MARKETING

The Marketing Dashboard: Real Time Cataloging of Business Development Statistics

By Suzanne Donnels

Assessing the value of the contribution a marketing department or the business development function can have on law firm revenue is a challenging question to answer. Historically, the provisional thinking was that anything worth doing in marketing is measured and return on investment (ROI) was a key metric in determining said value. More recently, I have heard academics suggest that it is not possible to accurately measure ROI. My thinking is that because marketing departments, especially in law firms, are a year-on-year expense and typically not a revenue producing function, we as leaders need to find ways to illustrate value.  

Building a database to capture relevant business development information and then packaging this data effectively in a marketing dashboard can not only illustrate the effectiveness of a firm's business development function, but also encourage a culture that supports the sharing of business development and competitive intelligence information.  

I describe below, as an example, a consumer dashboard and how they enticed consumers to participate. Innovation in consumer technologies, with the creation of such applications like mint.com, has proved to consumers that value is achieved when personal information is contributed to the cloud. Quicken is computer software that downloads your bank, investments, credit card, and other financial accounts. It aids the consumer in budgeting, identifying tax savings, and helps to reach your savings goal. Mint.com, developed by Quicken, offers all that Quicken does, plus as it observes your spending habits it suggests investment vehicles and low interest rate credit cards that may suit your preferences. Furthermore, Quicken costs approximately $50 and mint.com is free. Consumers have realized that if they share their personal information with mint.com, they will obtain value that exceeds the nervousness that they may have in sharing this information.

This also holds true in a law firm setting. Time building software designed to aid lawyers in creating their timesheets concatenate Outlook meetings, emails, documents, and phone calls to a lawyer’s page on the firm’s Intranet. In this case, the value that the firm’s lawyers receive for being able to quickly and accurately build their timesheets outweighs “Big Brother” monitoring of their every movement. In other words, when the benefits I received outweigh the risk, then I will share my information.

What is a marketing dashboard? A marketing dashboard is a space on the firm’s Intranet that contains meaningful information and data that illustrates the value of the firm’s business development function. Utilizing effective data presentation techniques taught by the likes of Professor Edward Tufte, the dashboard contains a chart illustrating the shear numbers of pitches, proposals, presentations, and other client meetings the firm has had in each year. See Chart 1. 

A well-crafted chart is a better way of conveying this information than just a simple listing. Give the partners the ability to open an additional chart that compares two years month-by-month. See Chart 2.

Consider adding a few lists to supplement these images. The first might be a listing of wins for the last rolling 30 days. A second list could be all business development activities 30 days past and in the future. Depending upon the data you collect, any number of lists or analyses could be displayed on the dashboard. A note of caution, keep the number of fields to a minimum. If it takes too long to fill in the fields or if it is a challenge to gather all of the data, your output won’t be as strong. Simpler field construction with a limited number is best.

Because the marketing dashboard is about the firm’s business development function and not just the activities of the marketing department, the dashboard will not be viewed as an obvious self-serving mechanism.

In the database that supports the displayed data, you can also capture competitive intelligence gathered during and at the end of the competition. Sophisticated business development professionals coach pitch teams to ask important competition questions throughout the competition, why the firm won or lost the competition, and which law firms were in the running for the work. Other information of value that can be captured is whether there were alternative fee arrangements or added-value services (at no-charge or discounted) offered. You might also want to track the diversity makeup of your pitch teams. This type of data is helpful in looking more intimately at your business development processes allowing you to consistently innovate the process.

Business development professionals oftentimes have difficulty being invited to a “seat at the table” or are not in the room when partners are discussing their business development initiatives and the status of major matters. I believe that the reason for this is that marketing and business development is the easier part of the job. Learning, understanding, and having an appreciation for the legal services that are provided by the firm’s lawyers and the clients they serve is the hard part. This is precisely why former practicing lawyers are excellent candidates to become business development professionals to the very partners that they sat next to at trial or when they closed the last IPO. They already have the relationships and the partner’s trust, which is easily extended to their new job.

Sadly, we do not always have an opportunity to find candidates like this for all positions, thus the marketing dashboard can be helpful to business development professionals who do not have those established relationships. It is a good vehicle for educating the business development professional on the types of activities engaged in by the partners and practices. The business development professional can also use the data to be well informed about the competition, their track record, and use this information to support their coaching of their pitch teams. For example, “law firm ABC regularly offers a flat fee with a collar and an incentive success fee for these types of matters.” Your research team could also look at this data over time and generate competitive intelligence reports on numerous metrics captured in the database.

When the partners are looking to evaluate your marketing department’s contribution, give them real-time access to a marketing dashboard that makes it clear that your department is an integral component to the firm’s financial success. Happy Dashboarding!

Suzanne Donnels is Principal of Suzanne Donnels Consulting and a marketing strategist, business developer, and technologist offering more than 23 years of legal marketing experience. She regularly works collaboratively with top firm professionals, aligning business development and marketing efforts with the firm's strategic vision. Suzanne is a student of innovation, creator of systems that improve productivity, and designer of metrics that measure returns on marketing investments. She has served in the role as the top-business development position to O'Melveny, Allen Matkins, and Orrick.