You've made the choice to jump right into video to market your legal services. The move is a smart one. It will help distinguish you from everyone else.

6 benefits to lawyers using online video:

1. Viewers get to see you

2. Viewers get to hear you

3. Viewers get to know you

4. Viewers begin to trust you before they ever walk in your door

5. Viewers see that you are a real human being

6. The image of a grumpy unapproachable stuffy lawyer dissipates when a viewer sees you on video

"What should I talk about in my video?

Create an educational message

What do I mean?

As Trey Ryder always says, "Do not sell yourself. Instead, educate your potential client." Using video is the best way to do that. A 30 second commercial on YouTube does nothing to help you get new clients in your door.

Tip #1: Explain yourself (There's a million dollar tip included here)

Explain the last case you successfully handled for a client. Tell your viewer why your client came into your office. Explain the legal issue in layman's terms; tell the viewer what you did to help your client solve their legal problem. Then, (and here's the million dollar tip), explain to your viewer that if they have a similar problem, they should call you for more information. That's the call to action.

That's right, they should call you for more information to start a conversation.

Tip #2: Give it away for free

Give the information away. It's free anyway (for most consumer-level attorney specialties). If you are a personal injury attorney or workers compensation attorney or divorce attorney, explain how things work. Your potential clients will get this information from you when they come into your office anyway. Why not give it away and allow your viewer to become a better informed and educated consumer of legal services? The internet is the ideal place to give away your information. The more you give, the more calls you get. (There's a lot of psychology involved in that reasoning that I will not go into here.)

Tip #3: Be concise

When creating video, do not expect a viewer to watch you ramble endlessly. What's the ideal length for a relevant video? Approximately 2-3 minutes. Yes, there are always exceptions, just as in law. Some will be shorter; some will be longer.

Tip #4: No webcams need apply

"Can I use my webcam or little flip video camera to make these educational videos?" You could. Your webcam is great for a quick hello to a friend or relative. But, the video quality is generally poor, as is the audio quality. The major drawback to the Flip and Kodak Zi8 is that they do not work well in low-light situations and only one has the ability to use an external microphone, which is an absolute must when creating quality video. If nobody can hear you clearly, they will not watch your video.

Tip #5: Choices

You have two options to create attorney video:

(1) Do it yourself, or (2) Hire an experienced video company to do it for you.

If you are a do-it-yourselfer, like me, you need tons of time and dedication to creating strategy, setting up your lighting, audio and video. You need to calibrate your equipment, shoot video of yourself, upload the video footage to the computer, learn how to edit, insert transitions between scenes, correct color, add stereo sound, add graphics, add intro and exit music along with any background music, render the video to a quicktime or flash file, then compress that file to make it compatible to upload online. Then, you have to upload the edited video to video sharing sites, put it on your blog and website.

"Is that all?" No, there's more! You now have to optimize the text that describes your videos so they will be found in the search engines. You must give your video 'tags' and 'keywords' for the search engines.

"Is that all?" No, there's more! Then you have to let the world know about what you've just created.

"How?" With social media. "Is that all?" No. There's more! (I feel like I'm in an infomercial where they say, "Wait...there's more! For only $19.95 you get...")

Then it's time to start your next video...and the cycle continues.

If you do not have the time or desire to learn the technical details of creating, editing and uploading your video, I strongly recommend that you skip option #1 and go directly to option #2: Hire a reputable video company to create your videos for you. Importantly, make sure your video producer knows who your ideal client is. That way, you'll know exactly what content to put in your video.

Conclusion:

Video is a game-changer for lawyers who market themselves in today's economy and online if you do it right. Social media is great and video is the king of social media. Lawyers who fail to recognize this major fact will wake up years later and wonder "Why didn't I start creating video when I read Gerry's definitive guide to video marketing for lawyers?" You cannot afford to ignore this important part of marketing your legal practice. Whether you're a solo practitioner like myself or are in a mid-size or big-law firm, video will help distinguish you from all of your competitors. I guarantee it.

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© Trey Ryder

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