As you review the systems your law firm must have to be successful, pay particular attention to your law firm marketing plan and the systems that support it. A well-designed plan is practically useless if you do not have strong systems to support the legal marketing strategies in your plan.

Here are some tips on how you can develop systems that will make your law firm marketing plan more effective:

1. Create a written 12-month marketing plan for the law firm.  Put down in writing all of the goals and steps necessary to achieve those goals.

2. Develop processes and procedures to capture major marketing metrics and data.  You have to know the “lay of the land” if you are to be effective.

3. Identify major lead sources and create tracking mechanisms to measure results.  Know where your referrals and leads come from and chart the volume of those leads and referrals.

4. Develop reports for tracking the effectiveness of your law firm marketing efforts.  You have to know what is working and what is not.  Don’t waste time and money on techniques that are not effective for you.

5. Create metrics for quantifying ROI of all major marketing initiatives.  If technique A has a ROI of 10 and Technique B has a ROI of 5, which one should receive the bulk of your attention?

6. Develop an online marketing system to generate leads and prospects from the Internet. Use your website, blogs, news releases and YouTube videos to help generate leads for your firm.

7. Build a system to develop relationships with potential referral sources and generate consistent referrals from them.  Take people to lunch.  Meet face-to-face and ask how you can help them with their business.

8. Create a system for connecting with prospects, clients and referral sources on a regular, consistent basis. This include monthly newsletters, annual client satisfaction surveys, keep-in-touch letters, referral education system, etc.

9. Train your staff on how to use the systems you have put in place.  The best plans in the world are useless if they are not implemented.

Following these guidelines will help you design a legal marketing system that will generate leads and referrals, allow you to convert those leads into clients, who will then generate more leads and referrals.  But remember: it does take time, and some money, to make it work.