In July of this year, on Nolo's Legal Marketing Blawg, Carolyn Elefant penned a post entitled, "Tag(line), You're It!" discussing the importance of taglines, noting the poor quality of most law firm taglines, and providing some hints about how to go about creating them.
This week, Steve Matthews of Stem Legal wrote a post on the Law Firm Strategy Blog compiling a list of law firm taglines: 101 Law Firm Taglines - 2009 Edition. The post generated lots of comments, including a comment from Jordan Furlong of Law21, who said:
The revealing thing about most of these taglines is that you could switch them with one another and clients would be none the wiser regarding which firm you’re talking about. “Solutions,” “experience,” “success,” expertise,” “excellence,” and let’s not forget, “business” — like most law firms themselves, they’re largely interchangeable.
Not only are they interchangeable, but many of these words are words that clients expect their law firms to be able to say about themselves - they are, in effect, the price of admission. After all, no client wants to hire a lawyer that doesn't have experience and can't offer solutions. While these words may not, in fact, describe all lawyers, in the minds of clients, they should, and as such, they aren't going to mean much to clients.
Matthews re-joins the conversation in the comments and notes that often, law firm taglines have a difficult job to do because there are many stakeholders involved, resulting in generic taglines. Firms with several different practice areas may also have difficulty crafting an effective overall firm tagline.
Where are the clients?
Lisa Solomon brings up another excellent point when she notes that, "What strikes me is how many of the taglines are about the firm, not about what they can do for the client (or the prospective client)."
A-ha! As with all marketing messages, the focus needs to be on the client - or what the client values - in order for the tagline to resonate with clients and potential clients. After all, the tagline is supposed to get the attention of your clients, isn't it? Unfortunately, this fundamental principle gets lost in a lot of firm taglines (just as it does in the rest of their marketing materials, websites, etc.)
Will clients really connect with firms who focus so much on themselves that their firm tagline includes the phrase, "Great Firm?"
Creating an effective tagline
Returning to Carolyn Elefant's post and her compilation of tips about creating a good tag line, Elefant suggests not outsourcing the tagline to professionals. While I agree with the concept that marketing (including development of taglines and marketing messages) can never be fully turned over to anyone else (including a marketing professional), because the it needs to reflect the reality of the firm, its culture, personality and services, the professionals can be of help. But to be successful, the firm (or the firm and the professional together) must do some investigative and branding work to determine what sets the firm apart and they must do so so by looking at the firm's clients and what they value.
Elefant also suggests looking at the characteristics of great taglines, particularly outside of the legal profession. For example, Nike's Just Do It is great because it gets at the essence of benefits to the customer.
As a fitness company, Nike appeals to athletes and would-be athletes with a specific outlook or mentality. The tagline suggests that the company and its products support those values - strength, accomplishment, perserverence - a 'no excuses' outlook.
Elefant also cites an exercise to help create a tagline, involving writing three sentences about the company (law firm) which are true and then three sentences about the people and what they do within the company which aren't true, and using some of the language that comes out of that to create the tagline. This exercise is focused almost entirely on the firm and not on the firm's clients, the services provided to clients or the benefits the clients receive.
Instead (or in addition), try a twist on the exercise: write three true sentences about the firm's clients and their needs, and then write three sentences that describe what the client, in a perfect world, might want their lawyer to do for them.
Finally, Elefant suggests trying out your tagline on others - a great idea - but try it out on clients, potential clients and those who are part of your target audience, or are familiar with or can relate to your target audience.
