Grow My Law Firm

YMCA, NPR...really rebranding or simple name changes?

YMCA announced today that after 166 years, the Young Men's Christian Association will now be rebranded as "the Y." Similarly, National Public Radio recently launched an initiative to formally rebrand itself as NPR. Both acronyms have enjoyed widespread use within the public sphere for years, so these seem logical progressions, however, are they really rebrands or simply name changes?

First, let's review what a brand is. Your brand is the public's sum total experience with your company, product, or service. It's the feeling people have when they think of your company or see some physical manifestation of it. It's not your name, or your logo, or your letterhead, as many believe, although all are elements of it. Your brand exists in people's minds, and it doesn't really much matter what you think of it. Only your constituency's opinions count.

Rebranding, therefore, is dependent upon changing the public's perception of your company, product or service. Is "the Y" changing the way the way that they treat the people they help? Will those people enjoy a significantly altered experience in the future than in the past? Will this already wonderful organization provide something really different? 

In this age of 140 and 160 character communications, shorter names leave more room for the message, so NPR makes perfect sense. But when you're already commonly referred to as YMCA, "the Y" is actually one character longer, adding a slight social media disadvantage.

So does a name change really change anything at all about your customer's or client's experience? No, it doesn't. A name change may accurately reflect what your constituency already calls you, and there's certainly no harm in that, provided the common name is acceptable. But a name change, unsupported by a change of customer experience, is just a name change, not a rebrand. So lets call a spade a spade, shall we? 

- Christine Pilch

Building your brand 140 characters at a time

At the risk of sounding like a broken record... your brand isn't your logo and stationery, although they are elements of it. Your brand is the feeling that people have when they see your logo, hear your name, or are reminded of your product or service in any way. Your brand is completely about the emotion evoked.

Twitter is one of the most powerful branding tools available these days. Are you building your brand on Twitter? Is it possible to build a brand in 140 character bursts?

Case in point: Zappos CEO, Tony Hsieh is on Twitter. Now let's face facts, the man sells shoes. What's so exciting about that? He tweets about his day. He tweets about meetings he has. He tweets when he is interviewed by the press. He tweets about making green tea, and what he had for dinner. He tweets when he sees a movie. What's so exciting about that? Individually, maybe nothing, but all together, they gave his followers...all 27,615 (as of now) of them, insight into Tony, the person.

I'm one of those followers, and when I read regular stuff about a regular guy who is excited about Christmas and spending time with friends, I think, "He's okay." Then I read the impressive stuff that he's doing with is company, and I am inclined to check out his website and maybe do a little shopping.

Reading Tony's tweets puts a human face on a company that I wasn't really curious about before. Now Zappos is on my radar, and my feeling about it is positive. "Hey, that's Tony's company." That's branding.

I know what you're thinking, "What can Twitter do for me? Is it worth my time? How can I learn it?" The truth is that it can be whatever you want it to be. Everyone in the Twitterverse is learning at the same time. There are no experts. There is no rulebook. If someone abuses your personal ethics, unfollowing them is as easy as clicking a button. Poof, they can't assault you anymore.

Twitter is a unique marketing mechanism in the fact that it is 100% permission based. Think about the potential of always speaking to an audience that signed up to listen to what you have to say, and always welcomes it. What company would argue that they don't want a 100% opt-in prospect list?

Companies are also reinforcing their brands by doing damage control on Twitter. Consider the importance of the job that head of social media at Ford Motor Company, Scott Monty has. I have the utmost respect for someone who embraces the challenge of rebranding one of "The Big 3." The automotive industry's reputation is so tarnished that I applaud Scott's efforts. He uses Twitter to educate followers about new features and industry news. He politely clarifies misconceptions and always maintains a positive attitude. Whatever Ford is paying him, he's worth more, far more, for the rebranding that he actively pursues daily on the company's behalf.

Finally, what better example could there be than the poster boy, Barack Obama? Some brilliant staffer realized that Twitter was on the verge of exploding, and the campaign embraced it as a marketing tool. I doubt that he was doing this personally, but somebody was posting several times/day about his appearances and speeches. They posted links to live feeds. Throughout the campaign, his followers got an inside, birds-eye view of what he was doing daily. We felt like a member of his team. We felt a spirit of camaraderie. We found each other, and supported each other, and cheered together on one glorious night. Obama's venture into the Twitterverse definitely helped build his brand.

So, if Twitter is good enough for Obama's brand, and Ford and Zappos, is it good enough for you?

by: Christine Pilch
Christine@GrowMyCo.com
My LinkedIn Profile
On Twitter

When your ad agency doesn't understand branding

"Branding," is a popular buzzword that is often misused by people who don't understand what it actually is. It's not surprising that many business owners don't quite understand what their brand is, but it's a sad day indeed when an advertising agency doesn't get it. Unfortunately, that happens pretty often.

I recently saw this ad for an advertising agency's "branding service," and I just shook my head. This agency wants your business, and they may have a talented graphic designer who can make your materials look attractive, but this ad isn't actually about branding, so if they don't get it, how can they help you?

Your brand is the sum total of your clients' and prospects' experiences with your service. It's what they feel when they hear your name or see your logo. The physical aspects named in the ad are elements of your brand, but they are not the brand itself.

This blog is full of posts about what a waste of money it is to change your phyical look and expect that your brand will change. By themselves, a new logo, stationery package, and all the rest of the items listed in the ad to the left will rebrand your business about as successfully as changing the carpeting and window dressings in your office would.

The only way a company can rebrand is to change its clients' experience. You must change the way your clients feel they are treated in every interaction with your company. You must establish a different or higher expectation and uphold it in all client touchpoints.

Once you have made your core rebranding commitment, repositioned your company, created a position and value statement, and all stakeholders are onboard and trained, only then can you successfully change the graphics that represent your company to appeal to the target clients identified in your positioning.

If you change your logo and other associated graphic materials before repositioning your company, who will those graphics appeal to? Only the egos of your company's partners and administration.

Please don't be fooled into thinking that a new graphic look will change your brand. If someone tells you differently, you might want to go shopping for a new marketing/advertising company.


by: Christine Pilch
Christine@GrowMyCo.com
My LinkedIn Profile
On Twitter

Repositioning – changing the way your market perceives you

Do you understand the position that you own in your market? This is what makes people think of you and what they associate you with. Of course, it's unreasonable to expect everyone in your market to be familiar with you, but it is a good idea to make sure that the general perception of your target prospects is in line with what you actually have to offer and what you do.

Al Reis and Jack Trout wrote one of the most impactful marketing books in history, "Positioning: The Battle for the Mind." They say that the purpose of positioning is to not to, "…create something new and different, but to manipulate what's already in the mind, to retie the connections that already exist." Therefore, it is reasonable to claim that your market position may be recrafted.

Let's say for instance that you are an attorney who loves estate planning and wants to concentrate your practice on it, but the market's perception is that you handle residential real estate. This is probably due to a significant amount of work you've done in that area and/or a relationship with referral sources that send this business your way.

The good news is that people recognize you as a lawyer. The bad news is that their perception is not what you want; so that serves as an obstacle to incoming estate planning work.

You can recraft your prospects' perception of the kind of law you practice through your marketing. You can reposition yourself and form a revised brand that reshapes the public's perception of you. To do this you will have to answer three basic questions:

• Who are your target clients?
• What will they get from your estate planning services?
• Why are you uniquely qualified to handle this for them?

Defining who, what and why provides the groundwork necessary to determine the differentiators that make you unique and desirable. They also provide a baseline from which you can establish the value-added advantages that can tip the scales in your favor when a prospect compares you against a competitor.

When you use your positioning work to craft new marketing messages, you will have the advantage of speaking to precisely the right target audience about something that interests them, and they will understand why they should call you. The messages will be so on-target that you will effectively re-position and rebrand yourself.

by: Christine Pilch

Branding is more than a new name or logo

An article in the online version of the Houston Chronicle on May 26th about law firms cutting down their names only tells part of the branding story. The implication throughout is that a brand is a name, a logo, colors, a website or marketing materials.

The author writes, “…Branding for law firms isn’t just paring down the name. It’s picking a logo with gravitas, a classy color scheme, an important feel for the Web site, a poignant message and a way to convey it all...”

It is true that all of these are elements of a brand, but they are not the law firm’s brand itself. A brand is the emotional response that all of those things generate in your clients or prospects. Your brand is the way people feel about you. It is the sum total of all their experiences with your firm.

The implication in the article is that you can change your brand by changing your name, logo, etc, but actually, the only way to change your brand is to change your client’s experience with your firm. All the rest is just window dressing. Think about it, does a new logo really change the way your clients feel about the experience they have when they engage your legal services?

Successful branding is built around the value your clients get as the result of your legal work, and rebranding is often the result of a need to fix a deficiency or enhance your clients’ experience.

The author does make a very important point however, when she discusses how some firms are recognizing the need to toss their egos. She quotes Corinne Cooper, a former law professor who now runs an Arizona business for branding of law firms. “... the firm has to be branded in ways that make sense. … Many lawyers who have strategically managed law firms into large successful businesses are smart enough to know that what helps the firm success is what matters. They worry not about egos, but about what works.”

Removing ego is critical to marketing success. Successful marketing turns around all messaging from “about your firm” to “about your clients.” It removes ego. Branding is about finding the core value that your clients perceive in your legal service. It’s about making everything about them, not about you.

So, yes, your name, logo, colors, website and marketing materials all reflect your brand as elements of it, but your brand itself is all about how your clients and prospects feel about you. The only way to change your brand is to change your clients’ experience.

by: Christine Pilch

Rebranding - how can I change my firm’s brand?

Remember that your brand is entirely about the way your clients feel about you, so if you want to rebrand your firm, you must change your clients’ experience. That’s the ONLY way you can rebrand your firm. Simply designing a new logo and stationery package won’t do it. In fact, that will just come off as shallow.

Rebranding is a process that requires a deep understanding of:

1. Who your clients are
2. What they get from you, and
3. Why yours is the best firm to solve their problems.

This is called positioning. It includes learning some very specific things about your clients, like their demographics and the psychographics that make them chose you instead of your competitors. These facts help you understand why you have the business you do and helps specify your niche.

Only after you really understand your current clients can you either go after more just like them or decide to attract a new kind of client. If a change is what you want, then you can start a rebranding process that includes repackaging your firm as attractive to the newly defined client.

For example, if your firm handles mostly employment work, and you decide that you would like to start a PI practice, those are very different target clients, who are attracted to very different messages. It is possible to position your firm to be attractive to both, but the separate PI marketing strategy and messages will have to be crafted with care to not appear distasteful to the established employment clients.

If you decide that you want more of the same client base that you currently have, and you still want to rebrand your firm, you have to change your clients’ experience with you. This will usually include addressing some shortcoming discovered in your positioning phase. You fix that deficiency, and you change your clients’ experience, thus rebranding your firm.

by: Christine Pilch