Alliance Marketing Can Extend Your Firm's Reach

Alliance marketing offers law firms a great way to increase their exposure to potential clients while showing off their expertise in the law to other professionals who can be a wellspring of referrals. An alliance-marketing relationship brings together lawyers with accountants, bankers, investment planners, publishers or other professionals who may want to market their services to the same potential clients. These alliances could be formed to run seminars for current and potential clients, to work together to publish articles or for creation of advertising materials.

Such alliances don't need to be limited to the big corporate firms. While large firms may form marketing partnerships with Big Four accounting firms, sole practitioners could do just as well partnering with a neighborhood accountant or tax professional to run business seminars through the local Chamber of Commerce.

Size Doesn't Matter

Whether your firm is large or small, the fundamentals of forming a marketing alliance are basically the same. It requires two or more organizations that want to develop a marketing program focused on a targeted constituency. The goal is to advance the business-development goals of each organization. Each group must be willing to bring resources to the table, and each partner must be willing to have their lawyers and other professionals devote time and attention to the project.

There are several keys to structuring a successful alliance-marketing relationship.

Step 1: Think about your target clients. Is their industry expanding, consolidating or transforming? Are your targets multi-national companies, regional players, conglomerates of independently operating business units or local businesses? Will the buyers of your services be general counsel, executives, entrepreneurs or private citizens?

Step 2: Identify potential alliance partners. A good alliance partner will typically have preexisting relationships with your targets. These types of relationships can be found in the day-to-day services provided by a wide variety of organizations. Potential partners include banks, investment firms, accounting and consultant firms, universities and trade associations.

Step 3: Find out if a potential alliance partner has experience in joint marketing. Look at its Web site, especially in the Events and Seminar sections. See if it works with service providers to put on seminars and conferences, or maybe it makes sales presentations or has had articles published in respected journals. If its competitors are involved in alliance marketing, you might have a good pitch to get your potential partner interested in working with you.

Step 4: See if your organization has any existing relationships with the potential alliance partner. Maybe the managing partners of your organizations know each other professionally or personally; maybe practice leaders at each organization know one another. If there is a pre-existing relationship, it may make the most sense to use that as a means of introducing the concept of alliance marketing.

Then start with a series of phone meetings to clarify initial interest and level of commitment. If the conversation feels one-sided, or you find that you're generating all the ideas, this may not be a good alliance candidate.

If both sides are committed to developing an alliance marketing program, the broad outlines of the offering should be set, such as the target of the marketing efforts, subject matter, possible participants and takeaway materials.

Step 5: Finally, set up a face-to-face meeting to finalize the nuts and bolts. Each participant should walk away with a clear understanding of why each organization is participating, whom the targets are, what each of the participants is responsible for and what the immediate next steps will be. It may be necessary for each side to explain their practice and what they hope to achieve by engaging in this marketing effort.

After the marketing event is over or the article has been published, each side should assess the value of the effort and decide whether it's worthwhile to continue the alliance. Talk about whether the event supported the business-development goals of each partner and whether it generated any leads.

Alliance marketing is among the most effective ways to market resources and to further business development between professions offering complementary services.

Alliance marketing offers law firms a great way to increase their exposure to potential clients while showing off their expertise in the law to other professionals who can be a wellspring of referrals. An alliance-marketing relationship brings together lawyers with accountants, bankers, investment planners, publishers or other professionals who may want to market their services to the same potential clients. These alliances could be formed to run seminars for current and potential clients, to work together to publish articles or for creation of advertising materials.

Such alliances don't need to be limited to the big corporate firms. While large firms may form marketing partnerships with Big Four accounting firms, sole practitioners could do just as well partnering with a neighborhood accountant or tax professional to run business seminars through the local Chamber of Commerce.

Size Doesn't Matter

Whether your firm is large or small, the fundamentals of forming a marketing alliance are basically the same. It requires two or more organizations that want to develop a marketing program focused on a targeted constituency. The goal is to advance the business-development goals of each organization. Each group must be willing to bring resources to the table, and each partner must be willing to have their lawyers and other professionals devote time and attention to the project.

There are several keys to structuring a successful alliance-marketing relationship.

Step 1: Think about your target clients. Is their industry expanding, consolidating or transforming? Are your targets multi-national companies, regional players, conglomerates of independently operating business units or local businesses? Will the buyers of your services be general counsel, executives, entrepreneurs or private citizens?

Step 2: Identify potential alliance partners. A good alliance partner will typically have preexisting relationships with your targets. These types of relationships can be found in the day-to-day services provided by a wide variety of organizations. Potential partners include banks, investment firms, accounting and consultant firms, universities and trade associations.

Step 3: Find out if a potential alliance partner has experience in joint marketing. Look at its Web site, especially in the Events and Seminar sections. See if it works with service providers to put on seminars and conferences, or maybe it makes sales presentations or has had articles published in respected journals. If its competitors are involved in alliance marketing, you might have a good pitch to get your potential partner interested in working with you.

Step 4: See if your organization has any existing relationships with the potential alliance partner. Maybe the managing partners of your organizations know each other professionally or personally; maybe practice leaders at each organization know one another. If there is a pre-existing relationship, it may make the most sense to use that as a means of introducing the concept of alliance marketing.

Then start with a series of phone meetings to clarify initial interest and level of commitment. If the conversation feels one-sided, or you find that you're generating all the ideas, this may not be a good alliance candidate.

If both sides are committed to developing an alliance marketing program, the broad outlines of the offering should be set, such as the target of the marketing efforts, subject matter, possible participants and takeaway materials.

Step 5: Finally, set up a face-to-face meeting to finalize the nuts and bolts. Each participant should walk away with a clear understanding of why each organization is participating, whom the targets are, what each of the participants is responsible for and what the immediate next steps will be. It may be necessary for each side to explain their practice and what they hope to achieve by engaging in this marketing effort.

After the marketing event is over or the article has been published, each side should assess the value of the effort and decide whether it's worthwhile to continue the alliance. Talk about whether the event supported the business-development goals of each partner and whether it generated any leads.

Alliance marketing is among the most effective ways to market resources and to further business development between professions offering complementary services.