1. 18 PSMG Autumn 2015
Inform future decisions
Shaping the course and content of your
future events and matching them to the
needs of your clients and prospects is the
holy grail of any professional event.
Event apps lend huge support to
achieving this by providing actionable
analytics, from quizzes and message
boards as well as traditional feedback
surveys and polls. With visibility over
what content is viewed and which
speakers and sessions have the most
traffic in your app, you can begin to build
a picture of what is working and what
might need to change in the future. By
making use of Concep Attend’s additional
features such as check-in functionality,
you can tie together information on what
sessions people expressed an interest in,
versus the sessions that they actually
checked into. This enables you to tailor
future communications to those
attendees based on their now proven
interests.
Connecting people
Events are inherently social affairs
and with event apps’ popular social
functionality the combination is a
powerful asset to any event programme.
A major attraction of events is the
opportunity to meet other like-minded
professionals. The provision of an easy
to use messaging platform and
interactive attendee list helps to increase
attendee satisfaction and engagement.
Concep Attend can go one step further
by providing an unobtrusive meeting
booking system that can be used by any
attendee or member of your staff to
arrange a time and place to meet during
the course of the day.
With technology at the centre of so
many every day tasks, it is easy to lose
sight of the why. So here are some
guiding principles for anyone looking
to add a mobile engagement element
to their events:
• Who are you trying to connect to?
Don’t start a mobile engagement
strategy until you understand the
preferences of your attendees.
• Decide on your objective before you
say “we need an app”. Are you
starting an internal program on
culture and values, an event series
to exchange ideas or to educate
and inform?
• How will this make your event
different? Is this a hard copy cost
saving exercise, ultimately how can
this change the way you plan your
event to drive the engagement
you want.
• Is the technology scalable and
customisable? You must ensure it can
benefit an internal employee event as
much as it does an external event or
partner conference.
Once you know your audience, objective
and strategy, you can choose the mobile
event app that will enhance your event
program and provide another route to
getting your people face to face.
Peter Byre is Managing Director of
Concep, a technology firm providing
digital and mobile marketing
solutions to over 200 professional
services firms globally. Concep
believes that technology, creative,
strategy and the ability to bring
people together are the keys to
successful high value, B2B
marketing and business
development. Visit
www.concep.com.
>
A
t the end of July Birketts LLP
launched an animated corporate
video. Over the years Birketts has
created an extensive hardcopy portfolio of
promotional material but recognised that
there was a need to produce material that
was easily shared and positions the firm as
forward-thinking. Additionally, by including
video content on the firm’s website we
knew that it would increase visibility in
search engines.
Why we chose the
animated route
As a law firm that has been in existence
for 150 years it would be tempting to
pigeonhole us as ‘traditional’ and ‘safe’.
Additionally, because of our geographical
location - Birketts is a full service, top 100
UK law firm based in the East of England -
our marketplace may assume that we only
service ‘local’ clients.
In order to challenge misconceptions
and for our messaging to cut through we
needed to produce a dynamic video - we
didn’t want to produce a video that simply
featured people in suits talking straight
into the lens. Consequently we opted for an
animated video, rather than ‘talking heads’,
to communicate our message in a
straightforward, digestible way, in keeping
with the ethos of our client care strategy.
Animated video content is becoming
more mainstream and provides an excellent
medium for conveying the expertise and
personality of the firm with the
combination of images and spoken word.
However, there are several distinct
advantages to the animated route when
compared to a ‘normal’ video – perhaps
most importantly it tends to garner a much
higher percentage of views and a longer
shelf life (if the ‘star’ of the show leaves it
doesn’t need to be binned). Unlike
traditional film, viewers are more inclined
to watch short, animated film to the end
because it is generally more visually
engaging, gets ‘the message’ over in a
simplistic manner and appeals to the inner
child in all of us.
Matthew Rowe introduces Birketts new corporate video
following it being shortlisted in the inaugural Cambridgeshire
Digital Awards.
Getting
animated
HOWTOGUIDEFORTHEMARKETINGPROFESSIONAL
>
MATTHEW ROWE
Birketts LLP
matthew-rowe@birketts.co.uk
Autumn 2015 PSMG 19
Creating an APPetite
for knowledge
I
n a digital age, clients are
increasingly looking for information
and training at their fingertips.
Events still have a vital role to play but
must be well designed, innovative and in
tune with client needs.
Wragge Lawrence Graham & Co’s
ThinkHouse community is designed to
offer the complete package. For more
than ten years it has provided in-house
lawyers with timely, topical and practical
guidance on the day-to-day issues faced
in their roles.
Events Manager Jacqui Lovell said:
“In creating ThinkHouse we wanted to
ensure our clients set the agenda.
Topics are chosen by and for them –
ensuring the firm's events and online
content really hits the spot and delivers
high-quality, practical advice. With
more than 1,000 in-house lawyers
welcomed to our events each year, the
success of ThinkHouse speaks for itself.”
Keeping pace with what clients want
and using technology to make their lives
easier is a priority. Over the past year,
Wragge Lawrence Graham & Co has
been trialling a new events' App,
supported by Concep, to further enhance
its ThinkHouse offering.
Jacqui added: “The App enables our
delegates to quickly access event details,
download content, send through
questions to the speakers and submit
feedback in response to 'push
messaging'. The latest innovation in our
constantly evolving ThinkHouse
programme, it helps ensure this
community fully benefits from the
sessions on offer.”

2. HOWTOGUIDEFORTHEMARKETINGPROFESSIONAL
20 PSMG Autumn 2015
>
This approach also holds a huge logistical
advantage – outside of the initial brief and
the ongoing dialogue at the agreed
checkpoint there was very little organisation
or disruption. For instance:
• We didn’t have the headache of
coordinating numerous filming days
across multiple locations;
• The filming process didn’t require
members of our senior management team
to be personally filmed; and
• We didn’t need to persuade any camera-
shy fee earners to take part, or for that
matter diplomatically reject advances
from those that we weren’t keen
to involve.
The objectives
Like any other marketing communication we
needed to set out our objectives and outline
the purpose of the video prior to contacting
agencies and setting out a brief. We
concluded that we wanted the video to:
• Be watched (running time was therefore
restricted to 90 seconds);
• Increase client engagement online;
• Promote our full service offering to
clients and intermediaries who may only
know us for one service; and
• Outline who we are and what we do to
those that don’t know us at all.
Working with an agency
As to be expected from a firm of Birketts’
size, we don’t have the skill set or tools
internally to produce video of this quality.
However, we were fortunate through our
research to identify Fovea Communications,
one of the leading independent agencies in
this field.
Like any good agency they made an
unfamiliar scenario easy to follow and set
out a straightforward process:
• We provided a detailed brief;
• The agency creating the script;
• On approval of the script, the storyboards
were produced;
• On approval, the video then went into
production (this stage encompasses the
actual animation as well as music and
voiceover artist).
From the point of agreeing the brief, the
process of producing a high-quality animated
video took approximately two months.
Promoting the video
On final approval we then needed to make
sure that the right people got to see it. The
video will run on a loop at all four of our
office receptions and has been promoted on
the home page of our website, both as a text
link and within a rotating banner, as well as
Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. In
addition, it has been promoted in our e-
newsletters, has received some press
coverage and is on YouTube and other
recognised video sharing sites such as Vimeo.
Finally, we are utilising it in presentations
and tenders and it is now forming part of our
recruitment and induction process.
Feedback
At the time of writing the video has clocked
up over 900 views in two months and the
feedback internally and from the
marketplace has been very positive. It was a
first for Birketts, but because of the video’s
success should end up being part of a trilogy
- further videos are planned to provide more
information about what we do and our
approach to client service.
If you haven’t already watched the video
please do so via
https://www.youtube.com/user/BirkettsSolici
tors. If you have any comments or feedback
please do get in touch.
Matthew Rowe is a senior marketing
manager with fifteen years’
professional service/B2B experience
working within the legal, tax and
accountancy arenas. During this time
he has had direct experience of
marketing to private clients,
corporates, professional practices and
non-profit organisations.
Animated video
content is becoming
more mainstream
and provides an
excellent medium
for conveying the
expertise and
personality of the
firm with the
combination of
images and
spoken word.
Autumn 2015 PSMG 21
I
t’s autumn and along with dark nights and
rain we can enjoy the legal directory
season. Let’s be honest – no one likes it
and it eats time and precious resources. But
in a world where everyone expects to compare
everything online, from insurance to dog food,
the importance of rankings can only increase.
You probably already have evidence of
pitches where the prospective client’s in-house
team required a certain ranking, or of
individual clients finding you through a
directory site. Indeed, a large-scale study of
US in-house counsel by International In-house
Counsel Journal showed that more than one
in five US in-house lawyers used legal
directories to set up beauty parades – making
them the key influencing factor after personal
recommendations and general reputation, and
well above press articles and law firms’ own
websites. In the UK, where they are more
established, their influence is even greater.
So, we all need to deal with the directories.
But what’s the best way to get the most out of
the process without devoting a
disproportionate amount of time to it? As in
many areas, the 80/20 rule or ‘Pareto
Principle’ can help, since I believe around 80%
of the benefits come from around 20% of the
effort. So here’s my take on the essential
areas of focus.
1. Choose your referees carefully and
talk to them: The most important element
of your submission isn’t the submission
form, it’s the referee spreadsheet. The
guides depend upon it – without independent
referees, they become a mere echo chamber.
However, obtaining referee feedback is
challenging. People are busy. E-mails fail to
reach their destination, or get lost in inboxes.
Consequently, the ten referees you provide
may only produce two or three responses –
and are, in fact, unlikely to produce more
than five or six. If you are currently getting
feedback from two clients then doubling or
tripling your feedback represents your best
chance of improving rankings.
When your clients respond, what will
they say? Firms still occasionally put
forward referees without checking that they
are happy with the service, or those who are
naturally dour. Choose people you know are
friends and enthusiastic supporters. Also
what will your clients talk about? Partners
obviously want to put forward their best
clients, but these may be people who work
only with them. In fact, a client that uses
the firm across a number of areas, and who
will recommend several lawyers, is worth
more than one who only works with one
person in one area.
2. Explain why your work highlights
are important: The second most important
part of the submission is the highlights
section. In borderline cases impressive
highlights can make the difference between
tiers, or even between inclusion and
exclusion. They send a strong message about
your clients, the scale and scope of your
work, and the level of the market at which
you operate, including other firms you
encounter. Keep descriptions succinct – the
researchers don’t want a wealth of highly
technical detail – but not too succinct. In the
key ‘description’ section, I recommend a two-
sentence rule: firstly explain the team’s role
in language accessible to an intelligent
layperson; then explain why this was
interesting and significant. Ideally, this
should reference facts that a non-specialist
can pick up on – the size of deal, novelty,
importance to the client, success, household
name companies etc. Then stop.
3. Tell a convincing story in the
feedback and overview sections about
where you belong: Research shows that
people find narratives more memorable than
bald facts. Teams can help themselves by
explaining where they should be ranked and
how their position relates to the wider
market. If they can do this – i.e.
demonstrate more resources, better clients,
broader practices and/or greater experience
than firms/individuals seen as their peers –
weaving this information into a story that
explains why this is the case then the overall
message becomes more powerful.
Ross Cogan is a freelance writer, legal
marketing consultant and former UK and
Global editor at Chambers and Partners.
ROSS COGAN
Panlegal
ross@panlegal.co.uk
Ross Cogan on getting the
best from the legal directories.
Directories
80/20