Law Firm Marketing Budgets

Here's some fresh information on law firm marketing budgets, which I just picked up from the LawMarketing Listserv.  Many thanks to Marcie L. Borgal, Principal of The BTI Consulting Group, Inc., for furnishing the info.

BTI recently interviewed more than 100 law firm CMOs and Directors of Marketing about marketing budgets and ROI, as well as goals, best practices and management tools. This research will be published in June. Following are the key results:

Overall marketing budgets rose slightly in the past year, landing at 2.2% to 2.5% of firm gross revenue, depending on firm size (up from 1.9% to 2.1% in 2005)

At a typical law firm , the largest budget category is Salaries at 23.8%.

Salaries are followed by:

• Business Development        23.5%
• Marketing Communications    13.7%
• Seminars and Events        12.1%
• Advertising              8.3%
• Public Relations          8.0%
• Research              3.7%

The remainder of the marketing budget goes to a variety of firm-specific
activities.