Get Smart With Your Marketing Materials

For some time now, CRM has been all the rage, but marketers may soon start hearing another buzzword: “SMART.”

SMART stands for Sales and Marketing Assembly Resource Tool, and when integrated with a company's content, it can make an enormous difference in the way companies prepare and send out their marketing pieces. Its application is universal. Most companies, regardless of size or industry, have the ongoing problem of working with ever-changing marketing materials. As marketers in law firms surely know, the demand for collateral material is always present, but the ability to locate and assemble that material is often a very difficult task. One solution is to get SMART about it.

Here's a case study of how one law firm did just that.

The Way It Was

The 55-lawyer Salt Lake City firm Parr Waddoups had a rudimentary process of printing marketing materials. When an attorney needed a brochure assembled for a prospect, the marketing director would print out a combination of generic, non-customized sheets containing basic firm information, staple it together and put it in a firm folder. If time was short, the document would be faxed, which made the overall presentation unsightly.

There were three basic problems with the old method. First, the materials did not represent the firm's professional identity, aesthetically or content-wise. It was not something attorneys were pleased to give out. Second, the time spent assembling each brochure was burdensome as individual documents had to be located from various Word folders, printed separately, collated, then put into the folders. Finally, with no way to track the delivered brochures, the firm had no measurement of overall results.

Deb Kirby, Director of Marketing for Parr Waddoups, was displeased with this process. There were too many electronic versions of documents, filed in different categories. The finished products were not working to the firm's advantage. Deb considered several products to streamline this marketing assembly process, and ultimately chose a product called PitchBuilder, which falls into the SMART genre. One of the criteria in her selection was that PitchBuilder did not require the firm to build a database or a bridge from its own Web site to a supplier's site. Instead, the firm could use its existing content, even its own Web site, and therefore implementation time was reduced from several weeks to a few hours, at a much lower cost. Basic knowledge of word processing is all that was required to set up and master PitchBuilder.

A Workable Solution

These days, Deb puts marketing documents together on a weekly basis. All of the firm's brochure documents are now stored in one central location (see the screen shot, below). The firm loaded all of its graphics, logos, and other art into PitchBuilder, to facilitate total conformity and continuity in marketing materials. Customized pitches are created with Word and PDF documents, locking in the firm's own formatting on brochures, marketing collateral, proposals, and other firm documents. Deb has created, through PitchBuilder, a simple, organized and methodical system not only for creating, customizing and storing documents, but tracking them as well. PitchBuilder solved all three problems: it organized the materials for easy access and allows assembly of a full brochure, rather than separate pages that must be collated. Time spent assembling is now spent on customizing each piece at still a fraction of the time originally spent. PitchBuilder lists all brochures and proposals that were assembled and allows basic tracking information such as the contact and company that received the materials, the attorney that sent it and a full copy of the contents. Attorneys are later contacted to determine how the meetings went and what outcomes transpired. This information is logged into the summary for use in reports, as necessary.

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Customizing the Message

Each time Deb sends firm information to potential clients, she customizes the Experience section of the brochure.

“The beautiful thing is,” she says, “I'm able to do this with the click of the mouse, taking almost no added time at all. I now have multiple versions of each section in the brochure, categorized by the various areas of the firm's expertise, including IP, estate planning, patent litigation, employment services, real estate,

and transactional law. I simply log into PitchBuilder, go straight to my organized document list, and customize a version as little or as much as I need, save it, and send it off.” The secondary benefit of this system is an organized way to capture specific firm experience. “PitchBuilder is becoming the repository for important information that clients and prospects need to know about us. We've gone from generic overviews to meaningful content. Clients and prospects appreciate that we don't waste their time with generalities.”

Documents can be edited and saved in PitchBuilder, so Deb can choose the most current revision as needed. She even has multiple versions of attorney bios to emphasize particular skills.

“One attorney that never used our marketing materials took a look at the new materials and said 'Now, that I would send out',” says Deb. “True to his word, he has requested several variations of the brochure for his business development pitches.”

Time Is No Longer An Obstacle

If an attorney calls with an urgent need for marketing materials for an afternoon meeting, Deb assembles it quickly and either prints it out or sends it via e-mail. Attorneys out-of-town on business can call in and request a brochure or proposal. The materials are assembled and sent via e-mail for review. The lawyers can see exactly what the materials will look like so discussions about changes or additions are very specific and can take place in real-time. Because PitchBuilder is online, Deb can access the firm's materials from anywhere as long as she has an Internet connection. The benefit is that there is no lag time between an attorney request and being able to assemble a brochure. “As long as I can log-on, I can create targeted materials.”

Bottom Line: Saving Time and Money

By using PitchBuilder, the firm has reduced its document assembly time by 50% to 75%, which amounts to a savings of nearly three weeks per year of staff hours, which can now be used on more meaningful projects. At the same time, the quality of the brochures has dramatically improved. Currently, the firm sends approximately 30% of its marketing material by e-mail, and that number continues to increase as attorneys in the firm grow more comfortable with technology. PitchBuilder uses a launch-from-e-mail function, and sends the finished product in PDF format to whoever needs it. Electronic brochures, of course, equal more savings since nothing has to be printed. So, while your firm continues to discuss CRM at its marketing committee meetings, watch out for “SMART”, the buzzword that will make a marketer's job more manageable.

For some time now, CRM has been all the rage, but marketers may soon start hearing another buzzword: “SMART.”

SMART stands for Sales and Marketing Assembly Resource Tool, and when integrated with a company's content, it can make an enormous difference in the way companies prepare and send out their marketing pieces. Its application is universal. Most companies, regardless of size or industry, have the ongoing problem of working with ever-changing marketing materials. As marketers in law firms surely know, the demand for collateral material is always present, but the ability to locate and assemble that material is often a very difficult task. One solution is to get SMART about it.

Here's a case study of how one law firm did just that.

The Way It Was

The 55-lawyer Salt Lake City firm Parr Waddoups had a rudimentary process of printing marketing materials. When an attorney needed a brochure assembled for a prospect, the marketing director would print out a combination of generic, non-customized sheets containing basic firm information, staple it together and put it in a firm folder. If time was short, the document would be faxed, which made the overall presentation unsightly.

There were three basic problems with the old method. First, the materials did not represent the firm's professional identity, aesthetically or content-wise. It was not something attorneys were pleased to give out. Second, the time spent assembling each brochure was burdensome as individual documents had to be located from various Word folders, printed separately, collated, then put into the folders. Finally, with no way to track the delivered brochures, the firm had no measurement of overall results.

Deb Kirby, Director of Marketing for Parr Waddoups, was displeased with this process. There were too many electronic versions of documents, filed in different categories. The finished products were not working to the firm's advantage. Deb considered several products to streamline this marketing assembly process, and ultimately chose a product called PitchBuilder, which falls into the SMART genre. One of the criteria in her selection was that PitchBuilder did not require the firm to build a database or a bridge from its own Web site to a supplier's site. Instead, the firm could use its existing content, even its own Web site, and therefore implementation time was reduced from several weeks to a few hours, at a much lower cost. Basic knowledge of word processing is all that was required to set up and master PitchBuilder.

A Workable Solution

These days, Deb puts marketing documents together on a weekly basis. All of the firm's brochure documents are now stored in one central location (see the screen shot, below). The firm loaded all of its graphics, logos, and other art into PitchBuilder, to facilitate total conformity and continuity in marketing materials. Customized pitches are created with Word and PDF documents, locking in the firm's own formatting on brochures, marketing collateral, proposals, and other firm documents. Deb has created, through PitchBuilder, a simple, organized and methodical system not only for creating, customizing and storing documents, but tracking them as well. PitchBuilder solved all three problems: it organized the materials for easy access and allows assembly of a full brochure, rather than separate pages that must be collated. Time spent assembling is now spent on customizing each piece at still a fraction of the time originally spent. PitchBuilder lists all brochures and proposals that were assembled and allows basic tracking information such as the contact and company that received the materials, the attorney that sent it and a full copy of the contents. Attorneys are later contacted to determine how the meetings went and what outcomes transpired. This information is logged into the summary for use in reports, as necessary.

[IMGCAP(1)]

Customizing the Message

Each time Deb sends firm information to potential clients, she customizes the Experience section of the brochure.

“The beautiful thing is,” she says, “I'm able to do this with the click of the mouse, taking almost no added time at all. I now have multiple versions of each section in the brochure, categorized by the various areas of the firm's expertise, including IP, estate planning, patent litigation, employment services, real estate,

and transactional law. I simply log into PitchBuilder, go straight to my organized document list, and customize a version as little or as much as I need, save it, and send it off.” The secondary benefit of this system is an organized way to capture specific firm experience. “PitchBuilder is becoming the repository for important information that clients and prospects need to know about us. We've gone from generic overviews to meaningful content. Clients and prospects appreciate that we don't waste their time with generalities.”

Documents can be edited and saved in PitchBuilder, so Deb can choose the most current revision as needed. She even has multiple versions of attorney bios to emphasize particular skills.

“One attorney that never used our marketing materials took a look at the new materials and said 'Now, that I would send out',” says Deb. “True to his word, he has requested several variations of the brochure for his business development pitches.”

Time Is No Longer An Obstacle

If an attorney calls with an urgent need for marketing materials for an afternoon meeting, Deb assembles it quickly and either prints it out or sends it via e-mail. Attorneys out-of-town on business can call in and request a brochure or proposal. The materials are assembled and sent via e-mail for review. The lawyers can see exactly what the materials will look like so discussions about changes or additions are very specific and can take place in real-time. Because PitchBuilder is online, Deb can access the firm's materials from anywhere as long as she has an Internet connection. The benefit is that there is no lag time between an attorney request and being able to assemble a brochure. “As long as I can log-on, I can create targeted materials.”

Bottom Line: Saving Time and Money

By using PitchBuilder, the firm has reduced its document assembly time by 50% to 75%, which amounts to a savings of nearly three weeks per year of staff hours, which can now be used on more meaningful projects. At the same time, the quality of the brochures has dramatically improved. Currently, the firm sends approximately 30% of its marketing material by e-mail, and that number continues to increase as attorneys in the firm grow more comfortable with technology. PitchBuilder uses a launch-from-e-mail function, and sends the finished product in PDF format to whoever needs it. Electronic brochures, of course, equal more savings since nothing has to be printed. So, while your firm continues to discuss CRM at its marketing committee meetings, watch out for “SMART”, the buzzword that will make a marketer's job more manageable.