Africa focussed marketing & business development

In need of some fresh inspiration for propelling your legal practice forward? Here are some important marketing insights to help you achieve growth in 2021.

With working remotely our new reality (at least for the moment), the truth is that most of us have a little more time to reflect on things that we often are not minded to. Although we all continue to be incredibly busy adjusting to the new normal of home working, home schooling and social distancing, the lack of a daily commute definitely means there’s at least an hour (or two) in each person’s day to do invest in planning ahead. LGC provides some recommendations on Marketing and BD (MBD) Housekeeping tasks and tactics which will enable African Law Firms to be better positioned for all that lies ahead once the current global pandemic has passed.

The popularity of the legal profession in Africa combined with standardised legal practice has led to greater homogeneity amongst lawyers. Faced with this dilemma, the reality of globalisation and the growing presence of international players, how does a law firm business stand out of from the crowd in a market saturated with other great lawyers?

A key retention strategy for a successful African law firm must be partnership clarity i.e. transparency for rising legal stars on what it takes to make partner. That said many firms fail to clearly communicate their expectations or indeed the path to partnership.

According to the statistics, more than 60% of prospects who look for businesses online are more likely to use those who have an interactive and informative social media presence. Even in Africa where traditionally professional services marketing has been highly dependent on ‘in person’ business development, the power of technology means that increasingly online marketing and social media networking simply cannot be ignored.

Independent African professional services firms (PSFs) need but often lack a clear marketing strategy for their business. Consequently most partnership driven organisations are unable to say “no” to anything that a particular partner wants and very often fail to make necessary choices about which markets and services to pursue. The result? Firms with sub optimal marketing activity and even less adequate marketing resource to achieve their objectives.

According to a recent study by Citibank, by 2025, Africa will account for 12% of global legal spend. This represents more than double the amount of global legal spend just 5 years ago. In essence Africa presents a huge opportunity both for African law firms and for international law firms. Traditionally, the lion’s share of legal advice in connection with Africa-related matters has been performed in major capital cities such as London, Paris, Dubai, New York and Washington DC. However, increasingly law firms across African jurisdictions are securing engagements and accessing the legal spend of international clients. Consequently, as the legal market for Africa firms grows so too does competition for legal work given to both African and international law firms. In this challenging environment, how can African law firms protect their brand and relational capital with local and international clients?

Love them or loathe them, legal directories are a necessary part of the business development calendar for law firms. Whether your firm is intimately familiar with directories or grappling to understand the essential elements involved in gaining entry into sought-after rankings like Chambers, Lareine Gold Consulting (LGC) is experienced in helping law firms prepare successful directory submissions and develop a rankings strategy that takes the guesswork out of dealing with directories. Below we review a brief history of legal directories, discuss whether they are still worth the trouble and provide some best practice hints and tips.