1 BeNCh Marketing Plan bench Marketing Plan
2 BeNCh Marketing Plan Contents About 3 Market Information 4 Target Market 5 Competitors 6
3 BeNCh Marketing Plan About BeNCh is an online database that utilizes public records to provide a central hub of judge profiles. These judicial profiles include an objective and subjective rating system as well as information about judges case history and backgrounds. Specifically, our product will provide comprehensive, easily accessible data that tracks how often judges decisions are reversed, along with brief synopses of recent cases and opinions. The database also provides a judge clearinghouse of sorts, with judicial profiles available that include information on judges experience, education, affiliations, potential bias, and more. BeNCh s target audience includes lawyers, law firms, and judges. Primarily, our product gives lawyers a strategic advantage in preparing and framing their case defenses. It additionally allows redistricted judges to familiarize themselves with the local judges. BeNCh also attracts a smaller market among law schools and law libraries for research purposes.
4 BeNChe Marketing Plan Market Information BeNCh aims to focus on the needs of three primary markets: lawyers, judges, and law libraries. Lawyers would use BeNCh as a guide for preparing their cases. Our research indicates that lawyers get most of their information about judges from word of mouth. BeNCh could be used by new lawyers who are unfamiliar with the judges in their area as well as by lawyers who are encountering a new judge in the area. Judges could use the site to monitor their own decisions and biases. According to David Bohm, the assistant executive director of the North Carolina Bar Association, many judges felt that the North Carolina Bar Association s Judicial Performance Evaluation helped them understand and better their biases. BeNCh would act as another check point in improving judges accountability. Law Libraries would use BeNCh as an added resource in helping professors and students with their judicial research. According to the University of North Carolina s School of Law BeNCh would save time in compiling research as it is easy to search, provides judges opinions on cases, as well as background on judges.
5 BeNCh Marketing Plan Tarket Market Our target market would consist of law schools, lawyers, and judges in the state of North Carolina. Although people outside of the state expressed interest in the product, we have only made a business model for the North Carolina judicial system. Within the state we would target lawyers and students ages 18 to 40 with an annual salary of about $50,000 to $100,000. Our audience wants more transparency in the judicial system for the purpose of constructing court cases and learning more about judges in their district. There are three general age groups who were interested in our product during user testing. The largest interest was expressed in the 18-25 year olds who were either attending law school or were recent graduates of law schools. The second largest age range was 26-30. This range consisted mostly of lawyers and clerks of appellate courts. The smallest interest group was age 40-60. These participants were a mixture of judges and well experienced lawyers. With the age range variation, there was also a lot of variation in salaries. Our typical user would make about $50,000 to $99,000 a year based on current data. This confirms that the price of our product is competitive and affordable to our target market. There was also a collection of student participants with an annual salary of $0 to $9,999. These students would not have to pay for the product because it would be provided by their school, therefore we are not concerned about the expense in their case. The majority of our users would be students and lawyers. Nearly 75% of our participants said that the North Carolina judicial system was anywhere from somewhat to not at all transparent. This same percentage also believed that is was somewhat to very important for the system to be more transparent.
6 BeNCh Marketing Plan Competitors North Carolina Bar Association s Judicial Performance Evaluation (JPE) - The NC Bar Association sends out surveys to attorneys across North Carolina and asks them to subjectively rate judges in the Superior and District courts. The Bar Association then pools the results from the surveys and compiles them into a pdf document. The purpose of the JPE is to ensure voters make well-informed decisions when electing their judges. Although BeNCh can help educate voters during the elections, lawyers and judges are our primary audience. BeNCh utilizes public records to provide a central hub of judge profiles that includes an objective rating system as well as information about judges case history and backgrounds. We will also include the NC Bar Association s JPE on the judge s profile. BeNCh also uses a different medium, a database, to present the information. The site itself is easily navigable and can guide lawyers in preparing their defenses as well as inform redistricted judges about their local judges. BeNCh can also be used for research purposes in university libraries. Court Watch of North Carolina - Court Watch of NC is a state judicial watchdog that seeks to monitor courts and to help children and families receive assistance from the judicial system.through soliciting attorneys, bailiffs, and court participants they were able to capture about 75% of judges in the state. The samples gathered some attention about certain judges and brought the up the idea that judges should be appointed. BeNCh focuses on objectively and subjectively profiling judges to serve our target market, which includes lawyers and judges. Our primary purpose is to guide lawyers in crafting their case defenses as well as educating redistricted judges on their local judicial environment. Judgepedia - Court Watch of NC is a state judicial watchdog that seeks to monitor courts and to help children and families receive assistance from the judicial system.through soliciting attorneys, bailiffs, and court participants they were able to capture about 75% of judges in the state. The samples gathered some attention about certain judges and brought the up the idea that judges should be appointed. BeNCh seeks to combine qualitative background information about judges with hard analytical data that quantitatively reflects a judge s performance. In addition to educating users, BeNCh can be used to guide lawyers when preparing their cases because our site presents any potential biases surrounding judges decisions. Other large research/public records databases (Lexis Nexis, West Law, PACER, etc.) - Legal research databases provide a wealth of searchable legal information. PACER allows access to federal court documents. Users can find any documents
7 BeNCh Marketing Plan Competitors Continued related to US and international legal materials, and even search by judge to find a list of case documents that a judge was involved with. Sifting through the legal jargon on court cases can often be confusing and time-consuming. BeNCh will use more accessible language to allow efficient use of our site. Additionally, our site s interface presents the information through a judge profile page, thus making the site itself more engaging. BeNCh also attracts a niche market that includes primarily lawyers and judges seeking data on their local judges to advance their careers.