Creative Marketing Tips For Conservative Industries
A special thanks to the Business Development team at Sherman & Howard for sharing their advice on how to think about advertising as a way to make an impact. As a thank you for their time, we’ve donated money to Florence Crittenton Services.
Skilled, Experienced, Compassionate and Committed, Sherman & Howard’s Family Law Team Delivers Results in Complex Family Matters. From amicable settlements to highly complex litigation, Sherman & Howard’s experienced negotiators and skilled trial lawyers represent high net worth individuals and high-profile clients.
Our vision: We took a simple concept for Sherman and Howard and turned it into a beautiful, and unique ad.
Our goals :
- Feature Denver
- Portray the lawyers look professional yet approachable
- Step outside of the normal comfort zone for the typical law firm’s marketing plan… all in less than two hours.
Sherman & Howard, what is a piece of valuable branding (or marketing) advice you would like to share?
“For law firms, in particular, it is strategic to try unique and creative marketing ideas, as so many firms are conservative about their messaging and approach. Therefore, stepping out of the usual comfort zone with branding efforts usually makes an impression, simply because firms don’t do so very often. ” Edgar, Business Development Manager
- Make a list of what other people are doing, do something different. At Denver, Headshot Co, we’ve found that sometimes industry standards become standards without any good reasoning. Evaluate what is your competitors are doing in your industry by making a list of adjectives. Use your last advertisement. Use your competitor’s advertisements. Next, make a list of the antonyms to the industry. Ask strangers or people outside of your industry to do the same. Compile a list and see if any of the new descriptions line up with who your company is and what your ideal client wants to hire.
- Be strategic & clear with your message. How did Sherman & Howard do something different? They chose a distinctive and striking approach to their full-page advertising photo. Bright pink and bold colors are not typically attributed to the law field. Ideal clients want to see their lawyers as professionals – but what else? Brave? Relatable? They didn’t stop at professional. When narrowing down your ideas for a marketing campaign first think about your ideal clients. In Sherman & Howard’s case, one of their starting points was that most of their clients live in and love Denver. Their campaign was founded on featuring Denver, showing everyone on their team and creating a memorable and unique campaign that stood out from the rest.
- Posing and positioning and what it says about you. There is a fine line between posing to make your body look flattering and ruining your appearance with a photo that looks inauthentic. Beyond maximizing flattery, think about posing in a way that makes you look approachable and relatable.
- Plan and execute. This photo shoot was done in approximately an hour and a half between two locations, 10 attorneys, rush hour traffic and a car full of lighting equipment. We came into the session with a clear plan, we thoroughly communicated expectations with all of the decision-makers and talked through likes & dislikes about previous sessions. As a photographer, we hired an assistant, had backups to our backups and had scouted out all of the locations prior to the session. Communicate thoroughly with your clients ahead and time and you will gain their trust to help everyone efficiently and confidently execute the session.
How did everything go? Check out Sherman & Howard’s review.
We were lucky enough to learn about Denver Headshots for an advertisement our firm needed to finalize in short fashion, and which required the coordination of more than a dozen very busy schedules. From start to finish, Jackie was the consummate professional, speaking directly to our key decision-makers about their goals for the photo session, making great suggestions about the style and look we were going for based on direct feedback, and clearly communicating throughout our planning process. The shoot required us to coordinate everyone for two different locations downtown in an hour, an impressive feat to achieve with the extensive equipment they use for their shoots! Jackie and her team were on time, effective, and extremely helpful in making sure that everyone knew what they were doing for each picture she snapped. The photos reflect the focus and dedication she puts into her work, and everyone involved has been very impressed with the results. Highly recommended for corporate photo sessions that will differentiate your teams – we definitely plan to keep Denver Headshot’s number handy for future needs! Edgar, Business Development Manager
