Cut The Budget, Keep The Edge: A Provocation For Law Firm Marketers

Every time the economy hiccups, a chorus of digital gurus sings the same refrain: "Whatever you do, don't cut your marketing budget - future you will thank present you!"

Nice slogan. Shame it ignores maths.

First, do the sums

In normal conditions, most commercial practices spend 5% – 18% of revenue on marketing and business development. When fee income drops by half - as many firms experienced during the pandemic and as some are feeling again in today's stop-start economy - that ratio silently doubles. Suddenly marketing is 14% – 39% of turnover, and nobody noticed because the monthly retainers auto-debit.

Rule #1: shrink spend until the percentage returns to sanity. Anything else is blind faith.