Clients are hungry to find lawyers who really understand their businesses, but some firms are reluctant to market their services to specific industries.

Most lawyers fear that if they mention specific industry groups with their list of practice areas, they may miss out on a prospective client whose industry is not on the list. What if somebody needs help acquiring a circus elephant?

What we need to do is to focus on areas of strength.

While the home pages of law firms generally list practice areas and industries, those that do a lot of work for pharmacies and dental practices, for example, could also include buttons that say, “Pharmacies click here” and “Dental practices click here.” These buttons would link to landing pages that provided specific information on the specialized legal services the firm can offer to those two particular professions.

Law firms can also invest in URLs that relate to their specialties: If your law firm’s website URL is JohnDoeLaw dot com, for example, you can add a site called JohnDoePharmacyLaw dot com, or JohnDoeDentalPracticeLaw dot com. You can then do targeted search advertising so that members of dental practices and/or pharmacies see appropriate ads referring to your firm.

Dare to emphasize your specialties. If you do, you will find that your marketing initiatives will be easier, cheaper, and more productive.

As always, I welcome your comments on this or any other matter, either below or directly via email.