Use Industrial Strength Marketing

One of the most important points of information that a law firm can put on its Web site is a list of the industries it serves.  Industry experience is one of the first things that corporate executives and in-house counsel look for.  They want to know if your lawyers are familiar with the trends affecting their business, and smart law firms put this information right up front.

Think about it: when your firm is choosing among vendors, you inquire whether the vendor has experience with the legal profession and can list other law firms as references.  Corporations vet law firms in the same fashion.

A link to “Industries Served” on the home page will help position your firm as knowledgeable in targeted areas. Don’t hide it on the back pages. Industry representation is a key branding attribute and selling point.  This takes advantage of the way that clients and prospective clients think.  Clients see themselves as being part of an industry and want to see their law firm as part of the same industry. They do not view themselves as clients of a practice group.  They also see their cases as business problems, not legal matters. 

Another way to capture visitors and establish your presence in an industry is to offer visitors industry news in a variety of categories, such as banking, computers, real estate and telecommunications industries.  Industries like the Internet can be broken down into sub-categories, such as advertising, e-commerce, e-money, e-stocks, regulations and security.  Make it easy for visitors and allow them to pick an industry or find the news they want with a keyword search.  Make sure any information that is grabbed outside of your site is displayed on your firm’s site, with all the links and branding intact.

Get Started

An easy method to follow is to start with the firm’s list of representative clients (or list of top 50 clients).  Label each company according to the industry in which it is best known.  You don’t need to be precise in naming the industry, and you can use the categories found in the annual Fortune 500 listing or the Wall Street Journal’s regular reports on stocks.  Once you’ve got all the clients labeled, sort them out into industry categories and put the list on your Web site.  You won’t regret it.

By Larry Bodine, a marketing and Web site consultant who has conducted Web site audits for law firms throughout North America. He can be reached at 630.942.0977 and lbodine@lawmarketing.com.