One quick note before we jump in: this blog is the second post in the LTMG DIY Marketing series. I recommend reading the Part I first.
If you’ve got plenty of time to develop and implement your marketing strategy, this information frankly doesn’t apply to you. That said, in my experience, most legal technology executives and entrepreneurs suffer from a hard truth: there are only 24 hours in a day.
How does this limitation negatively impact your DIY marketing?
You’re not leveraging the right resources
Building and managing a successful business is about leveraging resources. Many executives assume their college Marketing 101 course qualifies them to do the strategic analysis necessary to properly position their offerings. Or worse, think a recent low-cost graduate is equally suited for such an assignment.
Following this path turns your marketing into a revolving door. Executives hire a marketing person, expecting them to know the company’s product and service offerings and ‘hit the ground running.’ Most often resulting in a honeymoon period that ends early and brings your company back to square one. Marketing to the legal vertical is different. As an executive, you need to leverage the right resources to see measurable growth. Using an experienced legal marketing specialist to validate strategies, confirm positioning, and help create a logical plan is a wise investment in your business.
You can only handle so many #1 priorities
Be honest with yourself. How scary is your to-do list right now? Most executives wear lots of hats, fill several roles, and let’s face it; they don’t have the time to develop, implement, and analyze a successful strategy and plan.
Marketing planning is an intensive discipline. I recommend to my clients that they ‘start at the end’. By determining upfront what they want to accomplish in a given period, we can develop strategies and plans to reach those goals. And having specific goals allows us and them to monitor progress.
Your marketing becomes reactive rather than strategic
It’s easy to get sidetracked with marketing:
- Sales are off, and you need to do something to fix it now
- A call comes in to sponsor a new event
- Your competitor is speaking on a panel or exhibiting at a conference, and you need to be there too
Now you’re reacting. Instead of developing a strategy, implementing a plan, and measuring the results, you’re all over the place. You need help filtering the noise and figuring out what actually fits into your overall strategy.
I am not here to say that DIY marketing is impossible. It isn’t. To be successful at DIY marketing, you need to make it a top priority. You need to have the expertise and discipline to create and follow a strategic plan. If you can’t make these commitments, you’ll be hard-pressed to succeed in fulfilling your goals.
