Thought leadership can help assure your clients that your law firm was—and still is—the right choice.
I often say that thought leadership is a Swiss Army Knife. It can provide marketing benefits, business development benefits, and recruiting benefits, among other kinds of benefits.
Here’s one of those “other kinds” of benefits: It can serve as a buyer’s remorse elimination tool.
Obviously, a law firm’s thought leadership can’t overcome the firm’s bad client service, bad advice, or bad results. But if a firm is providing at least average client service, advice, and results, a firm’s consistent, strategic thought leadership can reinforce to a client that it made the right choice by hiring that firm.
Thought leadership can help eliminate buyer’s remorse
Assuming that a law firm is consistently publishing thought leadership that is relevant, valuable, and compelling, here are five ways that its thought leadership can be a buyer’s remorse elimination tool.
First, it continuously reinforces expertise and authority on the part of the law firm, thus validating a client’s choice to hire that firm.
When a firm publishes thought leadership content regarding issues that are relevant to the client and their industry, and that demonstrates the knowledge, wisdom, and insights the firm’s attorneys have, that content should reassure the client that the firm has the kind of knowledge, wisdom, and insights necessary to help them resolve the legal or business issues they’re facing.
Second, a law firm’s thought leadership provides ongoing value for a client beyond the work the firm is doing on the client’s active matter(s).
By regularly producing thought leadership regarding topics relevant to a client, such as various legal or business issues they might encounter, a firm is providing free, “value-add” educational material to the client.
(The education fueling that material, by the way, was paid for by previous clients whose matters allowed the firm’s attorneys to develop the knowledge, wisdom, and insights displayed in the thought leadership.)
The education a client receives from this educational material communicates to them that they will benefit from being a client of their law firm in ways that other law firms may not be able to match.
Third, a law firm’s thought leadership can help shape a client’s understanding of complex legal or business issues, eventually leading to them being more satisfied with the firm’s work.
Thought leadership exploring the messiness or uncertainty surrounding particular legal or business issues can help manage a client’s expectations when they’re facing similar issues. They’ll (hopefully) be realistic about the legal or business issues they’ve hired a firm to assist them with if they’re given context about those issues in a way that’s detached from the work the firm is doing on their active matter(s).
If a client sees through thought leadership that the legal or business environment is particularly uncertain and difficult to navigate, it helps them understand that the resolution of their legal or business issues might not be a slam dunk.
Of course, their attorneys would tell them the same thing in connection with their active matter(s). But when a client infers that on their own from their law firm’s thought leadership, it reinforces what the attorney said without making it seem like the attorney was managing the client’s expectations in a self-serving manner.
Fourth, a law firm’s thought leadership shows a client that the firm has capabilities beyond those it’s employing in connection with the client’s active matter(s).
When a law firm produces thought leadership that covers other legal and business issues beyond those it’s helping a particular client with at the moment, it shows the client that the firm has a wide range of services the client can avail themselves of down the road if necessary.
This thought leadership should comfort a client that the firm they’re working with has a sophisticated service offering and, based on the various areas of law it practices, the firm’s attorneys will be able to “issue spot” potential issues their colleagues can advise their clients on further, making it easy for clients to nip potential issues in the bud.
Fifth, and finally, a law firm’s thought leadership can help make a client feel valued and appreciated when the law firm co-produces that thought leadership with that client, and thus ingratiates itself with the client.
Whether it’s co-authoring an article or whitepaper, or co-producing a video or podcast episode, the process of crafting co-produced thought leadership can help build and nurture a relationship between a law firm’s attorneys and their clients. The latter are getting the benefit of being promoted and marketed, and being given a platform, through their law firm’s thought leadership.
How could a client not feel valued and appreciated when a law firm is asking them to participate in thought leadership at no cost to them, with no significant burden placed on them (because the firm is doing the majority of the work), yet they get all the benefits of the publication of that thought leadership?
The fact that a law firm is asking a client to go in with them on thought leadership sends a message to that client that they are a special client in the eyes of the law firm, which should help reduce any buyer’s remorse they’re feeling.
A smart way to put an end to a client’s second-guessing
When a client hires a law firm to handle a new matter, it’s often going to be concerned at first whether it made the right decision.
A law firm’s strategic, consistent thought leadership program that’s regularly producing relevant, valuable, and compelling content in the eyes of that client can go a long way in eliminating the client’s concern that they made the wrong choice when they retained the firm to assist them with their legal or business issue.
Thinking about bringing on an outside writer to help your law firm strategize and create compelling thought-leadership marketing and business development content? Click here to schedule a 30-minute Content Strategy Audit to learn if collaborating with an outside writer is the right move for you and your firm.