Using Videos in Your Marketing Mix

Video or home movies have been part of our lives as long as most of us can remember. The medium has significantly changed over the years, but the message remains the same. Home movies help us connect or reconnect, touch our emotions and teach or remind us about times for which we may or may not have been present. Movies we see on the big screen entertain, scare, teach and transport us. Commercials on TV, and now the Internet, can amuse, build a feeling of inclusion or stimulate our senses, all the while trying to sell us a product or service. So it's reasonable to see how video is omnipresent in our lives today.

Given the all-encompassing video exposure, why do law firm videos seem so ubiquitous? Perhaps it is the newness of the industry and the lack of clarity among marketers about how video can and should be used to drive results. Perhaps it is the sticker shock that seems to accompany video production in contrast to your brother-in-law who has a degree from film school, but works in accounting, shoot your video for less than $1,000. Quite simply, perhaps law firms are so resistant to video because we are taking a form that is so familiar to us in our personal lives and trying to apply it in our professional worlds even though we don't know how to do it well.

How to Train Your Dragon

This article provides a quick overview of four ways videos should be used in law firms, both big and small, to derive the greatest benefit from both an ROI perspective, as well as from a communication perspective.

In each section there are consistent themes to take away. Creating a professional video that accomplishes its goals is dependent on four aspects: 1) Define business goals; 2) Create a story line that flows consistently throughout the video; 3) Ensure the lighting and audio aligns with the story mood and company goals; and 4) Determine video distribution before investing any money to create it.

The Sting

All videos, whether they are shot with live talent, use stock videos, graphics or animation, will result in strong video rankings and boost overall results in a general search if they are uploaded and coded properly; this is the reason video is so powerful. Look on any Google Results page on which you do a search, only a handful of results show video. The opportunities are wide open for creative and progressive firms to dominate their areas of expertise through video.

Google ranks Web pages with video higher than text-only Web pages. In 2010, Forrester Research distributed a report that stated a Web page with video was 53 times more likely to have front-page results than an identical text-only Web page with no video. Any firm that has a Web site and is paying money for search engine optimization but does not have a video is throwing money out the door.

Saving Private Ryan

Below are areas that law firms should focus on to enhance video creation.

1. Using Videos to Recruit New Talent in All Areas of Your Firm

Most firms still use recruiters or job boards to find legal and professional talent. Humorous, clever or serious videos can be created and targeted specifically to lawyers or professionals who are not active in the marketplace. This technique is a great way to show your commitment to technology by walking the talk. The cost of a series of videos, to be rolled out over a year, can be less costly than one placement of a mid-level associate.

2. Creating Videos to Communicate With Existing Clients

Clients are becoming more savvy and more demanding in their expectations from their service providers. Webcasts and podcasts are being used as effective alternatives to traditional newsletters or fact sheets. The next generation of communication will be Vlogs (video blogs), video messages and custom video solutions to enhance that personal connection between you and your clients.

3. Differentiating Your Firm By Showing Your Style

Law firms do have different personalities and rarely can a print advertisement, brochure or white paper capture that accurately. Videos give firms, a practice area, or even an individual attorney or professional the chance to communicate what makes them different from every other equally qualified entity.

Don't worry about being too serious or cerebral ' your qualifications can shine through graphics, b-roll, or through parts of the interview. If you are going to put your firm or people on camera, think about what will talk best to your audience and show what you are trying to relay in an authentic way.

4. Reaching Out to Potential Clients Through Video SEO

Finally, whatever the final content of your video is, consider that only step one in your video marketing process. The video needs to be uploaded to your site in a way that Google and other search engines can identify it as video (and will therefore weight it more heavily). It should also be uploaded to YouTube and other professional video sites so that it will improve your overall Google rankings. If you want your video to rank on the first page of Google, then coding and uploading video and video presentations properly will increase the probability of achieving this goal.

Conclusion

The bottom line is you don't have to hire Steven Spielberg or The Coen Brothers to accomplish great things with your law firm video, but you do need to set realistic goals, understand how the process will work and, like all marketing projects you undertake, track the ROI to determine your success.

Linda Sedloff Orton is President of Intelligent Video Solutions, where she assists clients in the creation and distribution of Web videos. She may be reached at 914-925-3688 or [email protected].

Video or home movies have been part of our lives as long as most of us can remember. The medium has significantly changed over the years, but the message remains the same. Home movies help us connect or reconnect, touch our emotions and teach or remind us about times for which we may or may not have been present. Movies we see on the big screen entertain, scare, teach and transport us. Commercials on TV, and now the Internet, can amuse, build a feeling of inclusion or stimulate our senses, all the while trying to sell us a product or service. So it's reasonable to see how video is omnipresent in our lives today.

Given the all-encompassing video exposure, why do law firm videos seem so ubiquitous? Perhaps it is the newness of the industry and the lack of clarity among marketers about how video can and should be used to drive results. Perhaps it is the sticker shock that seems to accompany video production in contrast to your brother-in-law who has a degree from film school, but works in accounting, shoot your video for less than $1,000. Quite simply, perhaps law firms are so resistant to video because we are taking a form that is so familiar to us in our personal lives and trying to apply it in our professional worlds even though we don't know how to do it well.

How to Train Your Dragon

This article provides a quick overview of four ways videos should be used in law firms, both big and small, to derive the greatest benefit from both an ROI perspective, as well as from a communication perspective.

In each section there are consistent themes to take away. Creating a professional video that accomplishes its goals is dependent on four aspects: 1) Define business goals; 2) Create a story line that flows consistently throughout the video; 3) Ensure the lighting and audio aligns with the story mood and company goals; and 4) Determine video distribution before investing any money to create it.

The Sting

All videos, whether they are shot with live talent, use stock videos, graphics or animation, will result in strong video rankings and boost overall results in a general search if they are uploaded and coded properly; this is the reason video is so powerful. Look on any Google Results page on which you do a search, only a handful of results show video. The opportunities are wide open for creative and progressive firms to dominate their areas of expertise through video.

Google ranks Web pages with video higher than text-only Web pages. In 2010, Forrester Research distributed a report that stated a Web page with video was 53 times more likely to have front-page results than an identical text-only Web page with no video. Any firm that has a Web site and is paying money for search engine optimization but does not have a video is throwing money out the door.

Saving Private Ryan

Below are areas that law firms should focus on to enhance video creation.

1. Using Videos to Recruit New Talent in All Areas of Your Firm

Most firms still use recruiters or job boards to find legal and professional talent. Humorous, clever or serious videos can be created and targeted specifically to lawyers or professionals who are not active in the marketplace. This technique is a great way to show your commitment to technology by walking the talk. The cost of a series of videos, to be rolled out over a year, can be less costly than one placement of a mid-level associate.

2. Creating Videos to Communicate With Existing Clients

Clients are becoming more savvy and more demanding in their expectations from their service providers. Webcasts and podcasts are being used as effective alternatives to traditional newsletters or fact sheets. The next generation of communication will be Vlogs (video blogs), video messages and custom video solutions to enhance that personal connection between you and your clients.

3. Differentiating Your Firm By Showing Your Style

Law firms do have different personalities and rarely can a print advertisement, brochure or white paper capture that accurately. Videos give firms, a practice area, or even an individual attorney or professional the chance to communicate what makes them different from every other equally qualified entity.

Don't worry about being too serious or cerebral ' your qualifications can shine through graphics, b-roll, or through parts of the interview. If you are going to put your firm or people on camera, think about what will talk best to your audience and show what you are trying to relay in an authentic way.

4. Reaching Out to Potential Clients Through Video SEO

Finally, whatever the final content of your video is, consider that only step one in your video marketing process. The video needs to be uploaded to your site in a way that Google and other search engines can identify it as video (and will therefore weight it more heavily). It should also be uploaded to YouTube and other professional video sites so that it will improve your overall Google rankings. If you want your video to rank on the first page of Google, then coding and uploading video and video presentations properly will increase the probability of achieving this goal.

Conclusion

The bottom line is you don't have to hire Steven Spielberg or The Coen Brothers to accomplish great things with your law firm video, but you do need to set realistic goals, understand how the process will work and, like all marketing projects you undertake, track the ROI to determine your success.

Linda Sedloff Orton is President of Intelligent Video Solutions, where she assists clients in the creation and distribution of Web videos. She may be reached at 914-925-3688 or [email protected].