The 2022 LMA Canada Conference, titled Refresh: A New Era of Excellence, was held on November 14th, 2022, in Toronto, Ontario.
From the opening remarks by Lindsey Bombardier, LMA Canada President-Elect, to the last session, where a panel of industry leaders shared their own client experiences, the conference offered invaluable advice to attendees about how the legal marketing landscape has evolved in the last few years.
“The Legal Marketing Association is a very important organization to the legal marketplace. They play a critical role in bridging the needs of in-house counsel with the appropriate expertise of lawyers in private practice by implementing a variety of best practices, trainings, and conferences to train the next generation of legal business development and marketing experts.”
Alexa Translations is proud to be a sponsor and a partner to the LMA. If you couldn’t make it to the event, here are four key takeaways from the 2022 LMA Canada Conference.
1. Adapted Client Experiences Are the Way Forward
Creating an adapted client experience means understanding your clients' needs and wants, and then tailoring your services to meet those needs. It sounds simple enough, but in practice, it can be difficult to truly get to know your clients and what they need from you.
During the last session, Yohanes Sauves, Senior Director, Business Development & Strategy at Davies, underlined the importance of adapted client experiences. “We are beginning to appreciate and apply the changes in this (hopefully) post-pandemic era,” said Sauves. “Throughout the sessions, the common denominator, for me, was that the importance of an adapted client experience has grown and moved to the forefront of legal marketers’ priorities.”
This means getting to know your clients on a more personal level, understanding their firm’s ethos and principles, and closely tailoring marketing approaches to feedback.
2. Innovation Will Be the Key To Unlocking Client Success
Some of the industry’s top executives offered insights about how the legal marketing landscape is expected to change, with a focus on innovating and generating new ideas. They shared their experiences about how to:
- build and manage high-functioning teams.
- execute captivating marketing and business development programs.
- create and distribute value-centric content.
- capitalize on client-centric events.
Instead of thinking of each of these as a separate marketing function, legal marketing leaders can position themselves for success by considering these as a piece in their overall marketing strategy.
Knowing where each piece fits in the puzzle and devising new ways to generate engagement will be key going forward.
3. New Technology Adoption Is Expected to Rise Post-Pandemic
The legal industry was not immune to the economic downturn caused by the global pandemic. Going forward, many businesses are looking at ways to refine their approach, adopting more cost-effective technologies that result in efficiency gains without sacrificing quality.
For instance, many legal marketing firms are already adopting technologies like neural machine translation. Powered by Artificial Intelligence (A.I.), neural machine translators like Alexa Translations A.I. can speed up translation projects, improving the efficiency of traditional professional translation teams.
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4. Attracting and Retaining Top Talent Is a Key Priority
Senior leaders from some of Canada’s leading companies talked about the importance of attracting and retaining top talent. Reducing turnover is more crucial than ever for businesses trying to cut costs and maximize productivity.
“I truly see the LMA as a vital collaboration forum to connect marketing professionals at all levels,” said Suzie Williams, national director of marketing and business development, at McMillan LLP. “I was particularly grateful to share the podium with industry leaders, exchanging experiences attracting a broader scope of talent while exploring the career pathways and programs necessary to retain top marketing and BD talent.”
Several other speakers also shared strategies for expanding their talent pool, successful recruitment, negotiation and seamless onboarding, which reinforced the importance of attracting key talent for the entire legal industry.
The Way Forward
The 2022 LMA Canada Conference was a star-studded event featuring some of the industry’s leading legal marketers. We are already looking forward to next year’s event!
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