Case Study: Helen O'Dowda, Head of Marketing & BD at DataLaw

“CANDDi provides us with rich data about our customers for a deeper understanding of what drives their spending to train in particular aspects of the law. This helps us tailor our course portfolio to their needs.”

Company background

Datalaw is the UK’s leading online Continuing Professional Development (CPD) provider for solicitors. The company was started by two lawyers who wanted to find an alternative to the traditional, expensive training model. Datalaw has provided CPD to thousands of solicitors across the UK. The business delivers a wide range of courses, with participants able to choose from over 400 legal training webinars available on demand.
In 2015, changes put in place by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) mean that solicitors are no longer required to complete ‘live’ CPD, such as attending courses at a venue or even participating in distance learning. The CPD focuses on solicitors assessing and maintaining their competence and they now have two options for how to do this. They may either follow the conventional CPD requirements, over a mandatory 16 hours, or satisfactorily demonstrate that learning and development has been considered and appropriate steps taken ensure a proper standard of service for clients.

The Issue/Challenge Faced

The changes to the regulations provided an opportunity for Datalaw to develop its business. This required a marketing push to attract new customers and raise the profile of the company within the legal profession.

In the past, Datalaw had relied on marketing e-shots with little or no analysis of the data received. The client had no previous experience of marketing automation solutions but after being introduced to CANDDi the Head of Marketing was convinced that the platform was correct to assist Datalaw with its growth objectives.

Datalaw brought Helen O’Dowda on board, as Head of Marketing and Business Development, to lead the marketing initiative, which would focus on the smarter use of customer data to better understand the breakdown of its prospects.

CANDDi for Datalaw

Since implementing CANDDi, there is now a much stronger emphasis on email marketing campaigns within Datalaw. By incorporating links in outbound emails to landing pages on the website the business starts a prospect tracking process.
The Business Development team are then able to follow up in the appropriate way depending on which pages and which courses the prospects have viewed.
Datalaw has also embraced the use of CANDDi Capture forms – this system is very well-liked by prospects and by recipients within the business. Questions appear in the bottom right hand side of the screen in response to which visitors can input information. This makes it extremely easy for Datalaw to take appropriate action. Datalaw are using CANDDi’s facility to tailor the pop-up box to make it on-brand; blending naturally with the website to appear as a natural extension to their services.

The Benefits

Every morning, Helen receives a number of new enquires from the capture form system. Typically people are looking for further information on available training such as the specialist conveyancing courses on offer or details of the criminal law CPD bundle. These queries can be quickly sent to the appropriate subject specialist who can provide a prompt response. Often, solicitors have simply forgotten their password, so having the capture forms to assist mean that Datalaw can provide support where prospects may otherwise have reverted to traditional training methods.

Helen clarified that CANDDi enables Datalaw to manage smarter email campaigns. DataLaw can work out who from what practice is viewing what training and for how long. With this valuable insight the follow-up becomes straightforward and often leads right through to sales. The company analyzes this data and creates detailed metrics to demonstrate the success of individual campaigns. The Business Development team can then formulate new business strategies and a better user experience for customers.


DataLaw commends the level of customer service from CANDDi. Whenever the company has needed assistance with the product, staff have been invited to share a screen by the helpful team at CANDDi which has enabled them to resolve queries quickly and effectively.
DataLaw has plans to update and refine its target database in the near future. Helen explained that the business is considering exporting all the data generated by CANDDi and remarketing to customers according to subject and course preferences.

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