It drives me crazy to listen to all of these legal marketing folks talking about getting together a plan.  Not because they’re wrong – in fact, I think they are all very right – but because the notion of an online legal marketing plan conjures up visions of this step-by-step routine that you’ve got to follow in order to make it all happen.  My experience is that it just doesn’t work that way for the solo and small firm lawyer.

I call this technique the “marketing diet.”  You’ve got to start blogging, engage on social networks, get into video marketing (which means you need to understand how to use that video camera), podcast, on and on and on down the line.  Exposure!  Fame!  Fortune!

Of course, it all comes with price tags attached.  You get a kick-ass blog designed, a killer email marketing campaign, and even a customized Twitter background.  Why?  Because you’ve got to be there.  If you’re not, you’re falling behind.

So you cut those big checks and go your merry way.  The blog goes live, you submit to the “training session” (which goes by so fast you can’t pay attention), hook up Tweetdeck or some other Twitter client du jour, and are sent to meet your success.

You chug along dutifully for a few weeks, bouncing around in the dark with that blog and that stream of tweets.  But when your coffers don’t fill up in that time period you get seriously bummed out and burned out.  ”Why avoid that cheesecake if I’m not going to drop 20 pounds in time for my brother’s wedding next month?” seems to be the same thinking that creeps into your life right around that time.

Online legal marketing is clearly a fraud.  You’re not hitting the top of the search engines.  Twittering masses aren’t hanging on your every word.  That blog isn’t getting any traffic.

You fail slowly at first, then really quickly because you never ask for a reason.

At first it’s a missed blog post. Maybe a day away from Twitter or Facebook.  A Craigslist post doesn’t get put up because you’re too busy.  But whatever it is, there’s a small hiccup in your online legal marketing plan.  Sort of like an extra piece of cake after dinner.  It feels bad, like you’ve done something wrong.  Down deep you’re guilty.  But there’s another voice in your head telling you it’s OK because this stuff doesn’t work that well in the first place.

If you’re like me, you just stop doing anything at all.  When I first got online I was podcasting, blogging and (trying to be) active in a variety of places.  At first it was fun.  But it wasn’t feeding my business in a way that made it compelling, so when I stopped there wasn’t a reason to go back to “the grind.”

Until I took a look at my goals, and how my online legal marketing plans fit into them.  Remember, I was doing this to feed my practice and my family – not as a cool experiment in futility.

I’d been sold on the bright shiny object of the platform rather than on the ways in which a particular one fit into how I wanted to market my law firm.

Sound familiar at all?

When you turn the notion of an online legal marketing plan on its head and focus instead on your business goals, your strategy becomes clearer.

You need to ask yourself, “Why should I engage in this legal marketing medium?  Why should I spend my time here on this platform?”

Look at your goals and objectives.  Then do your homework to learn how you’re going to get found on a particular platform by the people most likely to have need of your services.  Doing so will lead you to the platforms that will work best for your online legal marketing efforts rather than the other way around.

Best of all, it will help you understand the importance of engaging on a particular platform and save you money and time on wasted efforts in the wrong places.

Save money, use your time wisely, get the results you’re looking for.

So here are my questions:  why do you use a specific tool for your online legal marketing efforts?  What is the defined goal for that particular tool?  And how exactly is it working in your favor?