“I’m a medical malpractice and personal injury trial lawyer,” I said. “I’m not a marketer.” A marketer is sleazy. A marketer is a businessman looking to make a sale. A marketer is someone who wants you to part with your hard earned money. At least that’s what I thought up until that point. Then I realized that what I was trying to do was educate a viewer with my videos. It was at that moment that I recognized for the very first time that what I was doing was in fact MARKETING!

It took me a few months to come to grips that I AM a marketer of my legal services. I may be a lawyer who helps injured victims obtain compensation, but in order for the world around me to know that I am here and available, I must be able to TELL THE WORLD what I do and how I’m different from all the other people who market themselves. That’s marketing.

Dan Kennedy, the well-known information marketer likes to say that we are all marketers of information, regardless of what business we’re in. As an attorney who uses video to market myself, I really had a tough time accepting that I am a marketer. Yet with each new video I created, I began to see how I was educating my viewers and marketing my services at the same time.

Now, I consider myself a marketing maven. I love to read about marketing and learn from smarter people who have “Been there and done it” marketers. If you’re an attorney, you can’t get any better than learning from fellow trial lawyer Ben Glass of Fairfax Virginia. Ben has transformed the way attorneys market themselves to the general public and empowered them to be different, be ethical, and live life big while carving out a family life for themselves. His marketing system, Great Legal Marketing is a genius breakthrough. If you haven’t been to one of his seminars, you shouldn’t walk there, you should run there.

I am proud to say that I’m a marketer of legal services. My videos are watched around the country and in many different parts of the world. I am proud that I receive calls from viewers thanking me for providing useful information that nobody else gives. I know video works. It helps show I’m different. It lets viewers get to know me and begin to trust me before I ever meet them in person.

The sooner you realize that you are a marketer, the sooner you can transform your good video into great video.

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog.

______________________

Gerry is a New York medical malpractice and personal injury trial lawyer in practice for over 21 years. He has produced and created over 200 educational and informative videos to help consumers understand how lawsuits work in the State of New York. If you want to see how Gerry has used video to promote his own practice click here.

Gerry created the Lawyers’ Video Studio to help lawyers get onto video. To get started with creating video to market your legal services, Gerry offers a simple and cost-effective turn-key video creation system where he does everything for you except appear on camera, click here to learn more.

You can reach Gerry personally at 516-487-8207 or by e-mail at Gerry@lawyersvideostudio.com. He welcomes your call.

Related posts:

1. What Do You Get When You Cross a Lawyer With a Video Camera & An Internet Marketer? It wasn't that long ago that I considered myself a...
2. The Lawyers’ Definitive Guide to Video Marketing You've made the choice to jump right into video to...
3. Lawyers: Are You In The Legal Marketing Business? If you are a lawyer, the answer is absolutely, definitively...

Attention All Lawyers:

Ever hear of “Great Legal Marketing?” If you haven’t, you should. Ben Glass is a Fairfax, Virginia personal injury and medical malpractice trial lawyer who is the genius behind Great Legal Marketing. Ben has changed the way lawyers market themselves and does so in an ethical, outside-the-box way that helps distinguish you from all of your competitors.

I have been following Ben’s marketing methods for years now and felt that now was the time to create this video testimonial; to let other lawyers in on Ben’s marketing secrets. Nobody asked me to create this video or this blog post and I’m not being paid to do it either. Rather, it’s time that lawyers open their eyes and realize that most attorneys don’t have any clue about how to market themselves and their law practices effectively.

If you want to learn how to improve your marketing and your mindset, I encourage you to sign up for one of Ben’s information-packed two day seminars that he holds in Northern Virginia; one in January and one in June. I went in January 2009 and can tell you it was very impressive. I didn’t stop taking notes the entire weekend. Up to that point, I thought that I was pretty savvy in marketing my law practice. Wow, did I have a lot to learn. The people presenting had so much content and useful information that I have been continuously implementing every one of their tips for the last 10 months and there’s still so much more!

Anyway, I hope this information has been helpful and hopefully I’ll see you at one of Ben’s seminars.

Related posts:

1. Video Marketing for Lawyers: The Day I Became a Marketer I had an "Aha" moment about two years ago. I...
2. Great Legal Marketing: The video lawyer speaks to attorneys I am thrilled to be back from a lecture I...
3. An exciting presentation at Great Legal Marketing superconference in Virginia I was speaking to over 250 attorneys on June 11,...

1. Your yellow pages, classified ads, billboards, lawyer directories and TV advertising is bringing you tons and tons of business.

If this is your situation, then you are probably the most savvy lawyer in the Country. I wish you the best of luck. However, if you’re like most attorneys, you are looking for cost-effective and ethical ways to market your law practice. I will tell you from personal experience that creating video is the best return on investment in any advertising media anywhere.

The great benefit of creating an educational video is that you create it once, and it can be watched hundreds and thousands of times all for the same exact price. You can’t do that with any other form of attorney marketing.

2. You don’t know the first thing about making a video and getting it online.

This is a valid concern for many lawyers. That’s why you hire a professional who has experience creating attorney video. Let them do it all for you. This way, you don’t have to worry about the technical aspect of what camera to use, what lighting to use, how to work the wireless microphone, how to calibrate your white balance and sound, how to get that video footage onto your computer, how to edit the raw footage, how to add transitions, how to add graphics, how to add background music, how to compress your video, how to get it into the right format, and then how to upload it to the video sharing sites and how to optimize the video for the search engines.

3. You think online video is just for teenagers.

That’s pre-MTV thinking. Online video is watched by over 100 million viewers a month! Not just YouTube either. Video is key to market yourself. If you don’t get started now, when will you start?

My advice, don’t wait. Take that first step right now.

About Gerry

Gerry is a New York medical malpractice and personal injury trial lawyer in practice for over 20 years. He has produced and created over 170 educational and informative videos to help consumers understand how lawsuits work in the State of New York. Gerry created the Lawyers’ Video Studio to help laywers get onto video. To see how he can help get you onto video call him at 516-487-8207 or by email at lawmed10@yahoo.com- he welcomes your call.

Related posts:

1. 5 REASONS LAWYERS SHOULD CREATE VIDEO Educational online video is the best tool lawyers can...
2. 9 Reasons Why Lawyers Should Not Create Video You're tired of paying thousands of dollars per year for...
3. 4 Reasons Lawyers Should Create Video In this video you will learn four reasons why...

In most jurisdictions, including New York, you are not permitted to badmouth any other attorney. Nor can you compare yourself to another law firm or attorney by name. How then can a prospective consumer make an educated decision about which attorney is right for them if attorneys cannot objectively compare themselves to other similar attorneys?

If you haven’t guessed by now, the answer is with “Video.”
Video allows you to be yourself. It allows the viewer to see you, hear you, and begin to trust you before they even pick up the phone to call you. So how will that distinguish you from everybody else? Simple. Just be yourself.

In the “old days” a lawyer would distinguish themselves in the yellow pages by offering the following:
“Free parking,” “Easy credit card payments,” “Free consultation,” “No fee if we don’t win,” “We’ve recovered millions.”

After a while, all yellow pages ads said the same exact thing. From a consumer’s standpoint, it would be difficult, if not impossible to distinguish one lawyer from another simply from reading those ads.

Video allows you to explain.
Video allows you to ask questions and to answer them.
Video allows you to educate your potential clients. No other form of media allows you to do this as cost efficiently as video.

Conclusion:

If you truly want to distinguish yourself, get onto video today.

About Gerry

Gerry is a New York medical malpractice and personal injury trial lawyer in practice for over 20 years. He has produced and created over 170 educational and informative videos to help consumers understand how lawsuits work in the State of New York. Gerry created the Lawyers’ Video Studio to help laywers get onto video. If you’d like help getting onto video, give me a call. I can help you. If you simply need guidance and help with creating your own video, I’m available for consultation on an hourly basis. If you want an all in one turnkey system, I can do that too. What are you waiting for? Take that first step to star in your own video today. It will be the best return on investment you can make. I guarantee it.

To get onto video, call me at 516-487-8207 or by email at lawmed10@yahoo.com- I welcome your call.

Related posts:

1. CREATING ONLINE VIDEO FOR LAWYERS- Part 3 By Gerry Oginski, Esq. HOW TO DISTINGUISH YOURSELF WITH...
2. A Shocking Website Error Many of you know that in August I revamped this...
3. WEBSITE VIDEO FOR LAWYERS By Gerry Oginski, Esq. Problem: You have a website, but...

If you don’t ask a question, why would a viewer want to watch your video? What makes your title so compelling that either Google thinks your video is relevant to a viewer’s search terms or your viewer finds the video on their own?

Most videos are ignored because the title lacks any reason for a viewer to click and watch. How is your title different?

2. Answer the question in your video.

Before you explain how you can solve a viewer’s problem, give them the answer that made them click on your video in the first place. If you tease them and do not answer their question until the end, you will lose trust and your viewer will never get to the end of your video.

3. Explain why you can help your viewer solve their legal problem.

What does a viewer want from watching a video? They want answers to their problems. Obviously, you’re not giving them an answer addressing their exact problem. However, you are going to tell them in general terms how you can solve their legal issues.

Most lawyers neglect to do this, and fail to explain anything a viewer except to tell them to call them without explaining why.

4. Explain how you have helped another client with a similar problem.

Most people love stories. The story should be short, to the point and address why the story is relevant to the question and answer you describe.

5. Tell your viewer why their problem can be solved.

Your viewer is looking online for an attorney to help solve their problem. If you give them a reason to look elsewhere, they will. Simply telling your viewer to call you just because you’re a lawyer gets you nowhere. Most attorneys say that because their video producers don’t know what a potential client looks for when searching for a lawyer.

CONCLUSION:

If you want to be just like all other lawyers, then just follow the pack and do what other lawyers do in their videos. However, if you want to set yourself apart, follow my instructions and join me in the Lawyers’ Video Studio- you won’t be disappointed.

About Gerry

Gerry is a New York medical malpractice and personal injury trial lawyer in practice for over 20 years. He has produced and created over 170 educational and informative videos to help consumers understand how lawsuits work in the State of New York. Gerry created the Lawyers’ Video Studio to help laywers get onto video. To see how he can help get you onto video call him at 516-487-8207 or by email at lawmed10@yahoo.com- he welcomes your call.

Related posts:

1. 4 Easy Ways To Lose Lawyer Referrals As lawyers, we often rely on other lawyers to send...
2. 5 REASONS LAWYERS SHOULD CREATE VIDEO Educational online video is the best tool lawyers can...
3. Lawyers: Why Bother Creating Attorney Video? Lawyers: Why Bother Creating Attorney Video? Does your yellow pages...

I realized that a better way to use video was to educate viewers who were interested in the field of law in which I have specialized for almost 21 years now. Creating video has literally changed my life and the way I practice law.

I am a solo practitioner and have tried all the traditional forms of advertising; yellow pages, TV, newspaper, classifieds, display ads- all leading to wasted dollars. Video has allowed me to create one video that is available to a viewer looking for an attorney 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I pay the same whether that video is watched one time or 25,000 times. That’s an incredible form of marketing. There is no other method of advertising where you can achieve a similar return on investment anywhere.

I used to think up ethical ways to try and distinguish myself from other attorneys who compete with me in New York. However, nothing compares to video. Video is the key to showing how you’re different from everyone else. You get to speak directly to a viewer who is looking for an attorney. You get to capture their attention for a few moments while explaining how you can help them.

Over the last two years I have created over 170 educational and informative videos posted to my website and video sharing sites, to help online viewers understand how lawsuits work in New York. I receive calls every single day from viewers across the country who have watched my videos, thanking me for providing useful information that nobody else provides.

My goal in creating these videos was not to become popular. Rather, my goal was to educate people who had questions about medical malpractice, wrongful death and personal injury cases here in New York. You see, the other benefit of creating a video is that once you create it, anytime a potential client has a similar question, they can watch that video without any further repetition or additional effort on my part. Create it once, have it watched thousands and thousands of times.

One video I created called “Questions Never to Ask at a Deposition” has been watched almost 30,000 times. That, in my opinion, is amazing.

When I go to legal marketing seminars, other attorneys come up to me saying how much they really like what I’ve done using video. They recognize my face and my voice because they’ve watched my videos. They feel they already know me. Importantly, I didn’t create videos to be recognized at legal seminars, but rather to educate potential clients. Being recognized is a nice side-benefit.

Video is the best tool to market yourself on the internet today. It offers the best ROI and allows a viewer to get to know you before they ever walk in the door.

Creating video is fun for me. I enjoy the video shoot and importantly, the entire post-production process where I take a rough video project and turn it into a concise, clear, pointed message that viewers want to watch to answer their questions.

For more information about how I can help you get onto video, I encourage you to explore the articles here in the Lawyers’ Video Studio. I now offer you the ability to hire me as your consultant and guide you through the video process, or hire me to do it all for you (except appear in your videos) from start to finish. Give me a call at 516-487-8207 or email me at lawmed10@yahoo.com to get you onto video. I guarantee it’ll be the best investment you can make in your marketing today.

Related posts:

1. Lawyers: 3 Reasons You Should Wait to Create Video 1. Your yellow pages, classified ads, billboards, lawyer directories...
2. CREATING ONLINE VIDEO FOR LAWYERS- Part 9 By Gerry Oginski, Esq. Some incredible views Take a look...
3. Lawyer Video: How Many Times Are Your Videos Watched? Does it Matter? You upload your video to YouTube and every day watch...

Fact: Twitter is not the yellow pages.
Fact: Twitter is great for telling your followers something interesting.
Fact: Twitter is not great for telling us what you ate for lunch or that you’re going on a big date tonight.
Fact: A person in need of an attorney is not going to look for, or find you on twitter. Why not? Because that’s not what it’s for. It’s for having a conversation. It’s for talking about useful information. It’s about telling me you found a great article or video that I really should see.
Fact: It’s really not the yellow pages.

2. THEY THINK IT’S THE SAME AS A TV AD

TV ads scream at you. They say “Come to me, because I’m a lawyer and I’m on TV.” Many lawyers mistakenly think that Twitter is the same. It’s not. I cringe every time I see a tweet that says “Jim Jones, accident atty in my state. Call me at…”

I always ask myself “Why?” Why should I call them if I have a legal problem? Just because they put a useless tweet out there? No thanks. I’ll find someone who actually offers useful information.

3. THEY THINK IT’S ALL ABOUT THEM

Yellow pages ads are all about the attorney. “Look at me! Look at what I do. Look at what I’ve done!” TV ads are similar yet they rarely give you much useful information to help you understand why they are a better lawyer for you than the lawyer who just had their commercial only 30 seconds before yours.

Twitter isn’t about you. If you want to use it effectively, make it about your followers and what they want. Not you!

4. THEY THINK THAT IT’S ANOTHER TOOL TO REPEATEDLY DISPLAY THEIR NAME

Why do some lawyers think that by repeatedly posting tweets that say their name, their town and their phone number that someone would actually call them for their legal services? Frequency does not mean you’ll get business. In fact, I don’t know of a single lawyer who uses Twitter that way who has actually gotten a single client doing so.

5. THEY THINK THAT BY HAVING MORE FOLLOWERS IT MEANS MORE BUSINESS

This is such a fallacy. The concept of having more followers does not mean more business. Want to know why? If you have 10,000 followers, do you think they really care about your tweets? No. They just want to see their followers increase each day.

In my experience, if you have a core group of followers who are actually interested in what you have to say and you have actual conversations where you share information, you are much more likely to get a referral from one of those people than if you continually strive to get more followers who don’t know you and frankly don’t care about you.

CONCLUSION:

By learning to share information and actually pay attention to what others are tweeting about, you stand a much better chance of having someone send you a potential client than if you continue to talk and tweet about yourself.

Related posts:

1. Twitter-Should You Follow Someone With 70,000 Followers? I get requests every day to follow someone I have...
2. YouLaw review: Lawyer Warns About Facebook and Twitter Admissions The other day on Twitter someone commented on this...
3. Lawyers: 3 Reasons You Should Wait to Create Video 1. Your yellow pages, classified ads, billboards, lawyer directories...

Related posts:

1. Attorney Blooper #5 You’d think all I did was create attorney bloopers....
2. BLOOPER in the Lawyers’ Video Studio Here's a quick BLOOPER video that will have you wondering...
3. How Long Should Your Attorney Video Shoot Take? I was speaking to a FindLaw rep yesterday. I wanted...

If you really want to create a bond with your website viewer, you’ll skip the slide show and create a real, honest-to-goodness video of yourself. Using a real camcorder.

A viewer does not want to see non-descript photos, with some voice in the background. They want to see the lawyer, they want to hear the lawyer, and they want to feel confident that you know what you’re talking about. A slide-show animation with your voice in the background just doesn’t cut it.

Your best bet? Use the web to your advantage. Use the video; use the audio; and give your viewer what they want to see and hear. Doing that will far surpass any slide show.

Related posts:

1. YouLaw: Greenberg & Rudman, Glendale Car Accident Lawyer & Motorcycle Injury Attorney TECHNOLAWYER VIDEO REVIEW BY GERRY OGINSKI YouLaw: Greenberg & Rudman,...
2. The difference between a show and a story Here’s a great simple post by internet blogger Seth...
3. Gerry’s Video Tip of the Day (or night) Get your secretary or paralegal to do a video too....

Today’s video is an interview with Mark Merenda, president of SmartMarketing for attorneys. I had a chance to talk with Mark while vacationing with my family in Naples last week. I was impressed with his marketing strategies that he uses to help attorneys market themselves. Impressively, SmartMarketing has the reach and capability to help attorneys across the country, and not just in Florida. Watch the video to learn some of the best marketing tips by expert Mark Merenda.

For more Smart Marketing strategies that you can use in your practice, contact Mark at 239-403-7755 or by email at mark@smartmarketingnow.com.

Related posts:

1. Mark Merenda Endorses Video Producer Gerry Oginski When I sat down with Mark Merenda, CEO of SmartMarketingNow.com...
2. Video Marketing Tips for Lawyers: No. 3 @ Law.com Just published article #3 in a series of tips...
3. Gerry’s Attorney Video Tips at Law.com- This Week: Lighting Attorney Video Tips: LightingBy Gerry Oginski, Esq.Special to Law.comMarch...