Issue #8 (see PDF below) of the large law firm publication by Charles Christian, American Legal Technology Insider (ALTi), is hot off the press and features a story on the InsideLegal Vendor Marketing Survey.
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Earlier we introduced our inaugural InsideLegal Vendor Marketing Survey that we administered last fall. Here's the first in a series of posts containing the results. The survey, primarily completed by senior marketing folks (90+% are managers or higher), provided a balanced cross-section across the legal vendor community from small companies to large, publicly traded, multi-billion dollar companies.
Of the 67 vendors completing all 40 survey questions, roughly 60% of respondents work for legal technology companies ranging from 11-100 employees, with the largest single percentage (22%) stemming from within the 11-25 employee range.
While most companies (70+%) staff their marketing departments with 1-4 marketers, a much smaller number (roughly 15%), count 6+ marketing team members.
With the recent trend of workforce reductions and across the board marketing-related belt tightening, it will be interesting to compare these statistics with the upcoming 2009 InsideLegal Vendor Marketing Survey. (All participants receive a copy of the complete final results. Email us now if you would like to participate in the 2009 survey.)
One of the key focus areas of the marketing survey is the budgeting and marketing spend section. While we realize that budget and spending realities and outlooks have worsened since our survey completion in the fall, the data proves very useful when looking to establish industry spend benchmarks, marketing mix priorities based on marketing investment, and broader marketing cost cutting trends.
Cost cutting priorities: When forced to trim their budgets, the respondents rank the following in order from first to go…
Advertising must go, or at least be trimmed back
Promotional items/giveaways
Industry events (besides the ‘usual’ legal technology trade shows)
Direct mail
Market research
Oddly enough, this does not match up with where respondents indicate they are spending marketing dollars. the following is the rank of the breakout of allocation in order from biggest budget line items…
Events
Web design (development and maintenance)
Collateral
PR
Industry relations (consultant arrangements, whitepaper development by third parties, etc.)
Does this provide insight into marketing executives budget challenges? We think so. Stay tuned for more survey insight on legal technology vendor marketing – targeting and segmenting, goal setting/planning, outsourcing, and vendors that have reputations for great marketing efforts.
How many times have you wondered how much your competitors are spending on their marketing initiatives compared to you or even compared to the industry as a whole? Based on our decade long conversation with the legal technology vendor community through Envision Agency, this question has come up a lot but without many answers.
Where other industries routinely benchmark marketing spend as a percentage of overall company revenue, our market has had no standards to measure against … until now. The inaugural InsideLegal Vendor Marketing Survey of the legal technology community reveals that 46% of vendor respondents spend more than 4% of their company's total revenue on marketing, with 25% spending more than 6%. While this might sound like a healthy allocation, it pales in comparison to other overall industry standards.
According to Go-to-Market-Strategies (GTMS), a resource center for sales and marketing professionals and business leaders, 45% of companies spend over 6%, with most of those between 6-10%. GTMS adds: "The general guideline for using the percentage of revenue approach is 8-10% of revenue should be spent on marketing, with approximately 5% of that going to labor (either for a department, or outsourcing to a marketing firm). What percentage you use is determined by a number of factors, how mature is your market (how much education do you have to do), how well known is your company in your industry (are you a new or established business, how much brand awareness do you have to do), and how fast do you intend to grow …"
We'll be talking more about this in the upcoming months, but it's a good time to think about where you stand in the mix…
As most legal technology vendors know, there is usually a stampede to get involved with ILTA events as a sponsor. ILTA’s 4th annual U.K. event, INSIGHT 2009, is right around the corner and there is still availability for vendor sponsorship. Here are the details…
Audience: CIOs, operational managers, lawyers, litigation support specialists and in-house legal staff. There is no fee to attend for law firms, but you must register at their site.
Where: Hilton London Tower Bridge Hotel
When: March 31, 2009
Theme: “Optimise and Innovate” Sessions will include: virtualisation, consolidation and relocation including cloud computing and software as a service; real world open source solutions; green initiatives for legal; managing external service providers; update on new e-filing systems; knowledge management with a focus on technology including social networking, wikis, blogs, legal mash-ups; LITIG presentation on competition law and much more.
Format of event: This is a networking, relationship building event. All of the sessions are being planned for interaction with the audience and they encourage vendor sponsors to participate in the discussions. They offer a continental breakfast, lunch, breaks, and reception for attendees to spend additional time with the sponsors. Vendor sponsorships will be limited.
Current Sponsors: BigHand; Copitrak Systems UK Lt; eFax Corporate/J2 Global Communications, Inc.; Elite, a Thomson Reuters business; Hubbard One; IntApp, Inc.; Integreon; Intelliteach; Interwoven UK Ltd; Interwoven, Discovery Mining; Kroll Ontrack; LexisNexis Redwood Analytics; Microsoft; Microsystems; Mimecast; MiniSoft Worldwide; Omtool, Ltd; Phoenix Business Solutions; Proposal Software; Recommind; Tikit; TimeKM Europe
If you think this event is a fit for your organization, the sponsorship fee is £2K and includes:
If you are interested in attending (you don't have to be an ILTA member!), you can find more information and register here. If you are interested in possibly sponsoring the event, email ILTA's Program Director, Peggy Wechsler or call her at 512.795.4660 ext 4662.
Another year, another LegalTech under our collective belts. This year was our 9th trip to NY for LegalTech and everyone was waiting to see how the "hold your breath because of the economy" scenario would play out.
Overall attendance appeared to be down quite a bit from previous years (compared to a reported 12,797 in 2008) which was not surprising with the current business climate. Also, there were a few less exhibitors than in 2008 according to Incisive Media. With that said, it seemed that overall attendee quality was up (see our separate post on our on-site exhibitor InsideLegal flash poll later this week) and there was more eagerness to get business done. Ironically, the smaller crowd allowed for more indepth talks in the booth without the prospects being pushed away by the crowd. (See post on LTNY exhibit hall pics)
New for vendors in 2009 was expansion of the exhibit space into the 3rd floor ballroom and the removal of booths from the dreaded back hallway. I was not sure how this would play out, but the hall seemed to have traffic each time I went in and the space looked like it belonged with the show. This was a creative way to add space, but also did add to the disjointed nature of the exhibit space.
2009 was the year that LegalTech embraced Twitter. There were quite a few firm contacts, consultants and less so vendors that twitted about LegalTech and in particular the session on Twitter that was held on Monday afternoon - moderated by Monica Bay (Editor-in-Chief, Law Technology News) and panelists included Matt Homann (Founder, LexThink), Kevin O'Keefe (CEO, LexBlog), and Chris Winfield (President, 10e20). According to Matt Homann, LegalTech NY made it to the top 10 twittered topics during the session.
Also very noticeable this year, was the abundance of legal industry job seekers, brought to a whole new level with resumes being circulated en mass. Seems like an ideal time to pick-up great talent with so many folks in active job search mode.
One particular complaint of ours (and vendors, consultants and media attendees, etc.) is the lack of meeting space. Part of the culture of a tradeshow (especially of this size) is that companies have meetings on-site – whether it is with clients, media, industry consultants, potential partners or employees, etc. LegalTech has all but made this impossible with the sale of about the only meeting space that is available in the Hilton. The Bridges Bar area (by escalator on floor 1) is sold for thousands of dollars for the duration of the show and only a handful of vendors actually shell out that much money to have the privilege to sit at a table for 4 behind a velvet rope complete with security guard. We know first hand of a few media editors and a consultant that have stopped coming to LegalTech because of the lack of space to meet with vendors. Hopefully this will change for 2010.
Here are some details on "extra curriculars" on Monday and Tuesday during the show:
Monday Night – InsideLegal Consultant Reception
On Monday night we hosted a small InsideLegal Consultant Reception. In attendance were Andy Adkins (Director, Legal Technology Institute), Debbie Foster (Founder/President, InTouch Legal), Adriana Linares (President, LawTech Partners), Larry Smith (Director, ABA LPM), Carly DiVito (Exhibit Manager, ABA TECHSHOW), Dave Glynn (Director of Research, Law Bulletin Publishing), Matt Homann (Founder, LexThink), and Jeremy Hill (Publisher, LegalEase). Also many thanks to BigHand for sponsoring the event! BigHand was represented by David Fryer, CEO; Jonathan Carter, Client Solutions Director; David Jones, UK Sales Director; Beth Thomspon, Regional Sales Manager; and Steve Butterworth, President.
[Andy Adkins (Legal Technology Institute) & David Fyer (BigHand)]
[JoAnna Forshee (InsideLegal), Matt Homann (LexThink) and Adriana Linares (LawTech Partners)]
[Debbie Foster (InTouch Legal), Larry Smith (ABA LPM) and Adriana Linares (LawTech Partners)]
Tuesday Night – TechnoLawyer Party & Charles Christian Performance
Tuesday night was the much talked about TechnoLawyer party hosted by Publisher, Neil Squillante. TechnoLawyer is one of the few organizations that host an event to thank the vendors for their patronage and, as always, it was a great party. Thanks to Neil Squillante!
[Matt Homann (LexThink), Adriana Linares (LawTech Partners), Bob Ambrogi (Legaline), Kevin O'Keefe (LexBlog)]
[Derek Giles (TimeFrame), Jobst Elster (Envision Agency), JoAnna Forshee (InsideLegal)]
After the TechnoLawyer soiree, we headed downtown for a special performance by Charles Christian, the Editor and Publisher of American Legal Technology Insider, Legal Technology Insider and The Orange Rag blog. In Charles' free time, he runs a poetry web community and decided to take advantage of his trip to New York to tell a story of his wilder days in the 60s. It was hilarious and was by far the hit of the evening.
[Charles Christian (The Orange Rag)]
Thanks to Adriana Linares for the pictures from the reception!
On Tuesday morning at 8:00 am, Incisive Media held their annual Editors Breakfast at the Hilton. The event began with time to mingle and enjoy a lite breakfast. Shortly after, the Incisive editors in attendance (see picture below) introduced themselves and their publications. Post introductions, the feeding frenzy began with all the attendees racing to meet particular editors of interest (which usually means Ms. Monica Bay of LTN for this crowd!). New editor faces for 2009 included Leigh Jones with National Law Journal and Anthony Paonita of Corporate Counsel.
(L to R – Craig Ball, Steve Salkin, Safia Maharaj, Bob Ambrogi, Monica Bay, Robin Sparkman, Adam Schlagman, John Bringardner, Michael Moline, Leigh Jones, Anthony Paonita, David Snow, Aric Press)
(Bill Pollak, CEO of Incisive Media North America)
Editors in attendance included…
Here is a complete list of all of Incisive Media’s legal products.
For those of you that didn't make it to New York for LegalTech, here are some pictures of the exhibit hall (Floors 1-3), taken Monday morning between 11-1.
[New for 2009 – Ballroom turned into exhibit space]
This is a first in a series of preview posts on the inaugural US edition of the 2008 InsideLegal Legal Vendor Marketing Survey that was completed last fall. The survey yielded invaluable information and feedback from 97 vendor company participants and InsideLegal will be covering the results for its subscribers. Watch for upcoming posts on key findings including:
Marketing Budgets: How much are you spending on marketing efforts? How does this compare to your competitors and other vendors? Where do you look to cut costs first?
Marketing strategy: Who do you market to? Do you have executive buy-in? What are your key marketing objectives? What aspects of your marketing program have you outsourced?
Marketing Events: The good, the bad, and the ugly of the legal trade shows based on criteria such as quality of attendees, cost-benefit value, and show leads-to-sales ratios. Does your company host a User Conference? Do you/how do you use webinars as a marketing tool.
Advertising:Where do you advertise? What is the mix of print vs. online?
Public Relations: What is your media relations approach? What is included in your (and your competitor's) PR plan?
Market Research: Who uses research to support marketing and sales efforts? What type of research proves most effective? What industry surveys do you and your competitors follow?
A little background… InsideLegal founders has been heavily involved in the legal industry for more than a decade, from working with technology vendors to collaborating with industry consultants to liaising with law firms and the legal trade media. During this time, we have assumed an advisory role to the legal vendor community, and have worked with a large number of companies on marketing programs, consulting initiatives, market scope and custom research projects as well as various thought leadership roundtables and events. Based on this intensive interaction, we identified a glaring information and knowledge gap when it comes to marketing intelligence and general marketing budget and spend statistics maintained by legal vendors. Over the years, basic questions about how much total budget to spend on marketing, what line items to cut, where to advertise, and the general consensus on trade shows (how valuable are they?) have been commonplace. Finally, this summer we initiated an inaugural survey (completed in the fall) designed to serve the legal vendor marketing community. The survey includes 97 separate confidential company responses and 67 completed surveys (39 questions) representing legal technology vendors ranging from less than 10 employees to 500+, all who completed the entire survey in exchange for the complete final report. Beyond numerous posts on the topic over the upcoming weeks, we will issue the complete report to participating companies and host a webinar at a later date. Also, we will be administering the Global InsideLegal Legal Vendor Marketing Survey soon and will be covering those results as well.
Direct from their site… "January 21, 2009, Interwoven entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Autonomy, the clear leader in enterprise search and the front runner in Meaning-Based Computing. The combined company will have more than 2,000 employees and 20,000 customers. Following the close, Interwoven will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Autonomy. This acquisition brings together two quality, high-performing software companies who share a vision to fundamentally change the way organizations discover, analyze and manage information. "
Link to the FAQs on the Acquisition
Link to the Webcast (log-in required)
This post is in a "Q&A "format. InsideLegal posed the questions and LegalTech, a part of Incisive Media Legal Events, provided the answers.
What is new for LegalTech NY 2009?
This year attendees will have even more to choose from. In addition to our keynote sessions on each day and educational tracks, two special sessions will be offered daily.
LEGALTECH Town Hall (12:45-2:00 in the West Grand Ballroom) This session is an interactive session that has allowed attendees to submit questions prior to the show via YouTube, to be answered by a panel of experts in the legal technology industry. This session is to be moderated by Patrick Oot, Director of Electronic Discovery & Senior Litigation Counsel of Verizon Legal Department.
”What is Twitter and How Do I Use It?” (3:00-4:00 in the West Grand Ballroom) This session will cover what this new technology is, how people use it, and how law firms can use it as part of their overall client development plans. The session will be moderated by Monica Bay (Editor of Law Technology News) and will include Matthew Homann (Founder of LexThink LLC); Kevin O’Keefe (CEO of LexBlog); and Chris Winfield (President of 10e20) as panelists.
Tuesday New Sessions:
Inside The LEGALTECH Studio (12:45-2:00 in the West Grand Ballroom) This session will be will be similar to a “fireside chat” with high-profile experts (a corporate general counsel, a corporate CIO, and a law firm managing director) in the industry giving participants the opportunity to hear their opinions and thoughts on issues discussed in boardrooms when it comes to legal leadership and technology decisions.
“What I Hate About Technology: And What I Expect Our Outside Counsel, Opposing Counsel, Vendors & Staff to Do About It!” (3:30-5:00 in the West Grand Ballroom) Monica Bay, editor of Law Technology News, and Anthony Paonita, editor of Corporate Counsel, have planned this great Supersession to address technology challenges faced by general counsel. Sharing their pet peeves will be top general counsel and deputy-level GC lawyers. Panelists will target billing, e-discovery and litigation, and mobile lawyering, among other sore spots.
In addition to these new featured sessions, you will see another expansion at the 2009 show; the exhibit hall has expanded to include the Grand Ballroom.
What additional programs/events are being held in conjunction with LegalTech NY?
The Law Firm Chief Information & Technology Officers Forum February 3-4, 2009 at The Hilton New York Hotel – This event will update Chief Information Officers on best practices to better manage their IT Departments. Listen to cutting-edge updates on new and emerging technologies that can transform your firm and save money. All registered attendees receive complementary VIP admission all three days of LegalTech New York 2009.
First Annual Paralegal Technology Institute at LegalTech February 3-4, 2009 at The Sheraton New York Hotel & Towers – In today's fast-paced, competitive law firm environment, paralegals have become vital to the law firm's ability to deliver quality e-discovery and litigation support services. Law Technology News and Estrin LegalEd, two top names in continuing legal education, have partnered to develop a dynamic program specifically designed for real world litigation paralegals. All registered attendees receive complementary VIP admission to the opening day of LegalTech New York 2009.
The 6th Annual Law Technology News Awards Dinner takes place at 6:00 p.m. Monday. The Technology Awards recognize leaders in the field – both in innovation and implementation. Law firm and vendor award winners will be honored at Carmine's in Times Square.
How many companies are exhibiting this year? New companies?
As of January 15th, there are 260 exhibitors. There are over 66 new companies to the 2009 event which is over 25% of the exhibitors this year.
What is the registration looking like? What about free exhibit passes vs. complete registration passes?
Total registration numbers for LegalTech are tracking ahead of our 2008 event (total final registration for 2008 was 12,797) and, in the case of our exhibit hall and blogger access passes, we have seen a significant increase over last year.
For companies that are interested in signing up for a booth, is that still possible?
Yes. This year LegalTech expanded exhibit space by adding on the ballrooms of the Hilton. For more information, please email Rob Hafiz or call him at 651-337-0411.
For existing exhibitors, are there still additional promotional opportunities/sponsorships available through LegalTech?
There are a few – 1. Treasure Hunt openings available (deadline is 1/23/09). 2. There are still some favorable banner placement opportunities in our two registration areas, as well as meeting rooms and Conference Club rental opportunities. 3. Exhibitors can enhance their website listings, or place inserts in the registration bags. 4. Also, exhibitors can rent our post conference attendee list which contains full contact information including mailing addresses. For more information, please email Rob Hafiz or call him at 651-337-0411.
Beyond paid opportunities, what other suggestions do you have for existing exhibitors to maximize their exposure at the show?
All exhibitors should utilize internal marketing and promotional lists and push the PDF of the exhibit- only pass. This pass allows registrants to attend the keynotes, town halls, general sessions, super sessions and emerging technology sessions.
Download LegalTechNY09ExhibitsOnlyPass
What are the details on the media breakfast for LegalTech NY 2009?
The Editor’s Breakfast will take place on Tuesday February 3, 2009, 8:00am in the Petit Trion Ballroom. This is an opportunity for the Incisive Media publication editors to meet and greet the attendees and vendors before the start of the Day 2 Keynote session.
InsideLegal 
