Leor Franks looks at how marketers can audit the current state of a firm in its market, in order to guide the development of appropriate objectives and planning.

1. 10 pm | April 2020
insight
G
oals, strategies, objectives, tactics. Marketers in
professional service firms are typically aware of the
importance of alignment between these elements of
the business planning processes. The challenge
however in some firms is seeking clarity from leadership on
goals. Without this, it is difficult to design marketing strategies
with agreed objectives and tactics that partners value.
Having worked with some of the most sophisticated
marketers in the profession over the past 20 years, I’ve pulled
together a client-centric four-stage tool I call the ‘Favourability
Journey’. This assists marketing teams in gaining input on goals,
selecting strategies and producing plans for valued activity. The
stages are each strategies which marketers may require to meet
goals. These are the ‘4 Rs’ of: Recognition, Reputation,
Relationships and Revenue.
To bring this to life, imagine the following scenario which
may be familiar to some:
Recognition. You are abroad, travelling for business in an
unfamiliar country. You walk into the deserted hotel bar with a
partner from your firm wanting a drink. You sit down at the bar
and look at the bottles on the shelf. There are 40 to choose from,
but none are familiar. How can you possibly choose without
recognition of the brands? You look more closely and realise
that ten are produced in a region you have at least heard of –
you are now at the first step of the Favourability Journey: recog-
nition. But without further information, ten is still far too many
to pick from.
Reputation. With no bartender in sight, you pluck up the
courage to wander behind the bar and take a closer look at the
ten from a familiar region. Without any data on the quality of
these, how do you make your choice? On the back label of some
of the bottles you notice an award logo, this gives you some
comfort that five of the bottles are good quality. You are now at
the second step of the Favourability Journey: reputation. But
five is still too many to choose from without advice.
Relationships. The bartender finally arrives. They come
over and you have a brief chat about where you are from, what
brings you to town and most importantly, what you like to drink.
Through this chat, the bartender understands your preferences
and offers you some advice – a choice of two of the five bottles
you were looking at. You are now at the third stage of the
Favourability Journey: relationships. Two is a reasonable range
Even if time and resources do not
allow thorough application, a
basic implementation of this audit
approach can prove useful input
for planning.
Leor Franks looks at how marketers can audit the current
state of a firm in its market, in order to guide the
development of appropriate objectives and planning.
The favourability
journey
to pick from, but what about price?
Revenue. You ask the bartender about the cost and they tell
you one bottle is £75 and the other £10. You pause momentarily
to reflect on which will go down best with your partner – some-
thing reassuringly expensive but possibly ostentatious, or some-
thing cheap but potentially embarrassingly so. You are at the
final stage of the Favourability Journey: revenue. Thinking of
your expenses policy you go for the latter. Your partner can buy
tomorrow night!
In a matter of minutes in the bar, you have travelled on a
journey from uninformed and uncomfortable about the
purchase options lacking recognition of the brands, to a point
where following receipt of information about the reputation of
the options, and advice based on a relationship, you can make
an informed reasoned purchasing decision, to give one of the
brands revenue. This Favourability Journey is likely familiar for
personal B2C buying decisions, it also hopefully resonates as the
journey clients go on with professional service firms. And, from
experience, the story above resonates with partners when
explaining this as a planning mechanism.
This article originally
appeared in PM magazine.
For further details go to
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2. pm | April 2020 11
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series of 2x2 matrices to facilitate partners to think about the
breadth and depth of their relationships. This is an in-depth
assessment which I won’t cover here due to space constraints.
Revenue. The fourth and final question to ask is ‘how do we
perform on tangible opportunities?’ Again, client service assess-
ment data can be useful. Many firms will also have processes in
place around the review of pitch outcomes. Win/loss analysis is
often undertaken – hopefully looking at reasons for both failure
and success, where possible with input from the clients them-
selves. Internal pricing analysis is also often undertaken and
external consultants can be employed to provide useful context
on market benchmarks.
With a wealth of data now hopefully available on the defined
market – both current clients and potential targets, the aim is to
consolidate this into a map. I seek to plot clients, again at the
most granular level possible, on the Favourability Journey to
identify where they are currently in their association with the
firm, to identify marketing objectives which will later inform the
planning of tactics. The success of this approach relies on the
selection of markets and the availability of data, but even if time
and resources do not allow thorough application, a basic imple-
mentation of this audit approach can prove useful input for
planning.
The Favourability Journey is just one of a number of
marketing planning tools. The power from my experience
however is around ease of communication and the familiarity of
concepts to stakeholders. The benefit of moving clients along a
journey of favourability towards the firm should make sense to
all. The text above outlines the initial application of the journey
to planning – looking at each of Recognition, Reputation,
Relationships and Revenue as strategies, seeking to audit the
current state of the firm in its market, to guide the development
of appropriate objectives which then feed into planning.
Leor Franks is Chief Marketing Officer of Augusta, the
UK’s largest litigation funder by case volume, and over-
sees brand, marketing, communications and business
development.
How to implement the Favourability Journey
The starting point is clarity on business goals around which you
are to select marketing strategies. Whether these goals are codi-
fied or not, I seek to detail them with an audit around each of
the four stages of the Favourability Journey to identify which of
these strategies are required and later to help guide the objec-
tives and tactics that should be implemented (which I won’t
cover here due to space constraints). Before starting the audit, it
is essential to define the target market – the current and poten-
tial clients we wish to address at the most granular level which
time and resource allow for. Below I outline some of the many
options for this audit – you may have your own preferred tools.
Appropriate choices depend on time, budget, complexity of firm
and available resources:
Recognition. The first question to ask is ‘how well are we
known by our defined target market’? If time and budget allow,
a client survey, ideally conducted on an unprompted and unat-
tributed basis by a third party, is an effective tool. Niche
publishers and branding consultants are often a speedy option
having ready-made verifiable and GDPR compliant lists. A
digital audit around search engine terms and adverts can
supplement this, at little cost and effort. There are many other
options including client service assessments, but for purity,
where possible, stick to unprompted and unattributed sources.
Reputation. The second question to ask is ‘what do our
target market think of us?’ Similar tools to the recognition audit
can be used. Here, I’ve found it is often helpful to add in third
party sources, eg. directory rankings or award providers. It may
also be possible to conduct a media sentiment analysis, whether
using technology or a communications adviser. One challenge
often levied here is that effective or ineffective marketing can be
cited as the cause of any results. Whilst this is undoubtedly a
factor, data acquired reflects profile in the market, so is
undoubtedly valid as an input to a marketing led audit!
Relationships. The third question to ask is ‘what do our
existing clients and warm targets think of us?’ Input from the
above can be utilised but additional sources are also beneficial,
usually starting with CRM data to build a picture of the client
base. Should market share data be available, eg. M&A league
tables, this can be used as context. If client service assessment
data is on hand, this can be added to the mix. Another important
but often challenging source is input from partners. I use a