Immigration Legal Services

The Research Project

Mackman Research worked with Ipswich-based Immigration Legal Services to gather insight from their principal and senior lawyers in order to assist in a brand refresh, creation of a new website, key communication messages, and future strategy.

Results

Following our stakeholder workshop sessions, our research team was able to collate their findings. Our write up consisted of:

• Identification of customer segmentation to direct marketing materials and future strategies for growth
• A SWOT analysis
• Competitor analysis identifying competitors' activities, geographic service areas, customer base and target audience, and legal skill set

The Client

Established in 2012, Immigration Legal Services is a small team of dedicated and experienced immigration experts. They act for both individuals and organisations facing immigration related challenges. Immigration Legal Services specialise exclusively in immigration, asylum, human rights and nationality law. The boutique legal practice has developed a meticulous and personable style. Their services are designed to alleviate the anxiety and uncertainty of immigration matters. Principal and Senior immigration lawyers Angela and Sallie lead a successful legal team who win an industry-leading 90% of their appeals compared to an average of 60%. Certified by the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner (OISC), the Ipswich-based business supplies a range of services to clients including applications for parents and carers of UK citizens, UK ancestry visas, and leave to enter as a visitor.

Research Aims

Immigration Legal Services were working with our sister company, Mackman, to refresh and realign their branding and online presence. The project required a number of insight areas to be identified in order. This ensured that targeting and messaging was accurate on the new website. Furthermore, Immigration Legal needed to gather information on their competitors after recognising a need for their business to become more visible to the kind of corporate clients and individual prospects who need their services.  

The broad aims of the research were, therefore, to collate information that would inform web strategies and clearly identify gaps in the immediate marketplace.

The Research Challenge

The main challenge with this project was to gather several pieces of insight that were relatable. In addition, at the time that this research was conducted, Immigration Legal were a relatively young and small legal practice. Therefore, the information would be extracted from a limited number of organisational stakeholders. Here we would have to maintain the integrity of a small legal firm whilst considering their potential appeal in B2B sectors.

This project was a pleasure to work on and needed a very hands-on approach to information gathering. It was particularly important that we really get to know Angela and Sallie to ensure that their professionalism and ethics were effectively translated to the design team.

Amanda Ansell, Insight Manager - Mackman Research

Collecting data from a small number of participants requires a skilled researcher to keep conversations moving and on track. In this instance we proposed that a senior researcher conduct information gathering to ensure consistency.

The Research Design & Methodology

Our research design included face-to-face stakeholder workshops . These were in order to gather in-depth information from those principal and senior lawyers within the firm. We began by conducting several Insight workshops with Immigration Legal Services to help us understand their client base. This included how the immigration sector operates, and how they have been so successful to date. These included persona segmentation and SWOT analysis to get to the heart of Immigration Legal Services' audience base and potential clients. Our Insight Manager performed all of the face-to-face stakeholder workshops in order to build rapport with our client and establish a consistent flow of information gathering. In addition, a researcher conducted competitor analysis to compile a comprehensive view of similar businesses and their offerings. The insight programme created the foundation of thorough keyword research to understand the terms that prospects were searching for.

Research Outcomes

We identified that Immigration Legal Services needed to introduce tools and techniques to raise awareness within the diverse communities they help. This was in order to distinguish themselves from the claims of expertise made by individuals and organisations who exploit vulnerable members of society. 

Using these insights, we were able to tighten the Immigration Legal proposition. We focused their brand messages to both explain their USP more succinctly; this was to significantly enhance their online rankings on their new website designed by our sister company, Mackman. The research findings made recommendations which informed a content plan for the build of their new website. Here our insight directed content headings, subheadings, and subject body content.

Our use of quantitative stakeholder workshops was a great way to make sure that all written copy was speaking to the right audience segment, in the right way, at the appropriate time within their user journey.