Speaker 1: 0:05

Why your law firm's branding matters more than you might think. Welcome to Legal Marketing 101. I'm Toby Rosen. If your firm disappeared tomorrow, would anyone notice? If not, we've got well a branding problem. We are talking today about the hidden ROI of branding, why logos and colors are probably the least important part, and how elite firms are building trust with their clients before a single phone call is made or a single email is sent. So let's get something straight right off the bat. Your brand is not your logo. It's not your fonts, your colors, that tagline you paid some branding agency 15 grand to come up with in 2016. Those things are visual assets. They're design assets, they're marketing assets. They're important, sure, but they're just sort of the outer layer of this.

Speaker 1: 0:58

Branding is a lot deeper than that. It's the gut feeling that someone has about your firm before they ever even pick up the phone or, you know, make that final decision to hire you. Think about it when someone's been referred to your firm, what happens next? They're probably going to Google you. They're going to land on your website. They're going to check out your reviews, glance at your Instagram feed, and every one of those touch points is silently telling them this story. It's maybe a little bit subconscious, but it's telling them this because here's the kicker they are already forming an opinion about you before they've read anything about your biography. They may never get to your bio. They're already forming this opinion, though, and branding is that feeling that the person gets when your intake coordinator picks up the phone and they either sound like they care or they sound like they've been on hold with Comcast all morning. It's what your office feels like when you walk in. It's what your emails sound like and how confidently your firm's message carries from platform to platform. If your Google reviews say cold and your homepage says you're compassionate, that disconnect that is the root of a branding problem. Jeff Bezos is widely quoted as having said your brand is what people say about you when you're not in the room, and that hits pretty hard in the legal field, where so many referrals happen behind closed doors. Essentially, if someone says, call these guys, they're sharp, they don't waste time, that's your brand at work. But if someone else is saying, eh, they're okay, but they never really followed up with me, or they didn't call me back or they didn't help me with this, that's your brand too.

Speaker 1: 2:34

And here's the part that most firms miss. The best branding does not shout, it whispers. It builds trust before you've even made your case or talked to the client. It doesn't need to convince. It confirms what people already want to believe about you that you're credible, that you care, that you know what the hell you're doing. So no, branding is not just about looking the part. It's really not about that at all. It's about being consistent. It's about being intentional and memorable in every action, especially the ones you don't even realize you're having. So here's the mindset shift that most firms need to make.

Speaker 1: 3:13

Branding isn't just this fluffy marketing expense we cut when things get tight. It's a multiplier. A strong brand doesn't just look good, it makes everything else work better. Let's look at our cost per lead. We can take Google Ads as a specific example of this. But when someone already knows our name, when they've heard good things about us and then when they see our online presence feeling pretty dialed in, that person isn't going to need multiple clicks. They're not going to need three follow-up emails, two sales calls. They're already 50, 60, 70% sold by the time they talk to you the first time. And that kind of trust shortens your sales cycle and lowers your cost per acquisition a lot over time. We're not just buying clicks when we go to do advertising like Google ads, or we push on SEO. We are converting belief into business, and the same goes for your intake team.

Speaker 1: 4:06

A strong brand removes friction. People come in with fewer doubts, less hesitation, more urgency to move forward, fewer questions, fewer annoyances. That's what I mean. It's not magic, it's momentum. Your team is going to spend less time convincing people and more time taking their credit cards. And here's something that lawyers don't talk about really at all, but I'll just say enough Internal branding. When your team actually feels proud to wear the logo, when your values are clear and consistent, retention gets a lot easier. Recruitment gets a lot easier.

Speaker 1: 4:42

Suddenly, you're not just another firm offering a paycheck, another windowless room in a tower that someone can work in. You're a place that people want to be a part of. Yeah, it does sound like Facebook or Google from 10 or 20 years ago, but the reality is that companies do this every day. They make their office a place people want to be a part of, and when it comes to your front desk or your sales, it shines through. And then there's damage control, because every firm does get a bad review eventually, or you lose a big case and something bad happens.

Speaker 1: 5:14

But when you get that weird comment on social, if the team believes in the mission, if it's a something that they really want to be doing and if people can obviously see what's what's going on the strong brand that you've built, it acts like a buffer. People will give you the benefit of the doubt because you've built this trust, equity with these potential clients, with the community, and that is valuable. It certainly can bring in more clients, but it's also really valuable as insurance If you're a good person, a good firm, an active member of the community and you build a brand that people really like. One bad comment on social media, one weird thing on Facebook, it's not going to spell the end. And finally, before we jump off of these ideas, I want to talk about pricing power. This isn't something we're going to spend a huge amount of time on, but the firms that have forgettable brands they race to the bottom. But when people are actually able to believe in your value, they're not going to question the rate. They just want you and whatever it is you're working on, they're going to figure out how to pay for it.

Speaker 1: 6:19

Okay, so you're on board. You understand that branding matters, but what now? You've mastered the things we've just talked about? How do you actually know if your law firm's brand is working for you or against you? How do you actually know? If you've mastered those things, let's talk about how to audit what you've got and make some actually meaningful upgrades to your system. So let's start with a quick self-check.

Speaker 1: 6:41

First is is your message consistent? Look at the website, your Google business profile, your email signature, your social media, even your hold message on the phone system. Does it all sound like it came from the same firm? Or does it feel like this patchwork of different voices, tones, priorities that different marketing and consulting agencies have stitched together over the years? Next, do your visuals match the kind of clients you want to attract? If you're a boutique estate planning firm for high net worth families, but your website looks like a you know template for a coffee shop from 2012, that is a disconnect that is costing you. People make snap judgments. It's just human, and design speaks volumes about professionalism, quality and whether you're going to get the person.

Speaker 1: 7:29

Now let's also ask would a stranger understand what our firm stands for in 30 seconds or less? What about 10 seconds or less? This isn't just about our practice areas. It's about our positioning. Do we fight for the underdog? Do we deliver concierge level service? Do we fight for the underdog? Do we deliver concierge level service? Do we specialize in high stakes litigation? Whatever it is, that message needs to be the most obvious and most consistent thing you do, because if someone has to dig for this and they can't figure out what it is you do in the first place, you've just already lost them.

Speaker 1: 8:00

Now let's talk about upgrades. First is tighten your value proposition. It's time to ditch vague claims like we handle all types of law or we fight for you. That doesn't tell anyone anything. It tells us less than nothing. Instead, be really specific. We help small business owners navigate complex employment disputes without draining their time or their budget. That's a message. It's a little wordy, but it's a message.

Speaker 1: 8:28

Next, align your brand voice. Most law firm websites still sound like they were written by a bored paralegal channeling a 1980s law textbook that they sniffed Loosen up. Speak like a human who understands the emotional weight of legal problems. Because you do, you can be authoritative without sounding robotic. Most of you are doing this every day with your staff and with your clients. Do it on the website. And another upgrade invest in professional photography and a clear visual identity, or put it through the AI.

Speaker 1: 8:56

Honestly, your brand isn't just words. It's images, fonts, layout, color. Yes, I said it wasn't, but it's all the pieces. If everything looks generic, people are also going to assume that your work is generic. So make sure that you have something that looks good, because this doesn't need to be flashy, it doesn't need to be over the top, but it does need to make you look intentional. And here's one that gets overlooked all the time. Honestly, it's probably the biggest one but your intake team. They're really the key part of your brand. If you're spending thousands and thousands of dollars on ads and your receptionist answers the phone like she's annoyed that someone called her, that's a branding fail.

Speaker 1: 9:35

Train your team to carry the same tone you project online. It needs to be consistent, whether it's friendly and supportive, elite and exclusive, scrappy and aggressive, whatever it is, everyone on the front lines need to live that branding, because your brand is not one big thing or it's not one thing made up of a few things. It's a thousand tiny things, each one either reinforcing trust or, in the worst cases, each one either reinforcing trust or, in the worst cases, eroding it. Doing a brand audit, making a few smart upgrades, can have a ripple effect across your entire firm. You don't need to be Morgan Morgan to have a strong brand. All you need to do is be clear, consistent and do something that people can actually feel.

Speaker 1: 10:19

Whether you're working on your website or working on adjusting the pay-per-click ads so they're more consistent with what somebody gets when they pick up the phone, the key is to make that experience consistent from A to Z. For more than a decade, I've worked with firms that work with marketing agencies that give them cookie-cutter websites. They get the same thing that the guy down the street has, or the guy two blocks over has, and it's the same thing that the guy in the next state has and the guy in that state over from that has. They put these templates up for thousands and thousands of law firms and while this can work if your brand is strong offline, it's really important to understand how all-encompassing branding is.

Speaker 1: 10:59

Whether it's your website, whether it's your Facebook page, whether it's the way you're driving down the street with your law firm's bumper sticker on the car, your branding is your conversation engine, it's your first impression, and whether someone's going to see your Google my Business, or they're going to see you on TV or they're going to hear you on the radio. This is your reputation firewall. When we're talking about issues, when we're talking about saving money, the brand is the first thing we need to rely on. Now, I'd love to say we'll be back with more branding episodes in the future, but it's, frankly, a little bit unlikely. Branding is something that is absolutely necessary, but it's also something that firms really have to take on themselves, and it's something that you have to do in a lot of different ways, depending on your situation, depending on your community, and it's one of those things that, while I would love to be doing something more service related with this, it's really best when just done right. So that's it for Legal Marketing 101. Check out RosenAdvertisingcom for more Thanks.