Blog / How lawyers can establish thought leadership online

Thought leadership should be an entry point to a relationship. Thought leadership should intrigue, challenge, and inspire even people already familiar with a company. It should help start a relationship where none exists, and it should enhance existing relationships."
- Daniel Rasmus

Thought leadership marketing - the art of positioning yourself or your organisation as a leader in your field through best-in-class content marketing - is a popular practice in business today, and the legal field is no exception. Many law firms have launched blogs, contribute articles to popular websites such as Lexology Navigator, and have amassed thousands of loyal social media followers.

When executed well, thought leadership marketing helps to develop and nurture strong client relationships. After all, in a marketing age where "content is king", what better way ascend the throne and forge new client relationships than to amplify the expertise and perspective of your law firm via original content?

Thought leadership marketing not only extends the visibility of your brand, it demonstrates your expertise and understanding of a client's business. You earn respect for that knowledge, which helps to build trust and loyalty.

Buyers of legal services want outside counsel who dwell in their world and have clear understanding of their industries and the complexities they face every day. These buyers want to trust their businesses to firms that have deep expertise and can manoeuver confidently in the legal world and in the industry niche in which they compete. They want to spend their time and resources wisely and efficiently, and don't have the time or inclination to take the time to educate a firm's attorneys about their business dynamics and challenges.

Here are some tips to ensure that your thought leadership marketing efforts payoff:

• Become a subject-matter expert. Select only a handful of niche topics and focus on those areas. These can be found in new legal or business trends, or existing areas of strength within your practice.

• Remember that your content is meant to start a conversation. Invite response - you're not presenting a commercial or closing a deal.

• Align your thought leadership strategy with your other marketing programmes. By integrating your focus areas and marketing vehicles, you reinforce your entire marketing plan. For example, if your firm is speaking at a conference on a particular topic, publish blog posts on that topic and mention your speaking engagement. Publish a similar article on your perspective on Lexology Navigator, and close with an invitation to read your blog. Hire a graphic designer to produce an eye-catching infographic to illustrate your position.

• Go beyond straightforward topic "reporting" and provide your unique perspective. Marketing intelligence is a powerful driver of thought leadership. Analysing and commenting on timely news demonstrates to clients, perspective client, and potential referrers of business that you are aware of and care about developments that may affect their businesses.

• Maintain consistent publishing frequency to build visibility, momentum and market reach. Create an editorial calendar of topics, marketing venues and dates, and consider making a topic calendar review part of your regular team meetings.

• Repurpose your content. There is no need to recreate the wheel with every medium, every post. On the contrary, consistency and reinforcement are central to success. For example, that speech you gave can be turned into a webinar, a blog post series, a white paper, an article on Lexology Navigator and any number of social media posts. Not everyone likes to take in their information the same way. Some of us catch up on newsletters on the morning train, others download papers to study later, enjoy others browse tweets via phone in between meetings.

• Don't have time or resources to write? There are many skilled marketing writers who can produce quality content based on your bullet points and briefings.

Thought leadership marketing will be an effective component of your overall marketing plan if you stick with it, but only if you're completely comfortable and equally as passionate about your subject matter. Let that expertise and exuberance show in equal parts through your content, no matter which media platforms you use.