Topic: Maximising the value of your digital presence - How to extend your reach through website and social channels - The importance of collecting & analysing data to learn more about your audience - Integrating the digital experience to deliver a seamless experience across every client touch point

1. Maximising the value of
your digital presence
Keith Hardie
Head of Marketing and Communication
March 2015

2. Who am I?
I am:
• Head of marketing and communications for Bird & Bird
• Over 20 years experience across professional services, hotels and utilities
Bird & Bird is:
• One of world's the leading international law firms with a focus on disruptive
technology
• Over 1,200 lawyers and over 2,000 people worldwide in 27 offices across
Europe, Middle East and Asia Pacific
• One of the first law firms to organise itself around sectors and now work with
the leading companies in industries including: automotive; aviation; energy;
healthcare; life sciences; media; sport; and technology
• Clients include over half the world's most innovative companies
• Delivered 25 years of continuous growth
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3. What I am going to talk about:
Mastering digital
Three steps to maximising the value of your digital presence:
1. Extend your reach
2. Put data at the heart of your digital offer
3. Integrate the client experience
The small print:
1. I am describing our recent journey but also looking at what we want to do in the
future and the challenges for all law firm marketers
2. I am focusing on client marketing, not talent acquisition, business intelligence or
internal communication (or objectives)
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4. We have dramatically extended the
reach of our digital presence …
Since I joined the firm three
years ago, Bird & Bird has
transformed its online channels
and developed a full suite of
digital resources
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5. Our journey
• Improve the digital experience
• Relaunched the website with a faster, better designed, responsive site (linked to a
brand identity refresh)
• Build a social presence
• Created social media policy and guidelines
• Personal user, business user and authorised representatives
• Developed channels for firmwide, sector and individuals that work together
• Established an appropriate tone and improved responsiveness
• Multimedia
• Introducing apps
• Creating video content
• Using visuals more frequently
• Driving SEO
• You can't fool Google but you can help it work better
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6. Results
• Award-winning website
• Huge increase in visitors to the website, who are spending
longer, viewing more pages and taking more key actions
• Award-winning social media presence
• Ranked in top five law firms for social media
• Videos that have gained significant exposure
• Almost 20,000 views across our videos, with anecdotal
evidence of very positive client feedback
• Delivered our first apps with half a dozen in development
• Created a template to enable rapid, low cost development for
further apps
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7. Driving a programme to make our content
'Contagious' and 'Sticky'
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Contagious Sticky / Memorable
Social Currency
We share what makes us look good
Triggers
Top of mind = tip of tongue
Emotional
When we care, we share
Public
Built to show, built to grow
Practical value
News you can use
Stories
Embedding your message in stories
Simple
Unexpected
Concrete
Credible
Emotional
Stories

8. But it is not enough …
We want to transform the way
we market the firm in order to
deliver communication that is
appropriate to the digital age
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9. Put data at the heart
Three pillars:
1. Creating closed systems rather than open systems
• Make sure you can access the data
2. Agile / Lean Startup thinking
• Small batches
• Build – measure – learn
• Respond to what works
3. Personalisation
• Ensure you segment your audience, learn about them and
deliver what they need
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10. Identify key themes
• What is your brand positioning and purpose?
• What are the major issues or topics you want to own?
• Find the existing communities and listen
• Embrace complexity and variety:
• Fragmentation – break down your story
• Cooperation – tell the stories of your people
• Complexity – enable localisation and adaptation
• Experimentation – develop pilots of the future
• React and respond
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11. Splitting your time
Low risk marketing
activity
Responding to what
works and innovate
High risk innovations
and ideas
70% 20% 10%
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12. Responding to the data
Stop / reduce Keep going
Don't worry about Do more
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Volume
Engagement

13. But even that won't be enough …
We want to ensure that clients
receive a consistent seamless
service across all touch points,
both digital and analogue
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14. Integrate
• Clients expect organisations to use the
information they have
• We want to deliver consistency across all
conversations and touch points
• We need to collect, collate and internally
communicate everything we know about a client
to those involved in the relationship
• Spamming is not an option
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15. The question for you …
Are you using data to drive your
digital presence and other
touch-points?
If not, how could you begin to
make this shift?
(If you are, how did you do it?!)
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16. Conclusion
• Clients' expectations of marketing are changing
• They will learn about your firm from a wider range of
sources
• They want personalised, highly relevant communication
• They expect a more seamless service across all touch points
• Law firm marketing has to radically shift to reflect these
expectations
• It is no longer enough to passively deliver what partners ask for,
we have to use the data that is now available to inform them
about what works and what doesn’t
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