CMO Perspectives: Melissa Marshall On Where to Assign Your Marketing Budget and Why

An Interview With Kieran Powell

Build in flexibility so you can pivot if necessary. For example, we’ve recorded a lot of client interviews, viral videos, and internal videos. I had to cut back on other areas of the budget to satisfy the videography budget. We put out high-end videos because they’re working and we’re getting the desired brand visibility. We didn’t anticipate how well received they would be. When something’s working, you’re going to continue to provide resources there.

In an age where marketing landscapes are rapidly evolving and consumer behaviors are constantly shifting, Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) play a pivotal role in steering their organizations’ marketing strategies towards success. With a plethora of channels, platforms, and techniques at their disposal, the decision on where to allocate the marketing budget is more critical than ever. We’re seeking to explore questions like: What factors influence their decisions? How do they balance between digital and traditional marketing channels? What role does data play in their decision-making process? And importantly, why they choose to invest in certain areas over others? As part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Melissa Marshall.

Melissa Marshall is the Chief Marketing Officer at LP, where she manages all aspects of the firm’s marketing initiatives, including developing the marketing strategy and building the structures and systems to support it. Throughout her career, her positive energy and can-do attitude has won the respect and admiration of her colleagues and peers.

With over 15 years of legal marketing experience, Melissa is a creative and connected innovative leader with a track record of guiding businesses, brands and people towards success. Her strength is taking ideas from concept to completion, focusing on profitable and sustainable outcomes. By leading people, embracing technology and developing efficient processes, Melissa drives change and champions success in organizations.

Prior to joining LP, Melissa was the first ever Director of Marketing at an employer-based law firm where she designed and implemented the Firm’s marketing and business development plan which included tracking changes in legal trends, identifying potential clients, and overseeing and supporting the firm’s go-to-market strategy.

Her leadership within the Legal Marketing Association (LMA) also has been impressive. Melissa began her career in legal marketing directly out of college and immediately became a member of LMA. She has served as chair of the LMA Midwest Chapter New Member Welcome Committee and was vice chair of the LMA Midwest Membership Committee. Because of her contributions to the chapter, she received the 2011 LMA Midwest Chapter Rising Star award in February 2011 and was selected as the first ever Legal Marketing Association (LMA) Rising Star recipient in 2012. In addition, she served as the co-chair of the LMA Midwest Conference Committee and was the Midwest Chapter Treasurer-Elect & Treasurer.

In addition, Melissa has been a volunteer for the following charities: Saint Joseph’s College Business Networking Program and the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Chicagoland & Northwest Indiana. The “Meals from the Heart” program is one in which her group cooked dinner for the 20+ families currently staying at the home. The meal allowed the families to unwind, de-stress, and fortify their bodies to be at their best for their child in the hospital.

Thank you so much for your time! I know that you are a very busy person. Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

I came into legal marketing straight from college, and I was lucky enough to join a very strong marketing team where I was exposed to all areas of legal marketing, including practice group strategy, event planning, client relations management (CRM), graphic design, content and communications. I gained valuable experience working with my colleagues, learning about their roles and what was expected of them. This enabled me to identify my strengths very early on in my career. As a result, I’ve been able to build on my natural ability to organize and sustain key campaigns related to our brand, and then track the results of those campaigns.

It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

It’s funny now, but at the time, it was awful. We were creating an invitation for an event to be held at a museum. Unaware of any copyright implications, we used photos from the museum’s website in our invitation in an attempt to help attendees connect visually with the venue and see what the event space would look like. Only after the invitation was sent and the museum called us out did we realize our mistake. We ultimately reached a financial settlement for the use of copyrighted photos and learned a valuable lesson. Looking back, it was an innocent mistake with good intentions, but it highlighted the importance of paying attention to intellectual property laws. When you are in doubt, ask.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

I have always enjoyed the variety in my role and thank goodness for that because we have a lot of ongoing projects that are nearing completion. In true Levenfeld Pearlstein fashion, these projects will allow us to continue providing an unparalleled client service. We are integrating firm initiatives with marketing and business development to meet the current needs of our clients by leveraging innovative technology solutions.

Thank you for that. Let’s now shift to the central focus of our discussion. Can you share an experience where a unique or unconventional budget allocation led to unexpected success in your marketing campaign?

These are my favorite kind of “results” because the reduced pressure to succeed enables us to “try” something new as opposed to “ensuring” something works. A recent example is using our existing content platform and network to amplify our client’s stories through engaging interviews on relevant topics. Our attorneys love it because we are creating thought leadership they can share with their networks, our clients and potential clients appreciate it because the information is valuable to them, and our Marketing team enjoys it because it we get to highlight the great work and experience our attorneys provide. Thanks to the success of this initiative, our video production budget grew 1,000% for 2024.

How do you balance investing in emerging marketing trends versus traditional, proven strategies in your budget decisions? Can you give us an example?

I keep my fingers on the pulse of the market and know exactly what the trends are. For example, by being aware of the different generations in our workplace right now, I can understand why what works for the baby boomers does not necessarily work for Gen Z. There’s no right or wrong way. It’s just what’s going to get their attention and get them to buy into our services. Across the board, I think we can all agree that our clients and attorneys want personalized communications and experiences from brands that they already have relationships with, and they’ll be loyal to.

The way we deliver our messaging and securing brand recognition in the marketplace is different. This has been very challenging in the last few years because you must know which channels of marketing activities are going to work and for whom, as every client is different. Understanding your target market is essential so that you can pull the data and sources to support your efforts, while having internal buy-in as well. It’s not a guessing game. You have to benchmark, benchmark, benchmark. Lead with facts and have all the data at your fingertips. We break it down, so it makes sense, and delivers the story to our audience. Everything is by design.

We are focused in looking at what gets people’s attention. Where should marketing dollars be spent? We’ve really pulled away from print advertising in favor of digital. We’d rather purchase an online subscription that’s going to live over time. It’s not a one-and-done play. It’s spread out maybe over two or three quarters of the year delivering key messages for our practice groups to make sure that it being seen by the right audience. We’ve gotten very good at using different keywords and tracking SEO traffic back to our website. We can make tweaks in real time to make sure that we’re hitting our target audience. You can’t do that with a print ad. Once it’s printed and run, that’s it. We’re being strategic about utilizing our options, pulling support from different surveys and noting what people remember seeing and what influences their buying.

In what ways has data-driven decision-making influenced your approach to allocating marketing budgets, and can you provide an example of this in action?

Our Marketing team partners with our Professional Development team as they conduct internal surveys of our attorneys on their personality traits to identify their strengths. Then we customize marketing and business development activities to match their interests and desires to make sure that these activities are natural to them and not seen as a chore. That’s the kind of thing that helps us figure out what we should be doing and where our dollars should be going, because it all costs money at the end of the day. It’s coming out of marketing and business development’s budget. We’re making sure the attorneys are comfortable with the activities we’re asking them to do so they are playing off their strengths.

A good example is speaking, writing, attending conferences and networking. That’s not everyone’s cup of tea. Some attorneys really enjoy one-on-one client interactions, like taking a client out to dinner or for coffee and saying, “What’s going on in your world?” And we have attorneys who are great interviewers. They thrive in podcasts, videos and article formats.

How do you evaluate the ROI of different marketing channels and decide where to invest more or cut back?

We measure our leads and track what actually turns into business, versus the views or impressions you may get on certain campaigns. It’s always about providing the ROI and being able to connect it to dollar amounts. It’s not always easy to do that, but when you can do it, you need to show tangible results. There are several business accelerators available in the legal marketing field.

Based on your experience and success, what are the “5 Things To Keep in Mind When Deciding Where to Assign Your Marketing Budget, and Why?”

1 . Following budget plans are an important component of our success. You want to present marketing as an investment, and it’s a long game versus being very shortsighted and thinking it’s just a year and you’re done. This is an investment over time. As CMO, it is important to make the connection that while we can pivot when we need to seize an opportunity, the best results often come from a planned process.

2 . Once you have your projects/campaigns set, you should measure the performance of your marketing campaign by utilizing any analytics to track open rates, views, impressions and time spent reviewing your content. In addition, how much time did your audience spend on your page and what were the click-throughs like. This helps align your revenue (what was spent), lead generation (what follow-up do you have as a result) and brand awareness (increased visibility in the market).

3 . In Marketing and Business Development, we are always looking for ways to identify our key markets and what activity will keep us top of mind for potential clients. They may not have a reason right now to purchase our services, but when they do, we want them to contact us. By identifying the right offerings to the right audience, the next step is making sure our brand is resonating with the audience and therefore allowing those future connections. Marketing is always about connecting those dots by identifying the target audience, crafting strong content that matters to the audience and finally building meaningful campaigns to build relationships that lead to client experience.

4 . Build in flexibility so you can pivot if necessary. For example, we’ve recorded a lot of client interviews, viral videos, and internal videos. I had to cut back on other areas of the budget to satisfy the videography budget. We put out high-end videos because they’re working and we’re getting the desired brand visibility. We didn’t anticipate how well received they would be. When something’s working, you’re going to continue to provide resources there.

5 . Be bold and unafraid of trying new and different tactics. This is the hardest aspect of my job. Even though many people prefer predictability and “sure things,” sometimes you need to take educated risks by following your gut instinct based on your experience. Maybe, there is no benchmarking for this one, but that’s what makes you different. The higher the risk, the more the reward. It’s a tough thing to do, but I believe in it.

Could you discuss a challenging budget decision you faced, how you navigated it, and the impact it had on your overall marketing strategy?

A perfect example is from the past year. By the end of the first quarter, we shifted away from our intended activities, focusing on coaching instead of events and sponsorships.

We moved to support the firm’s business development efforts more substantively. Our attorneys were asked to go see their clients, get on flights, prep your messaging, and ask your client, “What’s new?” Ask for their feedback. We’ve completely switched from marketing support to a business development function.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

I’m going back to early in all of our careers, those funny stories of where we messed up, because no one’s holding your hand and watching your every move. It would be great to have a transitioning service, so when you’re coming out of college and starting that first job, you’ll know what not to do. I know we all learn from mistakes, obviously, and that the best way is by doing, but I feel if there was a way to partner with talent early on in their careers and be there a sounding board and to give advice, we’d all benefit. For instance, if we could match talent at the end of their careers with talent at the beginning of their careers for mutual mentorship, both people would benefit. Experienced professionals have so much valuable information to share, and younger professionals have fresh perspectives to offer as well. This goes beyond formal mentorship programs and looks more like a mutual investment in helping each other thrive professionally and personally.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

https://www.lplegal.com/people/melissa-c-marshall/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissa-marshall-2345b811/

https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=levenfeld%20pearlstein

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!

About The Interviewer: Kieran Powell is the EVP of Channel V Media a New York City Public Relations agency with a global network of agency partners in over 30 countries. Kieran has advised more than 150 companies in the Technology, B2B, Retail and Financial sectors. Prior to taking over business operations at Channel V Media, Kieran held roles at Merrill Lynch, PwC and Ernst & Young. Get in touch with Kieran to discuss how marketing and public relations can be leveraged to achieve concrete business goals.