Constant Content : Legal Ghostwriting & Content : Janet Raasch : Copy for Lawyers & Attorneys, Law Firm Business Development

There are lots of quality law firms and qualified lawyers out there.  Legal skills are simply table stakes.  In order to stand out from the crowd, law firms and lawyers must differentiate themselves from the pack.  Branded product wins over commodity product every time.

Which brings me to Frontier Airlines.  What could be more commoditized than an airplane?  Each one looks pretty much like the others.  Frontier got the great idea of putting a different animal on the tail of each airplane (and using the tagline, "a whole different animal").  I live in Denver, and at  Denver International Airport passengers are craning their necks as they walk to the A Concourse to see which animal they will be riding on.  They are picking up their kids and pointing, so that their kids can see.  Each plane has a personality.  Frontier has differentiated its airplanes.

Frontier is now owned by indianapolis-based Republic Airways, which also owns Midwest.  (Disclaimer:  As someone who grew up in Milwaukee, I also love Midwest. and its chocolate-chip cookies.)  Republic is in the process of combining both airlines into one, and choosing just one name for both airlines.  The results will be annouced next month.

If differentiation is the key (and we know that it is), Republic needs to stick with the animals.  What is your firm known for?  What do people point at and tell others about?

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This past weekend, my husband and I were in Winter Park, Colorado, for the Wells Fargo Cup -- an annual event that supports the National Sports Center for the Disabled.

We saw some mighty fine skiing -- by both the corporate teams (including Denver law firm Holme Roberts & Owen) and world-class disabled skiers.  After the races on Saturday, we met an outgoing and highly competitive young woman who had broken her back snowboarding seven years ago.  She is competing for the wheelchair Olympic ski team and played on the wheelchair women's basketball team that took the gold in Beijing.  She could beat me down the mountain any day -- despite the disability that put her in a sit-ski.

How did she earn a gold medal in Beijing?  By slicing and dicing the market of all sports into a niche in which she could be Number One.  To succeed at marketing, lawyers, practice/industry groups and law firms must do the same.  They cannot all be Number One at all things for all clients -- and only Number One will consistently get the call for new business.  Law firms need to slice and dice the legal market into a niche in which they can be a dominant player.

It would be very difficult (if not impossible) for a small law firm to be a dominant player in international construction law, for example, but entirely possible for that same firm to dominate the niche of law firms providing construction law defense to commercial designers and builders in the rapidly developing northeast quadrant of Denver surrounding Denver International Airport.

In order to take home the gold, carefully define your sport -- and your market.

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