The Challenge

As a global legal solutions provider looked to expand one of its legal content solutions across Europe, it needed a clearer understanding of where the greatest growth opportunities existed.

While the goal was to grow across eight European markets, each had its own legal landscape, content priorities, language requirements, and purchasing behaviors. Success depended on understanding where customer needs aligned across markets, and where market-specific strategies would be required.

Leadership needed answers to a number of important questions, including:

• Where were the strongest growth opportunities? 

• Which markets were most receptive to the expanded offering? 

• What content would deliver the greatest value? 

• And how could the product meet the needs of both existing customers and new prospects without taking a one-size-fits-all approach?

The challenge wasn't simply understanding each market independently. It was understanding how those differences shaped a successful European growth strategy. 

The Approach

Phase 5 designed a multi-country research program spanning Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, and Ireland.

Using a combination of online and CATI surveys, we gathered critical insights from legal professionals working in both law firms and corporate legal departments. Combining the two approaches allowed us to efficiently reach a diverse group of respondents while ensuring strong representation across markets and respondent types. 

The study explored how legal professionals conduct research today, the resources they rely on, where they encounter challenges, and how they evaluate legal guidance solutions. We also assessed awareness, usage, satisfaction, language requirements, purchase drivers, and reactions to our client’s proposed expanded legal guidance offering.

Rather than looking at each market in isolation, we connected the findings to reveal both common opportunities and country-specific differences that would influence product and go-to-market decisions.

The Insight

Our findings confirmed that Europe couldn't be approached as a single market.

Content priorities, purchase drivers, and language needs varied considerably by country. While some markets placed a higher value on globally applicable legal content, others prioritized market-specific guidance, local legal context, and regionally relevant resources. Interest in specific legal topics also differed, as did the competitive landscape and preferred underlying content sources and authorities. 

The concept evaluation uncovered particularly strong opportunities across several markets, while also revealing important differences that would shape adoption. Preferred content formats, decision-making timelines, and the factors influencing willingness to subscribe varied by market. In some countries, legal professionals placed greater value on specialized content, while others followed distinct purchasing behaviors that called for a different go-to-market approach. Rather than supporting a one-size-fits-all strategy, these insights showed where consistency could drive efficiency and where market-specific adaptation would create a competitive advantage. 

Instead of delivering a single answer, the study identified where a consistent European strategy could work and where market-specific adaptation would create a competitive advantage.

The Impact

The insights brought clarity to our client's European growth strategy and enabled the client to:

1. Prioritize the markets with the greatest commercial potential.

2. Refine the expanded content offering based on market needs.

3. Shape product, content, and go-to-market strategies for individual countries.

The findings also provided a deeper understanding of purchase drivers, language requirements, competitive positioning, and the factors most likely to influence adoption among both current customers and prospective users.

Most importantly, the study transformed a complex, multi-market expansion challenge into a focused growth strategy, giving the legal solutions provider confidence in where to invest and how to position its offering across Europe.