Moo or moo!

When it comes to marketing, it's all about target groups. Lawyers in particular should keep this in mind if they want to be successful in marketing. And this fact has serious implications for the structuring of – actually all – marketing activities.

Because marketing measures, which are categorized after fields of law, are correctly structured indeed with the legal eyeglasses regarded. But they often do not reflect the reality of life and the need for advice of potential clients.

Clients and their problems

Those who need a lawyer usually have a fairly concrete problem that they need professional help to solve. However, the need for advice can also vary greatly within a legal field, especially in the case of very inhomogeneous target groups within a legal field, i.e. z. B. in inheritance law, tenancy law, labor law, but z. B. also in the medicine right or the press right. People looking for a lawyer in one of these areas of law can have very different problems – as tenant or landlord, patient or doctor, employee or employer. Not infrequently, something else is added in the above-mentioned areas: a passionate rage against the "other side. Employees who have been dismissed are not well disposed towards employers – patients who have been tampered with by a doctor are not well disposed towards doctors, tenants after a luxury renovation notice are not necessarily well disposed towards landlords.

And you guessed it: that causes problems in marketing. Addressing target groups within a – from a legal point of view – homogeneous field of law without offending the other half of the target group is not easy. Because in such constellations one cannot and will not write, exaggeratedly said: "If your doctor has bungled, we will hit him for it so properly in the frying pan and let him bleed financially". Because if you clearly communicate that you are vehemently representing patient interests – do you really think a doctor would still buy that you are acting against patients with the same impetus? Rather not..

Don't lump everything together

The solution to this problem is actually simple: decide to be available to only one "side", either patients OR doctors, landlords OR tenants, the tabloids OR their "victims".

I am aware of the fact that you have to be able to afford this in the truest sense of the word. After all, if you focus clearly on one side or the other, you feel like you're slamming the door in 50% of potential clients' faces if you say: we're a law firm for employees or: we're a law firm for employers only.

So if possible, decide on a target group even within a legal area, even within a legal area target group there should be no moo and moo, but moo OR moo. This not only makes communication easier and makes you an expert in the perception of your potential clients. Above all, it makes you credible from the perspective of your target audience. And that is m. E. Especially important in the often emotionally charged legal areas of tenancy law, labor law and medical law.

Communicate clearly

If you cannot decide for one or the other side within half an ambivalent target group, decide at least for a clear speech of the respective target groups. For within these perceived somewhat schizophrenic areas of law, the "target groups in the target group" should be addressed clearly separately, if you are available to both sides as a lawyer.

How to do it? First of all, you do not structure your website classically according to legal fields, but z. B. after private individuals and companies. This allows for targeting in each subcategory, showing that you know the trigger points of your target audience. In purely textual terms, but also logically, this leads to clear communication and avoids unattractive textual wishy-washy, where you have to constantly make sure that you address everyone and at the same time don't step on anyone's toes "on the other side".

You then continue this principle of clear targeting: you use targeted Google Ads ads aimed at one or the other in the target audience, you have different small brochures for one and the other etc..

This is more effort admitted. However, it will pay off in the medium term.

Clear communication, clear strategy – or vice versa?

Time and again, we have seen that law firms have not really thought about their target group(s) until a marketing project is underway. It's especially nice when we then witness a firm put down a gut strategy and clearly decide for and clearly decide against something.

Because it has the potential to clearly communicate who you are and who you want as a client. If you approach the right clients, they will also come to you. In this way, clear decisions ultimately lead to better, more satisfied and more successful work.