We’re all familiar with the clichés of law firm brands—scales of justice, Doric columns, serious portraits in front of a stack of legal books. In today’s increasingly consumer-driven and online market, these stale displays of “branding” aren’t going to cut it.
The legal space grows ever more competitive as your clients move online to conduct their research, even after receiving a referral from a trusted friend or family member. Most firms have adapted by focusing their marketing efforts online, but we are shocked at the continued use of bland, boilerplate messaging which fails to describe their law firm in a way that is at all distinguishing.
Marketing success should be thought of as having the right message to the right audience at the right time. At GNGF we believe all marketing success hinges on communicating a well-defined, unique law firm brand.
We understand the particular challenges that law firms face in differentiating from competitors, in thinking of their law firm as a business, and narrowing in on their desired audience.
That’s why we’re dedicated to killing law firm brand clichés and developing compelling legal brands that will change your law firm’s business.
Our brand strategists and law firm marketing experts have refined a series of exercises and tools specially created to determine and capitalize on the characteristics that set you apart in your market and practice area. By defining the “why” of your firm, you can unify your attorneys and staff behind a brand message that communicates best with your target market, attracting those potential clients to your firm.
Our Law Firm Branding Process
Our branding process is one of the best in the industry; it will establish a brand for you that communicates the right message, unique to your firm.
Many clients tell us this process is the first time they have really thought about their law firm business this deeply and often say the branding exercise is one of the most valuable parts of our process. We don’t want to paint too rosy of a picture, in the beginning, this process will take time and effort from you and your team.
We have developed three law firm brand development options to best fit your law firm’s budget, goals, and preferences.
Self-Led Law Firm Brand Development
Our years of leading law firms and attorneys through our branding process have allowed us to package up everything you need to conduct branding exercises yourself. We will provide you with the very questionnaires, exercises, and tools that our own strategists use to develop law firm brands.
In addition to the exercises and materials, one of our Brand Strategists will give you a call to walk you through each piece and how to use it in your office. They’ll share their own insights into running an effective brand meeting, as well as how to get the most out of each exercise to ensure you best capture your law firm’s unique qualities.
Brand Development with Legal Branding Strategists
The first step in our brand process is a specifically designed series of in-depth questions exploring your firm’s values, goals, and behaviors to help you figure out what truly makes your firm unique. Our Brand Strategist then reviews your responses and interviews your firm’s key stakeholders to hone your messaging. Then, with our facilitators onsite or via a video conference (your preference), we facilitate exercises based on your teams answer to these questions to hone in on your firm’s brand while evaluating your competitors and defining your ideal target market.
From these exercises, the Brand Strategist then creates a custom Law Firm Brand Platform document. This document should act as sort of a “brand bible” and a gut check for marketing initiatives down the line. But it also is a great tool for sharing your firm’s mission with your current staff and anyone joining your team in the future. The goal is for someone to have a thorough understanding of your brand after reading.
Advanced Law Firm Brand Strategy
For the law firm looking to overhaul their brand, add new practice areas, or for those firms who want to understand every aspect of how their brand is being communicated, we offer a more extensive research and discovery process.
In addition to the questionnaires and exercises included in our Law Firm Brand Development process, our Brand Strategists will conduct interviews with your staff members and past clients to gain insights from their perception of your firm. Our team will also evaluate your intake process to see how it aligns with your desired brand messaging.
After the research phase, our strategists will make recommendations based on the actual experience of staff and clients to align future experiences with the characteristics of the Brand Platform.
If you have questions about our approach to law firm brand development or want to know more about what is best for your firm, send an email to [email protected] or give us a call at 513-444-2016.
Law Firm Brand Design
Our goal is to make sure that potential clients understand your firm’s values, whatever media they’re interacting with. Our award-winning designers will create a compelling visual identity that communicates your law firm’s characteristics through imagery, typography, and color.
Just like we hate clichés in our law firm brand messaging, you won’t see any scales of justice in our law firm logos, either. When we design a logo for your firm, our goal is to create something unique and professional that is attention-grabbing and stands out from your competition.
Check out some of our recent law firm logo and identity work below (not to toot our own horn too much, but some of these have won industry awards).