Make A Splash recently presented a seminar to a group of lawyers who were seeking to improve their firm’s branding and market themselves to a specific target group. Now aside from certain challenges lawyers face in marketing themselves, the biggest dilemma posed was how do each of them differentiate themselves from a competitor. I heard numerous remarks such as “The firm down the street does exactly the same thing as us. Estates, personal injury, conveyancing, some litigation. How do we differentiate ourselves? What makes us the preferred choice?”

Lawyers and many of us, including advertising agencies, operate in a world where we don’t offer a unique product or service. And because of this we need to manufacture something unique about our business, no matter how difficult it is. We often cite the example of the 3 major supermarkets. Woolworths is the fresh food people. Coles lets you save every day while IGA is full of local heroes. On the surface, these 3 supermarkets seem to offer similar products (albeit in varying line numbers and quantities) at similar prices. Yet apparently, Woolworths is fresher, Coles is cheaper and IGA has better service. See it doesn’t always matter what the reality is. It’s about giving your client and customer the perception that your business has particular features and benefits that your competitor doesn’t.