GUEST BLOGGER: Merrilyn Astin Tarlton, Co-Publisher - Attorney at Work

Child development experts call it “impulse control.” A key measure of a child’s maturity, the traditional test for it involves marshmallows. A 4-year-old is offered two marshmallows if he can wait 15 minutes for them. If he can’t wait, he can have a marshmallow right away—but just one. At four, some choose two and work hard to get through the wait and others just want one and want it now.

I was playing Scrabble the other day and it dawned on me that the same strategies I used while playing are applicable to the development of a marketing strategy for a client. In Scrabble, you have to create words with letters selected at random. You have to manage them carefully and decide which placement gives you the best competitive advantage. You might not always start out with the letters you want, and sometimes realize you are short one letter needed for the perfect word, but, in the end, your goal is to earn the most points with the tiles you have.

Last week, Moiré Marketing Partners attended the Los Angeles Legal Marketing Association’s Continuing Marketing Education Conference, where law firm leaders and marketers gathered to discuss the pressing issues facing their firms. One of the most common themes we heard was the need to update law firm websites and improve their search engine rankings.

So I guess you figured out by now, that no one really has the magic bullet. But there are a few things that you, the marketing professional, can do this year to help make your firm successful. And seriously, if there were such a formula that produced marketing results, then that would probably negate any need for our strategic services. Don't you think?

Besides going to the gym and trying not be such an agressive driver, here are 5 new year's resolutions we can all shoot for this year.