Today, I want to talk to you about something that isn’t always as obvious as it seems, and that’s called brand salience.
And if you’ve been following me for awhile, you’ll know that I talk a lot about the work of Les Binet and Peter Field. Why? Because their data over a decade of studying what makes marketing work and what doesn’t, essentially comes down to 2 things, the “long and the short.”
The short is tactical – getting in front of clients who need legal help right now. But the long, building mental availability so you come to mind when they eventually need you – that’s what drives sustained growth. And here’s the thing – the bigger law firms absolutely understand this. They play the long game relentlessly.
Let’s do a quick test. Name the first three compensation law firms that pop into your head. I bet you named the category leaders. Why? Because they’ve achieved something called brand salience – the ability to come to mind easily in buying situations.
Now, if you’re not one of those firms with strong salience, you have two strategic options:
First, you can try to build distinctiveness within the category. This means having clear brand assets and codes that help you get noticed. And, you couple it with the long. Logan Law in Australia did this brilliantly with controversial marketing that made them stand out.
But it doesn’t always need to be so extravagant. If you’re a small firm in regional locations and you’ve got a bunch of the big players among you, turning your marketing spend towards the long can sure up the bets.
Or second, you can create an entirely new category – what the authors of Blue Ocean Strategy talked about, and what Christopher Lochhead in Play Bigger called “category design.” Legal Vision in Australia is a perfect example – they didn’t try to out-compete traditional firms, they created a new space.
Lochhead argues that the most successful companies don’t just compete in existing categories, they design entirely new ones. Legal Vision didn’t set out to compete with traditional commercial law firms, – they created an entirely new category of subscription based legal help, coupled docs and legal services if and when required.
And perhaps for you, it’s not a new category per se, but a sub category of the larger one.
Years ago we launched a compensation brand that was solely focused on road accidents. It’s still there today and it has a solid footing in that sub-category. And the long was played very organically and economically. Old school signs on cars, sponsoring sporting events, sandwich boards at school fetes, local ads and the like.
They also have distinctive brand colour codes that make them stand out. Interestingly, a big player with their rebrand almost exactly copied those codes.
The key point is this: without brand salience, you’re forever trapped in the short-term tactical game of chasing leads. The real power comes from being mentally available when clients need you.
That’s brand salience and its a derivative of the long, and I can tell after nearly 20 years growing law firms, most legal practices won’t play the long. And there lies the opportunity.