With 2020 quickly coming to a close, and 2021 on the horizon, now is the time to take a look over all of your firm’s marketing objectives from the past year, and to start planning for the upcoming year.

Below are our top tips on how to best prepare your marketing and business development strategies for the upcoming year:

1. Sort through your contact list
   • Clear out old contacts that are no longer up to date, or whom you are no longer in communication with, and ensure that all of your current contacts are properly stored and recorded in your database/ CRM
   • Take this time to go through contacts you haven’t been in touch with for a while, and reach out and try to find a way to reconnect. The holidays are always a good excuse to contact someone. However, rather than just send out a generic holiday, try to customize your messages and use this outreach method to suggest reconnecting by phone/ videocall/ or even in person if appropriate.

2. Review your current firm’s website and social media accounts
   • Check to see that all attorney bios and pictures up to date, and that all of the firm’s recent rankings and awards recognitions listed?
   • Consider your firm’s engagement on social media, especially LinkedIn– are the current accounts active and up to date, or have the accounts been inactive for some time?

3. Reach out to your network and gather insights on what marketing strategies worked for your colleagues this year, and what they plan to do differently/ better in the upcoming year
   • Contact attorneys or firms that have launched marketing strategies that you admire and ask what they have found to have worked / didn’t work for them this year
   • Regarding events, try to also find out what your colleagues and network are feeling about returning to in person meetings, and the type of digital meetings they have most enjoyed, so that you can best strategize where to invest your time and budget related to client visits and events for 2021, and how to best continue to network during these uncertain times.

4. Do an audit of your tech set up
   • While the future seems unclear, it is certain that virtual events, networking, and conferences are going to remain commonplace even once people begin traveling and attending in person events again. Therefore its vital to make sure that you are content with your current virtual meeting / communication platforms. It is also a good time to research what new products have come to market since the beginning of the pandemic which may make communication and project management much easier in this new virtual world.
   • This is also the time to ensure that you are in compliance with all privacy legislations (ie. GDPR, LGPD) with the marketing and communication platforms that you are using

5. Research the competition and upcoming trends in the legal sector
   • Perform research to find out what topics and practice areas are set to be hot in 2021, and strategize the ways to associate your firm to these trends
   • Look into new marketing tools and platforms entering the market, and investigate whether they will be right for your firm
   • Find out which events (virtual included) that are planned for 2021, and begin thinking about which ones you and your firm are most interested in attending/ participating in/ sponsoring

6.  Set up meetings with relevant marketing/ media contacts before the year-end, and prepare calendar for all upcoming legal directory submissions dates and announcements
   • Now is the time to focus on getting organized and prepared. Most legal rankings/ awards should already have their research calendars publicized so now is the time to consider which ones you want to become active in, and prepare a plan to better connect with the research teams to best perform in the next rankings.
   • Use this time to also organize all of the rankings in which your firm and lawyers are already appearing, and decide which rankings your firm wants to get most involved with

7. Start planning the 2021 marketing plan and budget
   • When creating the 2021 marketing plan and budget, be sure to keep in mind events, social media, PR, business development needs, directory profiles, as well as website design and maintenance, content creation, and any other areas in which your firm is currently engaged and/or is interested in participating in
   • While events were put on hold for most of 2020, and will most likely not start up again until mid-2021, we are optimistic that the world will slowly begin to recover and people will begin to be able to attend smaller events in person in the next few months, and larger conferences by the end of next year
   • Rather than just copy the marketing budget and plan from 2020, really take this time to research new outlets for promotion, networking, learning and marketing

8. Review branding and logos and corporate statement
   • Does your current branding and logo accurately promote the vision of your firm, or does it need to be updated?
   • This is also a good time to review your firm’s corporate statement, to ensure that it most reflects the mission and value of the firms

9. Establish strategic partnerships with other offices, suppliers, marketing, financial, human resources, etc.
   • The end of the year is a good time to think about your current partnerships and vendors, and consider which contracts you are looking to resign/upgrade/downgrade, and which new vendors you want to start considering

10. Consider everything the pandemic has taught us
    • The pandemic has dramatically changed the way we see international business and has shaped the way business is done in just about every way. We will definitely see that digital marketing is the way of the future, and that webinars and virtual events will continue to hold a prominent role in the way we network, and that working from home will remain a trend. It has also blurred the lines of geography in some senses, and has made it much easier to connect with people all over the world, which is a positive trend we also expect to continue.
    • This has been a time of adaptation and resilience, with many new technologies and business strategies emerging from it. Reflect on the ways your business has changed during these few months, and think about the ways you best adapted to this new world and allow that to give you confidence about all the possibilities to come in 2021.