Marketing vs. Business Development: What’s the Difference and Why Do You Need Both?

A version of the article was published in The Legal Intelligencer on June 26, 2024 here.

---

At a recent social event I attended, I met a lawyer — let’s call him Mark. When Mark heard that I run a content marketing agency focusing on legal services, he chuckled and said, “I bet you run into a lot of lawyers who think they know how to do marketing better than you do.” Before I could assure him that this was rarely a problem and that I very much enjoyed working with lawyers and law firms, Mark leaned in close to tell me that, in his opinion, “most law firms are doing it wrong” and “should be focusing on business development rather than marketing.” After imparting this piece of wisdom, he sat back with a satisfied smile.

As ironic as the scenario might have been, Mark’s suggestion started me thinking.

The idea that marketing and business development are separate, siloed functions, or that they exist in an either-or relationship with each other, is not an uncommon one, especially for lawyers who may only get an occasional peek into what their firm’s marketing and business development professionals spend their days working on. Understanding how marketing and business development work together can also be challenging in part because these two functions tend not to have simple definitions or clear-cut scopes, in either general business parlance or legal services marketing.

The marketing and business development functions both broadly aim to increase revenue for the firm by bringing in more work, but each has a different focus and approach.

Marketing focuses on building brand awareness in the marketplace, with the broad goals of educating and informing potential clients and influencing hiring decisions. Marketing uses messaging, typically a combination of inbound and outbound strategies, to generate interest and visibility for lawyers, practices or firms; position them as trusted experts; and differentiate them from their competitors. The emphasis in marketing is on reaching and influencing target audiences — identifying who they are, discerning what they need and want, and messaging to engage them — in ways that nudge them along the buyer’s journey from prospect to client, as well as building and maintaining the loyalty, or “stickiness,” of existing clients.

The portfolio of tasks typically associated with the marketing function include:

• Developing and maintaining the firm’s website and other digital and traditional marketing collateral

• Creating and disseminating substantive branded content and thought leadership such as alerts, newsletters, blogs, videos and other content resources designed to demonstrate the expertise of the lawyers and the firm

• Implementing the firm’s social media — expanding the reach of messaging through platforms such as LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and other channels

• Advertising using digital and traditional media

• Overseeing PR and media relations

While marketing focuses on messaging to the marketplace to build brand awareness and increase visibility, business development focuses on identifying and pursuing strategic growth opportunities, whether through increasing market share in existing practice areas or industries, developing new and different practice areas, or targeting different industries or market sectors. Business development emphasizes the building of connections and new relationships with prospects, referral sources and clients, and facilitating the various processes and tasks that allow lawyers, practices and firms to actualize growth opportunities.

The portfolio of tasks typically associated with the business development function include:

• Conducting market, client and competitive intelligence

• Managing data on clients, prospects, strategic partners and referral sources

• Identifying and activating cross-selling opportunities within the firm

• Creating pitches, proposals and written responses to RFPs, as well as coordinating materials for networking and interactions with clients and prospects

• Managing events

• Overseeing client feedback programs

As you can see, the marketing and business development functions intersect and, in some cases, overlap.

Two main areas of intersection are worth noting. The first is what other industries would call sales — getting the prospective client over the hiring finish line or convincing the existing client to send the lawyer or firm more, better or different work. Law firms traditionally tend not to have sales teams or departments (although this is slowly shifting). The onus for “closing the deal” usually falls on the lawyers, who are tasked with getting the prospect to sign the engagement letter or pitching the current client for new work. Both the marketing and business development functions play key roles in supporting lawyers and practices in selling their services to both new and current clients.

The second area of intersection is the customer (or client) experience. In the current competitive and crowded legal market, “our great work speaks for itself” is no longer an effective strategy to ensure a steady stream of work, even from those clients who seem loyal. Great legal work is expected. True client loyalty, as well as a willingness to act as brand spokesperson or referral source, requires adding value. Both the business development and marketing functions can play a role in enhancing the client experience.

Of course, the common denominator for these two areas is the lawyers, who have to be savvy users of both the marketing and business development functions of their firms — which brings me back to our new friend Mark. Mark was partially right in that firms do need to allocate resources to business development. But he missed the mark in asserting that the solution was to prioritize one at the expense of the other. It’s not business development or marketing. It’s business development and marketing.

Featured Articles