Using The Web Like A Rifle Shot

Law firms use Web sites like weapons of war. They use them like shotguns, to blast out marketing messages to hit a wide swath of targets. Or like machine guns, to spray countless communications rapidly in all directions. Or like cannons, to blast out powerful promotions that are designed to have a huge impact a long distance away.

But smart law firms use a Web site like a rifle.

A rifle is a high-precision instrument, designed to place a single shot in an exactly-chosen spot. Analogously, intelligent firms will create single-topic web sites, designed to attract a specific kind of visitor, whom the firm has a high likelihood of keeping as a client. Rather than be all things to all people, the single-topic site will be one important thing to a carefully chosen few.

Mega marketing

Any size law firm can employ the rifle tactic. For example, the gigantic Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw has a suite of single-topic sites. With 1,300 lawyers worldwide, the mega-firm has its main web site, but it also operates www.securitization.net, focusing on forms of fancy financing, and www.appellate.net, describing the U.S. Supreme Court and the firm’s successes there.

Medium-Sized Marketing

The beauty of a rifle shot is that smaller law offices can pull the trigger too. Fisher & Phillips, a 170-lawyer firm in 10 offices including Atlanta , Chicago and San Diego , has cleverly reserved www.laborlawyers.com for their FirmSite. As they say on the Web, “We practice exclusively in the areas of labor, employment, civil rights, employee benefits and business immigration law. Because we limit our practice to these areas, we have developed an expertise that allows us to identify issues quickly and handle matters ranging from simple questions to complex litigation in an efficient manner.”

The firm is aiming for employers that have labor and employment matters. Does the client have union trouble? Age discrimination claims resulting from reductions in force? Employees who are impaired by drugs or alcohol? They should visit laborlawyers.com. That’s the firm’s sole online marketing message.

And it works. Their clients include employers in the agriculture, automotive, banking, broadcasting, casino and construction industries. Also the health care, hospitality, insurance, professional services, manufacturing and mining industries. In addition, the real estate, retail, technology, transportation, wholesale and distribution industries. They come to www.laborlawyers.com for one thing.

Mini Marketing

The Web is ideally suited for this kind of specialization. Ricci, Leopold, Farmer & McAfee, P. A. in West Palm Beach, Florida, uses their FirmSite at www.riccilaw.com to focus on plaintiff’s personal injury cases. “In America, some companies and corporations care more about profit than they do about the safety and well-being of any individual person or family,” the site proclaims. “We stand between those companies and the individual consumer. We represent the individuals and the families of people who have been injured, killed or mistreated through such intentional or negligent conduct in personal injury, wrongful death and insurance litigation.”

There is no doubt that the firm can handle cases involving automobile crashworthiness. Just visit http://www.riccilaw.com/FSL5CS/Custom/TOCNoteworthy%20Results.asp and you’ll see descriptions of a full dozen cases where the firm won a recovery for its clients. A quick visit to the same pages shows that the firm can deal with cases involving insurance bad faith; the Web site lists seven samples of cases they’ve one. Similarly, visitors know the firm can handle a managed care matter; the site lists four compelling synopses.

But here’s what the cases have in common: the firm represented the individual. Their cases involve a two-year old girl, a widow and her nephew, a mother driving two young girls. The firm, which has six lawyers, makes it precisely clear whom they represent and where they stand. That’s compelling marketing.