I received a Technolawyer e-newsletter promoting an article, by Lee Rosen, revealing the secret to charging flat legal fees. The secret is to make your fixed expenses variable. One of the expenses suggested to be changed to variable is marketing and ostensibly, advertising.

The article stated: “Now we’ve achieved variability on our marketing expenses. We have no contracts related to marketing. We can start or stop our marketing on a moment’s notice with no penalty. It’s quick and easy.”

While it can be advantageous to have variable expenses, decreasing marketing expenses when revenue is going down is a disastrous idea.  This will reduce revenue even further both now and in the future.

Reducing your advertising and marketing budget will cause your law firm (or any business) to fall further behind and allow your competitors to gain a substantial advantage.  When revenue increases, you will have to start all over again.  Additionally, all previous work and investment in branding will have been for nothing.  In a bad economy, this is precisely the time to take advantage of lower marketing costs.

Would you like to instantly and simultaneously give your contact information to a group of people? Let’s say that you’re giving a legal seminar about asbestos litigation to a group of lawyers. Now, you can simultaneously give your contact information to every attorney listening to your seminar.

All you have to do is tell someone or a group of people to text your username on their cell phone to 50500 and your contact information will be sent to them. It’s that simple and it’s even free!

Did you ever want to give your business card to someone, but suddenly realized that you are out of cards? Now, you can give out your contact information without business cards in your pocket. In addition to the above method, you can text the recipient’s cell phone number to 50500 from your cell phone and the recipient will receive your contact information.

Just go to contxts.com where you can open a free account in less than 30 seconds. Hurry before someone else gets your username! I got mine.

Do you know how many potential clients you are losing because their e-mails are returned undelivered? I believe lawyers don’t really need new clients because eliminating spam e-mail seems to be more important.

I do TV advertising for personal injury lawyers and marketing for criminal lawyers. I often send e-mails to lawyers who request information or with attached files, such as an agreement. My e-mails are frequently returned as suspected spam or virus content.

Although I advise lawyers that their spam filters are creating a problem, none of the lawyers have ever turned off their spam filter. Maybe they don’t know how. Apparently, they do not even know how to accept my e-mail address as an accepted address. They usually just give me an alternate e-mail address.

Many legal practice consultants advise attorneys to cross sell legal services to their existing clients. For example, I, as a personal injury lawyer, could let my clients know that my law firm also represents clients for immigration, divorce and bankruptcy. It sounds like a good way to generate new business. Even if you don’t practice in those fields, you can refer these clients to other lawyers and get paid without doing any work. But it’s actually counterproductive.

First, it’s much easier to get clients to call you when they know that you only practice in one field. They will think of you as a “specialist”. It’s the same as a brand. Brands for one product are always stronger. The more diverse a brand becomes, the weaker it can get.

The first rule of both marketing and advertising is to make it as easy as possible for your customers, or clients, to contact you, yet some law offices are actually turning away new clients.

Last week a large personal injury law firm, interested in advertising on TV, found my other website and sent me an e-mail requesting that I call with more information about 1-800-HURT-911. I called them from my private phone line, instead of my office phone line. Because my private line has caller ID blocked, I heard “Your call has been properly delivered but the party you are trying to reach is not accepting calls from callers who do not allow delivery of their telephone number.”

No matter how many times I encounter this, and its happened several times, I am still astonished that a business could intentionally present an obstacle to potential new clients and existing clients when trying to call.

Famous NASCAR driver Robby Gordon loves racing, but he likes to make money and knows how to do it. He may not have the best finish times, but he probably became a financial success quicker than anybody else on the NASCAR circuit. What’s his secret? Robby Gordon turned traditional priorities upside down or, rather, right side up. Robby said, “I own a marketing company that happens to race cars”. Robby obviously spends a considerable amount of time with marketing. He recently spent three days mentoring the owner of a floundering racecar school to appear on a great new television show for small-business entrepreneurs, The Turnaround on CNN. He also knows something else, how to adapt with the times.

Considering lawyer advertising for your personal injury law practice? Be prepared to commit a sufficient amount of money every month without interruption. Already advertising? Get even more clients for free!

Businesses and advertising agencies have long ago realized that whether you’re advertising in a newspaper, magazine, TV or Radio, effective advertising must be consistently seen by your target audience over a long period of time. Additionally, there are other factors which require sustained advertising campaigns. There are good months and bad months for any business, but even more so for a personal injury law practice because there are so few good cases. A short test of advertising over a period of one to three months to see “if it will work out for me” is simply gambling.