, and it is expensive because it looks reasonable.
A new firm investing in long-form content, which needs authority the firm has not yet accumulated.
A growing firm broadening its offering to capture more, which dilutes exactly the specialism that was starting to work.
An established firm buying more traffic instead of fixing the site and the response times.
A firm in a crowded market outspending, which raises the auction price and changes nothing structural.
Any firm copying the marketing of the largest competitor, whose strategy is built on assets it does not have.
And any firm changing stage-appropriate strategy after two quarters, which is not long enough to know.
Working out where you are
Three questions settle it, and they are answerable this afternoon.
Do people already look for you by name? If not, you are new or growing, whatever your age.
Do enquiries arrive that you fail to convert? If yes, you are established and your constraint is conversion, not demand.
Do three competitors do everything you do, competently? If yes, you are in a crowded market and the answer is narrowing rather than spending.
Once identified, do the stage-appropriate thing and ignore advice written for the others.
Commit for a year. Every stage's strategy takes at least that to show, and switching between them is how firms spend heavily for years without moving.
Re-assess annually — stages change, and the tactics that got you here frequently do not work at the next one.
And be honest about being established. It is the stage firms most resist identifying, because the answer is unglamorous internal work.
The reward for correct identification is spending a fraction of what a misdiagnosed firm spends.
Almost every firm we are asked to look at is doing something that would be right at a different stage. The strategy is rarely wrong in itself; it is wrong for the firm applying it.
FAQs
Do all law firms need the same marketing strategy?
No. A new practice needs proof of existence, a growing one needs consistency and a specialism, an established one usually needs conversion rather than more demand, and a firm in a crowded market needs to narrow. Applying the wrong one wastes a year.
What is the commonest misdiagnosis?
An established firm buying more traffic. The demand already exists and is being lost between arriving and being answered — no amount of additional spend fixes that, and it is the most expensive mistake on this list.
How do we tell which stage we are at?
Three questions: do people look for you by name, do enquiries arrive that you fail to convert, and do three competitors do everything you do competently? The answers place you in minutes.
What should a brand new firm do?
Proof of existence — reviews, a complete profile, a handful of real pages, and telling everybody you know. Paid search is often the only channel that produces anything at all in the first year.
How long before changing strategy?
At least a year. Every stage-appropriate strategy takes that long to show, and switching between them every two quarters is how firms spend heavily for years without moving.
End Note
Almost every firm doing something ineffective is doing something that would work perfectly well at a different stage of its own development.
Answer the three questions, act on the stage you are actually at rather than the one you would prefer, and give it a year before changing anything.
Key Takeaways
Four stages: new, growing, established, crowded — different problems.
Most firms misidentify one stage earlier than they are.
Established firms buying traffic is the most expensive misdiagnosis.
Three questions place you in minutes.
Commit for a year; switching stages is how money disappears.
