Morrison & Foerster made headlines earlier this year with an announcement that it had built an iPhone application called MoFo2Go, providing clients and other contacts access to:
- attorney bios, contact information and practice areas
- firm articles, press releases, and alerts
- a firm location finder; and
- a maze game.
Recently, MarketingSherpa interviewed David Harvey, Senior Marketing Manager at Morrison & Foerster, about the outcome of the firm's bold marketing experiment. Harvey reported that there have been more than 1,500 downloads of the app, in addition to enthusiastic feedback from clients and numerous press mentions.
Harvey also shared six key questions other law firms should ask in deciding whether a branded iPhone app has a place in its marketing and communications mix:
Question #1. Are your customers and prospects using the iPhone?
Key issue here is the mobile phone platform most commonly used by your target audiences. The iPhone garners alot of buzz, but Android and Blackberry are also popular with business users. MoFo's strong presence in Silicon Valley led the firm to the iPhone platform, but other firms may find their key client segments are not big iPhone users.
Question #2. What types of features can you offer app users? Consider what kinds of features and functions you can provide through an iPhone app. MarketingSherpa advises checking out what iPhone apps, if any, your competitors might be offering. In MoFo's case, few large law firms or other professional service providers were offering apps, so the firm didn't have much to go on. In the end, it settled on the four functions noted above, which Harvey's team felt would be useful to clients on the go.
For answers to these four additional questions:
- "How will your app support iPhone functionality?"
- "Who will develop the app?"
- "When do you need the app to be launched?"
- "How will you promote your app?"
Read the full article on MarketingSherpa (free access until August 29th).
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