Greentarget

Marketing leadership

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Professional services firms are under more scrutiny than ever when it comes to the clients they represent. Employees are no longer reticent about protesting clients they consider unsavory. We’ve seen other stakeholders and the public actively lobby firms to drop certain clients, as well. 

Think about the way at least three law firms distanced themselves from representing the Trump administration after initially agreeing to help challenge election results. Public and internal pressures forced these firms to reconsider their willingness to be involved.

Controversial scenarios like this can land on the doorstep of any professional services firm.  To protect your firm’s reputation in an era of more aggressive social activism, you can mitigate risk by considering carefully which clients you’re willing to work with.

Professional services firm can do this by applying the logic investors are increasingly using – it’s associated these days with three letters: ESG.

ESG Minimizes Risk and Maximizes Long-term Results

In the financial services realm, investing with a fund manager who touts a strong commitment to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices is not just about making a positive social impact. It’s also a way to reduce the likelihood that your investment will lose value while increasing the likelihood of positive returns over time.

Companies with weak ESG performance often find themselves in situations that can lead to a decline in valuation. If a company is cutting corners on safety protocols, harming the environment, or exploiting its workers, there’s a much greater likelihood it’ll eventually be sued, fined, or otherwise penalized, which can negatively impact its stock price. Activision’s shares have tumbled since revelations of sexual misconduct among its employees, a clear failure of governance. So an investor or fund manager may choose to benefit society by putting her money into a company or a fund with stronger ESG standards, sure, but it should also de-risk her investment.  

How is this strategy relevant to who professional services firms take on as clients? Like investors, they should weigh the short-term gains they stand to make against the long-term risks associated with their choices. Is the initial financial windfall of working with a client of questionable or dubious integrity worth a ding to your firm’s reputation?

Socially Responsible Investing is a Way for Investors to Live Out Their Values

There are firms who choose to represent society’s most controversial and polarizing characters as a matter of principle. In the legal industry, for example, firms rightly argue that everyone deserves skilled representation, even those who some may consider unsavory. That’s certainly true, and if the employees and stakeholders of those firms know that is how they make decisions, there’s less risk for those firms. But when a firm purports to hold certain values and then makes decisions that contradict those values, the firm takes on significant reputational risk.

Assuming you’ve taken steps to define your values, applying an ESG investment lens to client selection can help you live them out.

Ethical investing got started in the 1980s when students in the U.S. demanded that their colleges and universities divest from companies that did business with the apartheid government of South Africa. Over the years an investing strategy known as “exclusionary screening” became popular, wherein investment managers would screen certain industries out of their portfolios. Tobacco, firearms, pornography, fossil fuels, etc., were common targets. 

Investors have largely moved from screening out whole industries to selecting best-of-breed companies across all sectors of the economy.  Regardless, protocols aligned with your corporate values can help you make decisions about the types of clients you’re willing to represent or the kinds of projects you’re comfortable taking on. Failing to make decisions in this way can cause backlash among other clients, employees, and even law enforcement.

Google, whose motto remains “Don’t Be Evil,” faced intense blowback when employees discovered its plans to work with the Pentagon on a project using artificial intelligence technology. After workers spoke out, walked out, and even resigned in protest, Google abandoned the project. Executives recently announced they’ll be exploring another contract with the Pentagon — but this time Google took care to explain how this decision fits with its principles.

PR giant Edelman has been assailed recently by employees who decry statements it made praising COP24’s “new level of international consensus that climate change is an existential threat,” calling for “more scrutiny of corporate climate lobbying efforts,” and arguing that many pledges made at the conference “fall short of what is necessary to avert climate disaster,” all the while representing companies that exploit fossil fuels and the trade groups that lobby for them. 

McKinsey advised the pharmaceutical industry for years about how to increase opioid sales at a time when abuse of pain medicine was widespread. Sued by 46 states’ attorneys general for contributing to the opioid epidemic, the firm ultimately apologized for the work and paid a $573 million settlement to resolve investigations into it conduct, though the firm remains beset with fresh lawsuits. To avoid such entanglements in the future, the CEO Kevin Sneader struggled to draw bright-line rules around the kinds of industries from which it would no longer take clients, including defense, intelligence, justice or policing institutions in nondemocratic countries. Consensus among its partners on this has been difficult to achieve, and the divided opinions are said to have contributed to the Sneader’s ouster.

Investing in Funds with a Low ESG Index Can Influence Positive Change, Too

Sometimes, investors with a strong ESG commitment still invest in companies with environmental, social, or governance liability, but make this seemingly contradictory decision to encourage a company to change. For example, they might invest in an oil company to influence management’s decisions around replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy.

This logic might guide you to take on projects or clients that appear to be objectionable on the surface but have the potential to drive reform.

One example of this is impact litigation, which Harvard Law School defines as filing or defending lawsuits focused on changing laws or focused on the rights of a larger group of people than is directly involved in the suit. On the surface, such representations could beg the question, “Why are you doing this work?” But under certain circumstances, a firm may enter unsavory territory not only to earn fees, but also to make the world a more equitable place for more than just its client. Alan Isaacman’s work on behalf of Larry Flynt, published of Hustler in Hustler Magazine v Falwell, a landmark First Amendment decision, is a clear example. Indeed, John Adams’ defense of the reviled British soldiers who fired on colonists at the Boston Massacre in 1770 – rooted in his concern for the rights of the innocent and the rule of law – reveals how this practice has long been a feature of American jurisprudence. 

Make Business Decisions that Align with Your Firm’s Values

Whether you’re more concerned with mitigating risks to your firm’s reputation or using your talent and expertise to effect social change, the business decisions you make are most defensible when they align with what are commonly understood to be your organization’s values. Applying an ESG filter can help your firm make choices that maximize long-term earnings over short-term gain, enter boldly into social reform territory, or screen out clients and projects that don’t fit with your core principles.

It all comes down to who you are and what you want to represent. Define your values. Communicate them to your clients, your employees, and the community at large. And then commit to making decisions with those guidelines in mind.

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In the crowded financial services sector, it can be hard to set your firm apart. After all, there are many firms that offer investment strategies in the major asset classes, like large cap equity, high yield bonds, global equity or even emerging markets – all of which can be difficult to distinguish from one another.

To stand out in this homogenous market, performance and product attributes aren’t enough. You need to sell your firm’s talent and ideas. In other words: Don’t sell your product, sell your people.

Your team’s insights, expertise, and points of view can help you thrive in a competitive landscape and volatile times. But you can’t just blast out content from your fund manager or chief economist and expect it to make a splash. To rise above the noise, you’ve got to position your team members as authorities who draw on deep experience to offer unique (and useful) insights.  

Here are three best practices to get started.

1. Develop Useful Insights That Meet Your Audience’s Needs

As we’ve said before too many thought leaders get hung up on what they want to say without stopping to consider what their audience wants to hear. So to create messages that keep your audience at the forefront, you first need to define — and seek to meet — their needs. To get started, ask yourself and your team:

  • Who is our ideal client?
  • What problems are they trying to solve? (e.g., What do they not understand about the implications of their investment decisions? How can they be more strategic with their assets?)
  • For the issues you’ve identified, what content already exists on those topics? How credible is it?
  • What viewpoint can your organization share to not only enter that conversation, but add to it meaningfully?

Ultimately, the goal here is to be useful by offering a fresh perspective (something your audience hasn’t heard before that makes them think) and/or practical guidance (that they might not be able to get anywhere else). As our research shows, utility attracts your audience more than any other characteristic. 

That’s what RBC Global Asset Management did to set themselves apart in the increasingly crowded ESG space. Five years ago, when data on how many investors were deploying ESG strategies – and where and how they were doing so – was less common, they identified the need and surveyed their clients, prospects, consultants and advisers to provide this data to the market. They’ve been doing the survey every year since.

To amplify this effort, we work with their team of experts to secure media opportunities on a wide array of ESG issues, as well as share their expertise and approach through owned content, such as blogs and podcasts. For the 2020 research alone, RBC GAM garnered more than 40 media placements, including those in The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and Bloomberg News. Social media posts received more than 225,000 impressions and the report was downloaded 5,500 times from the survey microsite.

2. Say Something Meaningful (Even if it’s a Little Provocative)

If you really want to differentiate yourself and provide utility, it’s essential to say something meaningful – something that will inspire your audience to action.

Too many firms play it safe and hedge their bets. They give noncommittal advice and leave their clients to wade through endless possibilities. By contrast, true authorities draw a line in the sand, make their case, and back up their position with well-supported rationale. 

Let’s think back to our ESG example. There’s a wealth of ESG data out there — and many ways to approach ESG investing. To win over your audience, you need to say something meaningful that will make an investor choose your strategy. You may believe that investing in fossil fuel companies is an essential step towards developing more sustainable solutions. Or you may believe the opposite, that a sustainable fund should never include gas and oil exposure. 

Whatever it is, you need a position. And you need to communicate something that matters — even if it’s conceivably provocative. You must show your audience you’re thinking about challenging issues and prove you have the brainpower to guide investors in smart directions.

3. Be Ready to Engage Different Points of View

When you have the courage to say something meaningful, it stands to reason that someone will disagree. That’s a good thing. There are few better ways of honing your authority position than participating skillfully in the marketplace of ideas.

A researcher at the London School of Economics and Political Science — Iain Begg — wrote that public engagement is a great way for technical experts to stay sharp because it forces them to render complicated, theoretical or abstract ideas in practice, concrete and accessible terms. He put it this way: “The challenge of having to explain scientific propositions in terms that informed, non-specialist audiences can grasp, forces academics to think about how those outside academia will view the research.” Making the theoretical and abstract accessible also builds trust and credibility. 

The bottom line? Enter boldly into the marketplace of ideas. And beyond that, understand the value of inviting others to interact with and iterate on your own. Be prepared to listen and consider alternate points of view along the way. The work of refining your firm’s position of authority is never done, and there is plenty of wisdom to learn from others as you do this important work.

Differentiation Starts with Authority 

Setting your financial services firm apart from your competitors is challenging — but it’s not impossible. The key to doing it well is to establish your firm’s authority and promote unique points of view. This requires you to identify your audience’s needs, deliver useful information that solves their problems, say something meaningful to earn their respect, and engage skillfully with those who disagree. 

We can help you identify and develop the points of view that will establish you as the authority you are. Just reach out — we’d love to explore how we can help direct a smarter conversation at your firm.

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Count the headlines earned by Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and Merck when they announced their CEO succession plans – turnover at the most senior levels gets attention. It may be one of the few “all eyes on you” moments a firm can count on.

As such, these moments present valuable opportunities for a firm to articulate strategy and communicate a fresh vision for the future. However, recent research has found that most organizations are unprepared for the opportunities –and challenges –that a turnover will bring. 

In a new report we worked with History Factory to develop, 90% of the 160 c-suite respondents surveyed agreed with the statement, “in today’s unpredictable environment, succession planning is more important than ever.” Yet the report also showed that less than half of corporations have taken the time to develop a succession plan. This is particularly remarkable considering that CEO changeover reached 20-year highs in 2019 — and after a brief pandemic-induced pause, now continues to rise. 

Greentarget has helped many clients manage leadership transitions at the c-level. Given these experiences and the market research we conducted with History Factory, we recommend that leaders consider the following when facing turnover in the c-suite.

1.  Tell a Compelling Institutional Narrative

An executive transition is one of the few occasions where your firm will garner earned media attention and public interest, whether you’re actively seeking it out or not. What’s more, the passing of the baton gives you a rare strategic opportunity to refresh your firm’s market position, either by affirming your unique value proposition, previewing a strong new direction, or underscoring your commitment to serving clients and stakeholders.

Keep in mind, though, that most people view CEO transitions with some level of suspicion. For example, a company’s stock price almost always takes a hit when a new CEO is announced. This happens even when a company rolls out thoughtful transition communications. “What’s really going on over there?” is bound to cross the minds of more than a few stakeholders. 

Your audience will want to know the why behind a high-profile change. So seize this moment by telling them a compelling story you want them to remember. Share your outgoing leader’s accomplishments. Lay out the meaningful strides your company made during her tenure. Then paint a picture of what your firm is capable based on this strong foundation.

2. Capture the Intellectual Capital of Your Outgoing CEO

Recent research published by Harvard Business Review quantifies a startling truth: the amount of market value wiped out by badly managed CEO and C-suite transitions in the S&P 1500 is close to $1 trillion a year.  That’s trillion with a T. Among the primary reasons for this, the researchers argue, is the loss of the outgoing CEO’s intellectual capital. 

Don’t let a veritable wealth of information walk out the door with your departing leader. You need to thoughtfully gather that institutional memory so it can be transferred to your incoming CEO.  

Your incoming leader needs to demonstrate an awareness of:

  • Company timelines and achievements
  • Market position and competitive analysis
  • Industry challenges and trends
  • Past and current strategic priorities
  • Organizational ethos and values
  • High-profile client accounts, past and present
  • Employee culture, including talent-related strengths and opportunities 

History Factory’s report offers thoughtful guidance and examples on how to draw institutional memory out of your departing CEO and use it to prepare the new leader. Reflect this transfer of institutional memory in your communications plan to convey stability and momentum. Your audience and stakeholders need to be confident your organization won’t take a step backward as a result of the transition. They need to know your incoming leader is sufficiently aware of the past to be ready for the challenges that lie ahead.

3. Communicate the Value Your Incoming CEO Brings (But Don’t Rush to Herald a New Vision)

Introducing your incoming CEO can be tricky. You want that person to lead, but you also want your employees and clients to confidently follow. While you may be eager to signal a new direction, vision, and momentum, resist the urge to move too quickly. After all, CEOs who introduce a bold new direction right away run the risk of alienating employees, clients, and stakeholders in the process. It’s more important for the new leader to affirm your firm’s organizational culture and demonstrate genuine excitement about becoming part of it.

Rather than introducing the specific priorities your CEO will tackle, focus on communicating the value your new executive brings to the table. (For example, are you one of the increasing number of companies appointing its first woman or person of color as CEO?) Share why they are best suited to lead the organization into the future, and give them adequate time to formulate their compelling new vision. 

Are you promoting a leader from within? Tell the story of that person’s journey at your firm. How has your outgoing CEO offered valuable mentorship and leadership along the way? In what ways will the new leader build on and enhance the strategic direction your firm has taken to this point?

Only after your new CEO has had a chance to get the lay of the land should you really hand over the microphone. It’s time to broadcast his vision for the future while continuing to value the good work you’ve already accomplished.

A Positive CEO Transition Requires Thoughtful Succession Planning

To navigate the challenging dynamics of an executive transition, you need a solid and thoughtful communication plan. This is your firm’s newsworthy moment. Make the most of it by telling a compelling institutional story, capturing and transferring your outgoing CEO’s intellectual capital, and introducing your incoming CEO’s vision thoughtfully. 

You don’t have to go it alone. We’ve been down this road before. We’re well-positioned to help your organization seize the strategic opportunity an executive transition offers.

Want to talk it through? Just reach out — we’d love to hear from you.

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In January, the leaders of Twitter, Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon did something that no elected representative in Congress can do to the head of our federal government. Each imposed severe, unprecedented limits on the powers of a U.S. president.

Responding much faster than Congress to the will of the people — not as voters but as consumers — the chief executives demonstrated publicly and conclusively that, when it comes to circumscribing the powers of our government’s leader, they’re more effective than members of any other branch.

The heads of Reddit, Snapchat and Shopify followed suit, banning or severely restricting the 45th president of the United States from their platforms.

“[CEOs] have money, they have power, and they have more of the public’s trust than politicians do. And they’re using all of it in an attempt to preserve America’s system of governance,” writes Felix Salmon in his article “How CEOs became the 4th branch of government.”

With this power comes, of course, great responsibility —and a new kind of regulator, more powerful than the courts or the legislatures. Consumers can use their buying power and collective social influence to keep the “fourth branch” — let’s call it the C-branch — in check.

In such a world, the CMO becomes a CEO’s most valuable, versatile ally — a critically important conduit between the C-branch and consumers. These days, they must do more, a lot more, than simply articulate positions, craft messages and disseminate information internally and externally.

The office of the CMO must also have its ear to the ground to pick up what’s on consumers’ minds — their predilections, pain points and latest causes for social and political concern — and be able to transmit all of that back to CEOs to help them make critical, high-stakes and well-informed decisions.

Like whether it’s time to deactivate a sitting president’s Twitter account.

The C-Suite’s New Utility Player

These new conditions – driven by the primacy of social and environmental concerns among present and emerging generations of consumers – have changed the game for CMOs.

The game-change has accelerated the diversification and elevation of the importance of CMOs duties and obligations that had been occurring steadily over the last 20 years. For much of that time the primary driver was technology, especially the increasing importance (and sophistication) of data analytics and AI.

Far more than just a chief marketing messenger, the CMO is now something of a CIO too — an executive who, if not working directly with information technology, must understand it well enough to take full advantage of the growing array of digital marketing tools.

Additionally, the roles of the CMO and Chief Communications Officer are becoming more integrated by the day. They must be in order to achieve what Maja Pawinska Sims calls a better alignment with “brand and corporate narrative.” As honest, relevant, human tale-telling becomes even more closely connected to the P&L, the C-suite’s storytellers are increasingly relied upon to develop new tales.

It is not incorrect, then, to refer to the CMO as the C-suite’s new utility player, the executive who must know a little bit about every other position in order to help the CEO make sense of challenges and opportunities, especially in relation to the Three Rs: Revenue, Relationship, and Reputation.

Revenue & Relationships are the CMO’s Job Too

Reputation has long been in the domain of the CMO. Marketing’s ties to revenue run deep, but the new order makes them inseparable. And relationship has traditionally resided outside the chief marketer’s purview.

Using a deep understanding of both customers and community, CMOs can and must actively identify and broker new kinds of relationships for their companies. Success will make them indispensable lieutenants, especially when it comes to helping CEOs influence “constituents” — as elected officials do.

A focus on revenue means CMOs need more than just hallway collegiality with the CFO; they need to develop an active, healthy relationship. They must also help persuade the finance chief that today, what’s good for customers and communities is good for the company’s bottom line.

Rather than be put off by such a prospect, chief marketers should view the present as an opportunity to, as Jann Schwarz writes, “reclaim a more strategic role” through a key relationship with the CFO.

“[The CMO’s] creativity and imagination (combined with commercial discipline and a customer lens) can drive a sustainable and competitive advantage” through such a rapprochement, writes Schwarz.

Clearly, this is not your mother’s or your father’s CMO.

The New Corporate Narrative: Social Responsibility

In this brave new world, the CMO is the CEO’s eyes and ears, both messenger and oracle, watching how our market-society, and the people who comprise it, are moving, shifting, aligning and re-aligning.

This means that CMOs can no longer compartmentalize company narratives, social responsibility and profitable growth. As the last Business Roundtable made eminently clear, these are now intertwined and interdependent considerations, not to mention the focus on the three Rs.

CMOs who are paying attention and playing the long game know that social responsibility is the narrative and that terms such as “social impact” and “sustainability” are something more than fleeting hashtags to be expressed merely through a sprinkling of green on the logo.

And it will remain the narrative until norms have changed so dramatically that, among successive generations of consumers, it will be one of many unspoken expectations that leaders must be, at the very least, as committed to doing no harm — socially, environmentally — as they are to generating a return on investment for shareholders.

Perhaps the CMO’s greatest value, then, will be in perceiving what is moving the market. Or more accurately who is moving it: consumers and clients who are not data points, who are not math problems, but real, live people, governed by ever-shifting social norms and fickle human nature.

And who can vote any time, from anywhere, for unelected leaders in that fourth branch of government using something that may soon be more powerful than the ballot: their credit cards.

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  • Greentarget secured more than 40 media placements for RBC Global Asset Management’s Responsible Investing Survey in outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Chief Investment Officer, Financial Times and The Globe and Mail.
  • The report was viewed over 5,500 times on the survey microsite.
  • Social media posts about the report garnered over 225,000 impressions.

Challenge

As responsible investing continues to gain traction among investors, one big question remains: What is its material impact on the risk and return outcomes of investment portfolios?

RBC Global Asset Management (GAM), an established leader in responsible investing, firmly believes not only that institutional advisors can realize better long-term performance with environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors integrated into their investment processes – but that active managers who understand ESG will have a competitive advantage.

RBC GAM’s leadership thus saw this continued uncertainty as an opportunity to both elevate its brand and help educate its institutional audience.

Solution

Greentarget and RBC GAM conducted a survey of institutional asset owners, financial advisors and pension consultants to research the current state of responsible investing. The survey results would educate industry stakeholders, empowering them to make more informed decisions about integrating ESG into their investment processes

To that end, RBC GAM’s marketing team worked with its vice president of corporate governance and responsible investing as well as several senior portfolio managers to craft the survey questions. Nearly 800 financial industry professionals from the U.S., Europe and Asia participated, and their responses revealed a compelling divergence of views about the value of ESG on investment performance.

Greentarget and RBC GAM’s subject matter experts analyzed the results. Greentarget’s content team edited the survey report and a blog post series that highlighted specific topics from the survey.

From there, Greentarget’s media relations team went to work promoting the report through earned media.

Impact

Greentarget’s media relations team secured over 40 pieces of news coverage and 131 million impressions on the survey results. Placements included top-tier business publications like The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and Financial Times.

The survey report itself was viewed more than 5,500 times on the company’s microsite, which was built exclusively for the survey launch. Meanwhile, RBC GAM’s global responsible investment website, microsite and ESG videos were viewed by over 3,500 people during the campaign.

Paid and organic LinkedIn and Twitter posts garnered over 225,000 impressions and over 2,000 click-throughs.

As a result of Greentarget and RBC GAM’s joint efforts, the survey report and promotional campaign won the Public Relations Society of America’s Silver Anvil Award in the B2B Integrated Communications category.

More importantly, the institutional investor audience now sees RBC GAM as an even stronger thought leader in the rapidly growing responsible investing space. 

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The professional services marketer who sets out to develop a content strategy is likely to find the process frustrating, the execution lackluster and the results disappointing.

The process of creating a content strategy can be a nightmare in consensus-driven partnerships. Strategy requires setting limits, which can invite the fury of practice groups that aren’t identified as priorities. Most law firm leaders aren’t going to go there. Marketers who do manage to create a strategy are likely to find strategic elements like governance and promotional schedules completely ineffectual when dealing with partners and their impenetrable calendars.

Instead of putting yourself through that agony, try stripping your content strategy down to the essentials. Create a basic, realistic plan to produce content with strategic value – and put your energy and resources into content that establishes the firm’s authority and ultimately helps it win new business.

Four Elements of a Better Professional Services Content Strategy

A plan with the following four elements represents a strong framework for most professional services firms:

  • Authorities: Which subject matter experts you want to amplify
  • Audiences: Who your authorities are trying to influence – and what they need to know
  • Formats: Client alerts, bylines, LinkedIn posts – whatever will be the most effective vehicle engaging those audiences
  • Schedule: How many pieces do you want to publish, in what time frame?

Note that a content plan like this won’t cover all the content your firm produces. It should be designed for only the firm’s most strategic and valuable content – perspectives that open doors. Client alerts from non-priority industry groups, bylines lawyers write without telling you about it, blogs of low-margin practice groups – all of these things should be optimized with efficient editing and targeted promotion. That frees the marketing team to direct its editorial, creative and budgetary resources at the content most likely to generate new business.

Here’s a closer look at the four critical elements of a feasible content plan.

Authorities: Impact players With Something to Say

Choosing which of your firm’s advisers deserve the most marketing resources comes down to knowing where the firm has the greatest opportunities to grab new revenue.

Ideally, the decision derives from firm-level business strategy set by leadership. Firm leaders who identify priority practice or industry areas, or create annual strategy documents that identify key growth areas, make the decision for you.

Marketers who don’t have firm strategies to guide them will most likely have to sit down with leadership to identify which professionals or groups merit the team’s strongest support.

We’re not advising anyone to simply anoint the biggest rainmakers as your authorities. The advisers you’ll want to work with are those who are willing to invest the time and, most importantly, willing to deliver the goods: the insights and perspectives that will ensure they are not just heard, but heeded.

Audiences: Finding a POV

What do your target audiences need to know that they’re not getting elsewhere? The answer will provide the first critical element of your content plan.

Traditionally, we rely on the advisers to tell us what their clients and prospects need to know. That’s fine – they should know – but it’s also imprecise. A cybersecurity consultant might tell you her clients want insights on privacy rules in California – because a single client asked her about it that morning. Or because the client they care most about raised the topic. Or because they think their clients should care about it – probably just because it’s what they want to say.

To paint a more accurate, objective picture of the audience’s needs, we use technology tools that assess search data, which we view as a proxy for audience need. To get an even more complete picture, we use voice of the client research. At the very least, a thorough review of the media landscape will tell you what’s already being said, and what’s not; juxtapose that with your expert’s view of the audience need to figure out which unmet needs you can fill.

Formats: Follow the Data and Focus on What’s Inside

Don’t make this more complicated than it needs to be. Our research tells us that the folks in the C-suite, especially in-house lawyers, mostly want written content, especially articles. They want brevity in client alerts and depth in research reports.

Consider repeatable, standardized forms that will be easy to replicate. For instance, a series of short (less than 400 words) pieces, by multiple attorneys, framing the pressing issues in an industry with strategic value to the firm can help showcase the breadth and depth of the firm’s authority. A magazine-style approach that quotes the firm’s experts – but doesn’t ask them to write or even put their byline on anything – can expedite production and establish the firm’s value as a resource.

Editorial Calendars: Creating Reasonable Constraints

An editorial calendar with columns covering every stage of production, publishing, distribution and measurement will be useless if you have no way of enforcing deadlines with partners – whose schedules are already packed and who will always prioritize client work over marketing (as they should). But you need to create some constraints, if only to give yourself and your team some urgency. Just keep it simple.

Decide how many pieces you believe you should publish and in what time frame (weekly? monthly?).

Neither decision should be all that complicated. Consider the audience need, the depth of insights your advisers have to offer and the pace of the news around the issue you’re addressing. You want to produce enough content to establish your adviser’s authority, and you want to ensure your insights address the issues your audience cares about now, before the issue evolves or all of your competitors have already written about it.

Content That Rises Above the Noise

Your content plan won’t get you anywhere if you’re not creating content that will rise above the noise. Creating a simple, feasible plan allows you to spend more time ensuring your content will connect with audiences, establish the firm’s authority and open the door to client development.

To accomplish that, focus on four qualities: relevance, novelty, urgency and utility. If you’ve done the audience research, you’ve got the first three at your fingertips. You know which insights will impact readers’ businesses (relevance), which ones they’re not getting anywhere else (novelty) and which ones they need today (urgency).

The fourth, and most critical, component has to come from your advisers. Utility is what separates authoritative content – the stuff that moves clients to pick up the phone and call your firm – from all the other content out there.

To get at it, focus on pushing your advisers to answer this question: What do I need to do to navigate or address this issue today? Then take the answer and build your content around it, starting with the headline. Getting to utility isn’t always as easy as asking a question, but it’s worth holding out until you get to it. Readers want it above all else.

If this all sounds oversimplified, it’s supposed to be. We’d all love to have sophisticated content strategies – they work for companies that can execute on them. But marketers at lots of businesses, especially in professional services, face a different reality. And while that reality will often frustrate their efforts to execute on content strategy – or even to develop the strategies at all – it doesn’t have to prevent them from creating effective content.

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