The most important asset that any company has is its brand. You’ve spent countless hours and a lot of money building your brand, so it’s absolutely key that you take the necessary steps to protect it.

Consistency is crucial when it comes to connecting with your clients on a meaningful level and brand guardianship should be a key consideration when you’re marketing a law firm.

What is brand guardianship?

Brand guardianship is ensuring that your brand is represented accurately and consistently across all platforms and channels. This includes having guidelines for everything from your brand’s colours and the fonts that you use to the correct positioning, shape, and usage of your logo.

It’s not just about the visual aspect of your brand, either. Brand guardianship should also monitor the tone of voice that’s used in all of your brand communications when marketing a law firm. It’s important to maintain a consistent style and tone of voice to avoid causing any confusion for your clients or damaging the relationship that your law firm has built with them.

Why is brand guardianship important?

In a recent study, the median tenure for chief marketing officers of leading US consumer brands has dropped to just 27.5 months.

In fact, marketing roles have the highest turnover rate of any job function according to a survey by LinkedIn. Turnover for these roles is a massive 17% which is 50% higher than the global average turnover rate.

This is why brand guardianship should be a key focus for every single brand. With such a high turnover of staff in these kinds of roles, it’s imperative that new employees have all of the information and guidelines that they need to continue effectively marketing a law firm – without causing any damage to your law firm’s brand.

This is where having someone responsible for brand guardianship comes in. By entrusting this responsibility to someone separate from your CMO or marketing manager, you can ensure that your brand consistency isn’t put at risk by staff turnover.

Maintain brand value

Ensuring consistency across all of your brand communications allows your clients to distinguish your law firm from your competitors. When marketing a law firm you need to make sure that your brand is instantly recognisable in order to attract the right kind of clients. This also means that they’re able to actively seek out your firm and distinguish you from your competition.

Brand guardianship is a key part of marketing a law firm as it allows you to communicate your values, mission, and personality. In some cases, this level of understanding can be the difference between a potential client deciding to work with you or choosing to go elsewhere.

Save time and money

Consistency in the assets that your brand is using means that you won’t run the risk of a branding mishap. These kinds of mistakes can be devastatingly costly for brands, and especially so for law firms.

Your clients have come to expect a certain tone of voice and visual appearance from your law firm, so suddenly changing how you communicate with them can irreparably damage the trust that you’ve worked so hard to cultivate.

Investing in brand guardianship means that all of the material that your team might use for marketing a law firm in the future can be easily checked for consistency in order to ensure that your brand is being represented in the best way possible.

Universal consistency

If you’re marketing a law firm that has an international presence or offices in many different locations then it’s important to bear localisation in mind.

Your marketing materials will need to be created with each geographical location in mind and this is where brand guardianship can really be helpful. These guidelines allow your regional teams to create materials that are best placed to be effective with each local area – without sacrificing your brand’s identity.

This is also true of the different channels and platforms that might be used as part of a marketing strategy. Your brand needs to be represented in a consistent way across printed media, social media, TV, or even radio. Clients should be able to immediately recognise you within seconds of seeing or hearing your advertisement in order for these campaigns to have the best impact possible.

Should you outsource brand guardianship?

Not sure who to appoint as your brand guardian? A creative agency could be the answer that you’re looking for, and you might even find that it’s the cheaper option too.

These branding consultants will be able to offer you an independent view of your company and will have all of the skills and knowledge needed to ensure that your brand is adequately protected.

You need to look for an agency that has the creativity and understanding needed to help with marketing a law firm, and that takes the time to really understand your brand inside and out. Most importantly, as your brand is your most valuable asset, you need to find an agency that you can trust to protect your brand and deliver ideas that are the right fit for you.

The Brand Remedy team can help. Get in touch today to find out more.

Richard is Creative Director and owner of Brand Remedy and one of the pioneers of branding in professional services. His sector experience includes legal, accountancy, wealth management, financial services, real estate and public sector.