Don’t Be Afraid of Making Videos. Be Afraid of Falling Behind Your Competitors

Using videos and putting them on YouTube can be a very effective way to improve your community’s knowledge of your practice. It can show what you’re like as a person and an attorney much better than a photo on your website or a billboard. Videos can help you reach your marketing goal – more people contacting your firm in search of help.

Videos are Good for You and Your Practice

They’re a powerful communications tool that you should use to your advantage. Like written marketing material, the topics should be driven by what potential clients want or need to hear, not by what you want to tell them.

Videos don’t need to be complex or flashy, but they should have decent production values:

• Don’t just use your smartphone and shoot a video while you’re sitting in your car in a parking lot
• You can set up a mini-recording studio in your office with a high-quality camera that won’t break your budget
• You also need a decent microphone because no one will watch a video with muffled or weak audio

Keep videos short and to the point. Not many will sit through a half-hour lecture. You need to tease people and whet their appetites, not give them everything they need to know. Videos are a tool to get viewers to schedule consultations, not to make them experts.

Here are types of videos you should consider:

• Introductory videos: Create a short video introducing yourself and your practice. Talk about your background, why you practice in a particular area, and why you do so in your community. Discuss how clients will benefit from your approach to practicing law, not just how they’ll benefit from hiring a lawyer
• Explanatory videos: Create videos that explain legal concepts or procedures. They can educate potential clients about your services, demonstrate your expertise in a particular area of law, and show why you should be trusted with a case or legal issue
• Testimonial videos: Clients talking about how you helped them and what a great job you did can help to build trust and credibility with potential clients, but the content can’t break ethics rules concerning testimonials
• Q&A videos: The subjects can be questions or concerns you’ve gotten from your social media followers. You can discuss the most common questions clients and potential clients ask you. A video could address one issue in more depth, or you could handle several if short answers would be appropriate

You should post videos on your website and social media to reach the biggest audience. Use search engine optimization (SEO) techniques like picking long tail keywords for the video title, so your video ranks higher in search engine results. Videos should have captions for those with difficulty hearing, especially if your practice serves the elderly or disabled.

If you speak a language other than English, shoot and produce videos using the languages you speak. This will widen your audience and increase the number of potential clients contacting you.

Put YouTube to Work for You and Your Practice

It’s estimated YouTube has 2.6 billion users worldwide. It’s the second most popular search engine after Google (which owns YouTube), and only Facebook has more active users. If you want to grow your practice, ignore YouTube at your peril.

Here are things you can do to leverage YouTube Algorithm Optimization (YAO) to your advantage:

• Create a YouTube channel: Set up a law firm channel and post your videos. If you appear on local TV news, have a video of an in-person presentation, or appear on someone else’s video podcast, post them too. YouTube can also be another outlet for your podcasts or shorts made from podcast interviews
• Optimize for search: YouTube has a search function. Optimize your videos, so they’re found more easily with keywords in the title, description, and tags. Make sure they contain enough depth and related keywords to be meaningful
• Make great thumbnails that contain three to four words and that have high contrast so people will be enticed to click
• Add chapters to very video with keywords for each chapter
• Create playlists of related videos and add end screens that lead people from one video to the next
• Use YouTube Analytics: All marketing efforts should have their impact measured. This will tell you if you’re on the right track, need to make changes, or are throwing your time, money, and effort away. YouTube has an analytics feature, so you’ll get information about viewer engagement, demographics, and more

And don’t forget to extend beyond YouTube

• Add your videos to your blogs with the transcript for SEO
• Add videos to practice area pages to make them rank and convert better

If you’re making videos, using YouTube is a no-brainer. If you’re making brochures, would you just hand them out in your office, or would you want the public to see them?

If You Want to Start Using Videos Or Your Videos to Be More Effective, McDougall Interactive Can Help

Videos increasingly drive the internet. Don’t get left behind. Ride this wave to improve your law firm’s marketing efforts. If you have questions or concerns about video use, call us at 877-623-4291 or book a consultation by using our online contact form.