And the BP oil spill has lifted the lid on a highly potent strategy currently being deployed to attract new business. Whatever one thinks of ambulance chasers advertising in hospitals or high impact TV ads encouraging people to make small claims for a quick buck, it’s big business. Especially when cash rich targets like BP are bent over a barrel.

WSJ: Soon after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig sank in April, Parker Waichman Alonso LLP turned to the Web in pursuit of law clients.

The New York-based plaintiffs’ firm set up websites with names like bigspills.com, oilspillclaims.com and oil-rig-explosions.com, and it filled them with news related to the disaster and invitations for visitors to provide their names and contact information.

More than 1,000 people have now completed the forms on the websites, and Parker Waichman, which has 23 lawyers, has filed about a dozen suits related to the oil disaster.

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Millions are being spent on this type of advertising and no wonder… According to another advocate of social media advertising, the potential clients who come across his firm via Twitter, Facebook and MySpace are twice as likely to become clients as those who would otherwise reach them through television or print. As you can see from bigspills.com, although these sites disclose that they are affiliated with law firms they have the look and feel of community forums or news boards.

Sneaky but effective.