Case Study: Branding a Law Firm

Client:

A large, well established, personal injury firm with three locations in a mid-level market

Summary:

The firm contacted Mockingbird with concerns that they were failing to generate inquiries directly from accident victims. Instead, many of their cases were being forwarded to them by referring attorneys.

Despite a stellar reputation for handling complex cases, traditional consumers were opting to call their competitors instead.

The firm’s website was functional, efficient, and extremely sterile. The firm already had a clear perspective of their own internal strengths and weaknesses, as well as the needs of their clients, and understood the disconnect between the two.

Our agency recommended going through the branding process in order to solidify the firm’s personality and brand identity. The goal was to understand their opportunities within their market, solidify their positioning, and establish a set of brand guidelines that would not only inform the website redesign but their messaging and offline advertising as well.

Process:

The first step was working through a series of exercises with the firm’s stakeholders to understand and clearly define the core values and vision for the firm. We got an honest assessment of what was working, what had been problematic, and how they think their clients and competitors perceive their firm. We also did extensive research into how their competitors were being marketed, as well as how current clients actually view the firm.

Putting everything together, we built out recommendations to highlight their competitive advantages, smooth over their weaknesses or reposition them as strengths, and highlight emotional needs and desires that weren’t being triggered by competing firms.

Ultimately, the rebrand was a dramatic shift away from the lawyers as heroes archetype, with the firm embracing a more nurturing role for prospective clients.

The brand guidelines established during this process were used to inform a new website design that incorporated an updated color palette, revised messaging, more welcoming photos, and a more accurate depiction of who the firm actually was in the first place.

Results:

In the 90 days following the rebrand, the firm saw:

  • A 1.16% increase in conversions from organic traffic
  • A 1.71% decrease in bounce rate from organic traffic
  • An average of 27 additional qualified leads / month (as defined by the firm)

The rebrand worked because each piece aligned to tell a more accurate and compelling story for potential clients than what had been conveyed through the previous website. Positioning their firm as accessible and approachable for consumers was validated by an increase in phone calls from potential clients. People in their market were more ready to take action after landing on the site, and the firm was able to make significant progress toward growing the non-referral side of their practice.