Marketing plan for a law firm: six sections UK firms can test
A law firm's marketing plan is six sections, each with one named owner, one date and one written test that decides whether it is finished. A section with no owner is a wish, not a plan item. Of the 40 legal-marketing suppliers we read in full on 3 August 2026, twelve published a price at all.
- Sections in the plan
- Six, each with one named owner, one date and one written completion test
- Suppliers publishing a price
- 12 of 40 legal-marketing suppliers, read in full on 3 August 2026
- Suppliers with no minimum term
- One of the 40 stated no minimum term, 3 August 2026
- Price Transparency Pack
- £890, ten working days
- SRA rule in force
- SRA Transparency Rules came into force 6 December 2018, checked 3 August 2026
- Sheffield conveyancing demand
- 1,180 searches a month at around £14.83 a click, measured 3 August 2026
Last updated: 5 August 2026
What sections must the plan contain?
Six, and the fourth column is the one that makes the document worth writing.
| Section | Owner, by role | Date it carries | Finished when |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. What we want more of | Managing partner | Set once, reviewed annually | Two or three areas of work are named, and the areas not chosen are written down too |
| 2. What is published and what is missing | Head of each area of work | Quarterly | Every page the firm intends to publish is either live or on a list with a date |
| 3. What gets published next | Head of the area of work | Monthly | The next three pages are named, with an author against each |
| 4. What is spent, and on what | Finance partner | Annual, reviewed at six months | Every line has a supplier, a price and a term, and the total matches the ledger |
| 5. How an enquiry is handled | Practice manager | Quarterly | The route from telephone call to opened matter is written down and someone has tested it |
| 6. What is measured and who reads it | Marketing owner, whoever that is | Monthly | One person can produce impressions and clicks by query without asking a supplier |
A damaging admission before section 4: we are one line in it and not the largest. The plan is worth more to a firm than any supplier in it, us included, and a firm that writes sections 1, 5 and 6 properly may discover it does not need section 4 to grow this year.
Section 1 is the section that decides the other five. A plan that names every area of work the firm offers has decided nothing, and the sections beneath it inherit that indecision as a list of everything.
What test decides that a section is finished?
A test somebody outside the room could apply, using only the document.
That is the whole discipline. "Improve our online presence" cannot be tested and therefore cannot be finished; "every page we intend to publish is live or listed with a date" can be checked in ten minutes by a person who was not at the meeting.
Write the test before the work. Three that hold up in practice:
- Section 2 passes when somebody reads the list against the website and finds no page on the site that is absent from the list, and no item on the list without either a URL or a date.
- Section 4 passes when every supplier line names a price and a minimum term. Of the 40 legal-marketing suppliers we read in full on 3 August 2026, twelve published a price at all, five showed only a range, and one stated no minimum term — so this test fails most proposals before it fails the plan.
- Section 6 passes when the named person produces the query-level table themselves. If it can only be produced by the supplier, the firm is not measuring, it is receiving a summary.
Who owns a section, and what if nobody will?
One person, named, and if nobody will hold it the section comes out.
Ownership by committee is the commonest failure in a firm's plan, because a partnership makes decisions collectively and then records them without an actor. The plan needs a name against each row for the ordinary reason that a date without a person is a date nobody misses.
The three that get orphaned are sections 2, 5 and 6. Section 5 belongs to the practice manager and is often assumed to be nobody's because it is not marketing. It decides more than the rest of the document: the enquiry that reaches a voicemail on Friday has already cost whatever it cost to reach.
If nobody will own a section, delete it and say so in the plan. A written record that the firm chose not to measure this year is more useful than a section that has quietly not been done, because the first can be revisited at the annual review and the second is discovered in eighteen months.
Which dates are real, and which are decoration?
Two are real: the date a page goes live, and the date the plan is next read.
Everything else in a marketing plan is an intention. The publication date is real because it either happened or it did not, and the review date is real because it puts a meeting in a diary. A plan without a scheduled reading is a document written once and cited in year three as evidence of a decision nobody now agrees with.
Set the annual review, one quarterly reading of sections 2, 5 and 6, and a monthly ten minutes on section 3. That is roughly two hours of partner time a year plus twelve short conversations, and it is the whole administrative cost of keeping the document true.
Is this the firm's plan or an individual's?
The firm's, and the distinction matters because the two documents fail differently.
This plan assumes a budget line, somebody who can authorise a purchase, and a meeting where decisions are recorded. A fee earner has none of those, so handing them this document produces nothing. The individual version is denominated in hours rather than money and is written here, as one fee earner's plan.
Run both. The firm's plan owns the site, the published price and service information, the spend and the measurement. The individual's plan owns the hours and the questions only that fee earner can answer. Neither replaces the other, and the commonest mistake is writing the institutional one and expecting individuals to have been included in it.
What does the spending section cost at our published prices?
Published figures, so the line can be written before a conversation.
| What | Price |
|---|---|
| Price Transparency Pack | £890, ten working days |
| Firm Site | £2,400 |
| Firm Site+ | £4,200 |
| Authority Build | £6,900 |
| Retainer, monthly | £600 · £1,200 · £2,400, no minimum term |
£700 comes off a build taken with six months of retainer. The SRA Transparency Rules came into force on 6 December 2018 and expect price and service information for specified work types, checked 3 August 2026; which of a firm's services fall within scope is a matter for the firm and its own advisers, and we never say a firm has been made compliant, because only the firm and its COLP can judge that.
We never charge per enquiry, per lead or per matter. LASPO 2012 section 56 prohibits referral fees in prescribed legal business including personal injury, and it binds the firm paying as well as the party being paid.
What is legal search demand worth in your city?
In Sheffield, 1,180 people a month search for a conveyancing solicitor, and Google charges around £14.83 for one of those clicks, measured 3 August 2026. We hold the same figures for 52 cities.
The free report gives you yours, plus which of the pages the rules ask for are missing from your site, and what 40 suppliers charge.
What should I read next on law firm marketing plans?
The individual counterpart to this document: lawyer marketing plan, which is the same job in hours per week with no budget attached.
On section 2, and what the rule expects a firm to publish: price transparency pages: what good looks like, with the rule quoted.
Wider than the document: marketing for a law firm and marketing for lawyer.
On the site the plan spends against: lawyer web marketing and online marketing for lawyer.
Frequently asked questions
What should a law firm's marketing plan contain?
Six sections: what the firm wants more of, what is published and what is missing, what gets published next, what is spent and on what, how an enquiry is handled, and what is measured. Each carries one named owner, one date and one written completion test.
How do you tell whether a section of the plan is finished?
By applying a test somebody outside the room could apply using only the document. "Improve our online presence" cannot be tested; "every page we intend to publish is live or listed with a date" can be checked in ten minutes.
Who should own each section?
One named person per section: managing partner, head of each area of work, finance partner, practice manager and whoever holds measurement. Ownership by committee is the commonest failure, because a date with no person against it is a date nobody misses.
What if nobody will own a section?
Delete it and record that the firm chose not to do it this year. A written decision can be revisited at the annual review; a section that has quietly not been done is discovered eighteen months later.
Which dates in a marketing plan are real?
Two: the date a page goes live, and the date the plan is next read. Everything else is an intention. Without a scheduled reading, the plan is written once and cited later as evidence of a decision nobody still agrees with.
Is this the same as an individual lawyer's marketing plan?
No. This one assumes a budget, an authoriser and a recorded decision. The individual version is denominated in hours per week with no budget, and both should run at once because neither replaces the other.
What should the spending section cost against?
Published prices with terms attached: £890 for the Price Transparency Pack over ten working days, £2,400 for the Firm Site, £4,200 for Firm Site+, £6,900 for the Authority Build, and retainers at £600, £1,200 or £2,400 a month with no minimum term.
Can a supplier be paid per enquiry?
No. LASPO 2012 section 56 prohibits referral fees in prescribed legal business including personal injury, and it binds the firm paying as well as the party being paid, so every line in the spending section is priced by scope.