Successfully providing legal services in a crowded, competitive marketplace demands proficiency in marketing your law firm. While there are many reasons why certain law firms fail to thrive or even survive, chief among them is the failure to market effectively.

In order to gauge the effectiveness of your law firm marketing efforts, ask yourself the following 10 questions to see how you are performing:

1. Does your firm encourage cross-selling among attorneys? If you have multiple practice areas and lawyers who specialize in each area, then those lawyers should be cross-selling your services. Make sure all your attorneys understand your total offerings.

2. Is your staff involved in marketing? Your legal marketing efforts should touch every member of your staff, who are your ambassadors to pass along your expertise to their contacts.

3. Do you have a program for keeping in touch with former clients? This is a no-brainer. Add them all to your monthly e-newsletter list and establish a system for sending out keep-in-touch emails that doesn’t require any babysitting from busy lawyers.

4. Are all your lawyers engaged in business development? If not, implement a training program on your marketing messaging and encourage them to get out and network.

5. Is your website current? An out-of-date website tells prospects that your firm is out of date.

6. Is anyone managing your online reputation? Reputation management is critical for law firms. You should have this task assigned to someone (internal or external) who regularly conducts online searches for your firm name and attorney names. If something bad pops up, you should have a process for dealing with it effectively.

7. Are all your attorney bios up to date online? Every attorney should have a complete and current bio with a professional photos on LinkedIn, Avvo, Martindale, etc.

8. Do you have a blog? A blog is one of the best ways for you to market to your niche, highlighting your practice areas and pumping out fresh content that showcases your expertise in each.

9. Are you providing added value to clients? Providing clients with value above and beyond what they are paying for will keep them coming back.

10. Are you micro-managing the client experience? Do clients have to wait when they show up for an appointment? Are you offering them something to drink and making them feel at home? If not, you need to take another look at how your firm treats clients because they are measuring you not just against other law firms but against every service provider they know. And if they don’t like the fit, they won’t be back.

Law firm marketing is hard work, but part of the reason why some firms are so successful and others are still struggling is because only a relative few are willing to do the hard work it takes to implement a truly effective marketing strategy.