How to Use Habitual Behavior for Law Firm Marketing

The Internet is the best proof that we are creatures of habit. At any one point in time I can pretty much name the websites I habitually visit... So can you if you pause to think about it. Over time that circle of sites changes according to where you are in your career, home and life; But it changes ever so slowly. You stop visiting one information site but you find another... Unless you are an RSS feed maniac most of us rely on 5-12 sites in our daily/weekly Internet wandering.

The same holds true in the physical world. Speaking only for the professional side of life now; We develop habitual behaviors around where we circulate, what we read, and who we listen to.

As a marketer I look for these patterns in my target audiences and focus on being inside their circle. What are their key publications, associations, conferences? Who are the key players in my market and where are they hanging out together in groups?

My target might also be companies with more than 100 employees. What are the issues these companies share and where/how do they get/find new information that helps them? Who do the decision makers hang out with? Whom do they consider their peers?

People doing similar things develop similar habits and I just have to figure out what those habits are. Then, become an accepted part of their habitual world. Not to change anyone but to be accepted.

I have heard a lot of marketers exclaim that they NEED to do something totally different, WAY out there to get attention in new markets.

My question for you is this: If you saw a gallon of green milk in the cooler at the grocery store with a "Jimmy Dean" label on it would you feel compelled to try it, or compelled to point it out and joke about it?