Midsize law firm Pryor Cashman is making the most of its routine news and communications, using e-mail to help create new sales opportunities. The company, which has 125 attorneys and 90 practice areas, has been using e-mail marketing for about five years. Before that time, said Elizabeth Wall, the company’s marketing manager, Pryor Cashman--with offices in New York and Los Angeles--used direct mail such as holiday cards to communicate with its clients and prospects.

Back in 2008 Wall wanted to find a way to send out holiday cards electronically as part of a new environmental mission called Thinking Green. The e-cards would eliminate paper waste as well as wasted time--no small feat for a two-person marketing department. Traditionally it took between three and four weeks to get the holiday cards ready for mailing because the marketers had to coordinate which partners had to sign which cards and make sure the right clients were on a master mailing list. “It was amazingly inefficient,” Wall said.