Network Affiliates Roundtable - Knowing Your Customer

Knowing Your Customer – A Roundtable Discussion

In today’s fragmented media market, it’s more important than ever to understand who your customer is, and how they consume media. Each demographic you are trying to reach consumes media in radically different ways.

This is especially important to understand when marketing your law firm. If you’re trying to build brand recognition with Millennials, you better not be advertising on TV – your money is better spent on Facebook or a platform like Pandora.

Understanding your consumer doesn’t stop at just how they consume media – it goes as granular as knowing what television shows they watch, where they like to shop, and the websites they use to make decisions.

In the Network Affiliates Roundtable Discussion below, Norty Frickey, Emily Frickey, and Todd Kuhlmann discuss this idea of “Knowing Your Customer.”

After listening to the 5 minute audio file below, you will learn:

  • Why Marketing to Millenials is Different than Marketing to Boomers
  • Why Social Engagement is Critically Important for your Firm’s Brand
  • Why Review Sites are Both a Gift and a Curse for your Law Firm

Audio Transcription

A Network Affiliates Roundtable discussion

Knowing your customer

Norty: I think, more over to, given the fragmentation of media, it is even more important in today’s terms to understand who your client is. Because, they consume differently – Gen Y’s consume differently than Millennials, and Baby Boomers obviously are far different than the others. And so, we need to be more aware, and our clients need to be more aware about who their clients are, because it is getting very fragmented and we need to be very targeted in what we do and how we do it.

Emily: Well I think it kind of goes back to what you [Norty] were talking about – knowing your demographics. With Millennials now consuming, we’re kind of figuring out how they consume. We have known for a long time we’ve had this trend with baby boomers, we kind of have a pulse with baby boomers and how they consume media. But with Millennials, they’re new consumers. So we’re learning about them as this goes along, with that unknown plus the unknown of this demographic I think that ads to it a lot.

[Audio Break]

Norty: I’ll be curious to see how our clients start to value the engagement portion of what goes on through social and what goes on through a lot of things. I think at some point in time, if you had the ability to reach out and engage and create a relationship with your fan base, or with your constituents, I think that has true value. I’ll be curious to see if they [our clients] embrace that. Because, historically they’ve been so transactionally oriented that they don’t, I think, put a value on what is really very important which is when people invest in the brand, they identify with the brand, and they somehow engage with it. To me, that is a very powerful component that I don’t think any of us have really put our arms around to understand the true value of that.

[Audio Break]

Norty: I think you’re finding now that these reviews are playing a much heavier role in decision making, rather than a personal referral, because I think we’re getting so disconnected as a society in some respects that people are looking at these third party reviews as being [authoritative], and for all they know these people could be crack pots – you just don’t know. But, they [reviews] have a tremendous amount of weight in decision making and that’s why sites like Yelp and others are very popular with consumers. It, once again, I think helps validate or affirm a decision they’re about to make.

Emily: And I think it terrifies the attorneys that there is the potential of this, open form platform where people can tell them that their service wasn’t good. But, I think they need to understand that that gives them a great opportunity to fix the problem. And, that extra step, of trying to fix a problem that went wrong with – for whatever reason – it could be from intake or they just didn’t have a case that was worth taking. They have that chance to interact with them again to show that they want to fix the problem, and that shows great customer service. And, that little step goes a long way with consumers nowadays.

Todd: Ya, It’s hard to hide today. I mean you have to, really take care of your customers because there are so many channels and forums available to them that, if they consistently don’t have a good experience, you’re going to be exposed. So, it’s something not to take lightly.

Norty: Although the flip of that, it’s a great opportunity because if they have consistently great experiences, imagine the dynamic of that as you put that within there. And to Emily’s point, you’re always going to have people who are unhappy and I think it’s how you deal with that in the aftermath and making sure you give them their voice, and you treat them with respect, and make sure they’re heard. So, as scary as it is on one hand, it really creates a great opportunity on the other.

I think it’s understanding the way people consume and how they consume, it’s very different today. But the idea of, people turning to some forum to help them make a guess on what is a blind purchase to them – because many of them don’t know whether they’re a good lawyer or a bad lawyer – it’s not visible or apparent. So, I think these kinds of tools make it easier for people to make decisions regarding lawyers.