Why your firm needs a marketing strategy audit

The Reality of Legal Services Marketing ROI

Law firms that conduct regular marketing strategy audits typically see 20-25% higher ROI on their marketing investments. Yet as 2025 progresses, many firms continue operating with outdated or non-existent marketing strategies.

Some firms maintain traditional approaches—perhaps an ad in the parish magazine and a board at the local cricket ground (that one partner is a member of). There's often little strategic thought behind promoting the firm; despite knowing they should be doing something more effective.

More corporate firms busy themselves attending networking events, writing articles, and entering awards, but frequently without a structured plan for converting these activities into new client relationships.

The Uncomfortable Truth About Law Firm Marketing

Let's face it: most firms are simply waiting for the phone to ring, expecting ideal clients to miraculously call them just because they exist. They rarely contemplate doing any considered marketing until enquiries have already dried up.

That's too little, too late.

Internal Obstacles to Marketing Success

The biggest problem many law firms face is themselves. Law firms are often run by lawyers, many of whom have limited experience running a business and have only worked in environments managed by other lawyers.

As a result, they don't always recognise the value in hiring non-legal professionals at senior levels. This stands in stark contrast to most other industries, where management boards include trusted advisors specialising in operations, HR, sales, and marketing.

Marketing: Cost Centre or Investment?

Many view marketing as a mere cost—a line item on a spreadsheet that some partners believe should be theirs instead. However, marketing should be considered an investment that pays dividends when properly executed.

Consider this: if every £100 of marketing investment could generate £1,000 in fees, how many hundreds would you willingly invest? The logical answer is: as much as possible.

Yet, according to the 2024 Gartner CMO Spend Survey, the average marketing budget has fallen from 9.1% (2023) to 7.7% (2024) of revenue across industries. The latest Law Firm Marketing Club survey suggests that law firms invest just 3% in marketing budgets.

Diminishing budgets are a clear indicator that faith in marketing is shrinking, and that is likely because it just isn’t working. Flawed or nonexistent marketing strategies doom your marketing activities to failure. You may as well set fire to your cash.

If your firm does have a marketing strategy, is it broadly similar to the previous year’s, and the one before that?

As the famous quote goes - "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results"

It is absolutely the same with marketing. If it isn’t delivering, then it is commercial madness to keep doing it. Cutting the budget is not the answer; that’s the quickest way to become invisible to potential clients that have a legal need.

Legal Services Buying Cycles

People often consider legal services a crisis purchase; that is to say that people usually need legal help only when in trouble. These crises can occur at any time; they are not seasonal. You can’t force someone to require a divorce lawyer if they aren’t going through a divorce, and no amount of marketing will change that.

Therefore, your firm needs to have a strategy that keeps your brand front of mind and keeps you on the consideration list in an already saturated market.

Your ad in the parish magazine and your board at the local cricket ground might seem like it’s ticking that box, but is it? Consideration needs to be given to where potential clients might hang out and what they read.

Your marketing strategy must clearly outline the demographics for your target audience, and this is likely to be different for each of your work types. A client needing family matters may not also need a commercial lease.

Research conducted by Professor John Dawes and the team at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science found that, at any given time:

Only 5% of your target audience is ‘in-market’: that is to say actively seeking services like yours.

And the remaining 95% is ‘out-of-market’: not currently looking but might need what you offer in the future.

This isn’t industry specific, but I would suggest that the ratio for legal services is more like 2% ‘in market’.

So how does your marketing strategy account for this?

Ideally, it should be taking a longer-term view. Trying to reach the 2-5% at the point of need is going to be tricky so your strategy should focus on making sure potential clients think of your firm when they do have a need.

Business clients have a more frequent legal need, often every month. They will usually have incumbent firms too so marketing strategies to reach new business clients needs to be very different from those for individuals.

Personal legal needs are far less frequent:

· Wills & Probate – Every 10–20 years (or after major life events)

· Conveyancing– Every 15-20 years on average

· Divorce & Family Law – Once in a lifetime for most

Your brand's visibility will play an important part in keeping your firm front of mind when clients need legal services.

Clients don’t go to every law firm when they have a need; they will choose the ones that seem familiar, and you need to ensure that you are on the consideration list of who they will call.

You can’t control when a client might need your services. But with a robust marketing strategy, you can control how and if they remember your firm when they are ‘in market’.

Get a marketing strategy audit

Continuing to pump money into strategies that are destined to fail is a harsh reality for most firms. An impartial third-party evaluation of your objectives and the marketing you are deploying will uncover what is working and—most importantly—what isn’t.

Firms that have regular marketing strategy audits and implement the recommendations see considerable reductions in the cost of client acquisition. Audits can help your marketing budgets deliver better outcomes and restore faith in the marketing process.

If you would like an objective strategy audit or some help craft a marketing strategy that will have measurable success, then get in touch. We are happy to have a chat over coffee.