If you can’t handle criticism, don’t create video. It’s that simple.

Here’s what I mean. When your competitors view your videos, you’ll get some feedback. Some will be kind. Some will be less than kind. Some will joke about it. Others will ignore it. Some may openly criticize what you have created.

That’s good. In fact, it’s really good.

As Dan Kennedy says, if nobody is criticizing you, then you’re doing something wrong.

The way Dan explains it is that by doing something your competitors have not done, you are upsetting the balance of what is typically done. People are off balance. They see you are out of their comfort zone. They don’t understand what you’re doing and why.

Some are jealous. Some are curious. Some are frightened and scared.

Every once in a while I will get an email from someone claiming I have no right to educate my consumers. Sometimes the email comes from a doctor who has watched MANY of my videos. Other times, an injured victim just lashes out at the legal system in general.

Interestingly, I have not had a colleague or competitor openly criticize my videos, at least not to my face. I have had some people offer constructive criticism to make my videos better.

The first time that happened, I almost resented it. I thought that my videos were just fine the way they were. Then I realized that I still had much to learn. Once I recognized that I didn’t know all that there was to know, I became much more open-minded and receptive to people who voluntarily offered me advice.

In fact, instead of being resentful, I actually appreciated their attempts to make my presentations even better than they were.

The bottom line is that if you can’t handle criticism, don’t put your content online. On the other hand, when you realize how the criticism can help you and make you creatively better, you will understand how powerful those observations can be.

My computer had only 41 GB of hard drive storage left. I was trying to find out where I was losing so much hard drive space. The answer for me was obvious. Editing video takes up an enormous amount of resources on my hard drive. That is why I have multiple external hard drives.

However, when I upload videos from my memory card to the computer, they typically will go on to the computer hard drive. Once I began editing, that always gets saved to my external hard drive.

If you are editing your own videos, chances are good that your editing software will create backup files every time you make a change to your video. Those backup files will be large and will gobble up enormous amounts of hard drive space. When you process and render each video, you are doing so at the highest quality which generates an enormous file. Some of my rough videos are in excess of 1 GB. This is absolutely enormous and clearly not useful for the purposes of uploading online.

That is why you must use software that compress large video files without losing quality.

This morning I identified almost 60 video files that were sitting as backup files on my computer hard drive. Almost every one of them was 1 to 6 GB in size. That was the culprit.

I immediately checked to make sure I had final versions on my external hard drive. Then I highlighted all those extra video files and dragged it to the trash bin. That took all of 7 seconds. When I went to empty the trash bin, I gained in excess of 100 GB of hard drive space.

I felt like a tremendous burden had just been removed from my backpack.

Check your backup files to see which ones you no longer need. Caveat: make sure you have finalized your file first before you remove your backup files, otherwise your editing software may be searching for that file while you are editing and processing. If you discard it midway, you may have a problem.

If you choose to edit your own videos, you’ll need multiple external hard drives. Make sure the hard drive you purchase is reliable and has in excess of 1TB storage.

Lawyers Video Studio

This is a continuing series addressing video marketing myths…

3. Video is not cost-effective for a small firm

It was clear to me that this expert did not understand the production costs involved with creating a video marketing campaign. He did not understand the value associated with creating 50 or 100 videos. He did not recognize that once videos are online, there is virtually zero cost associated with having them online and using it to drive traffic to your website.

It sounded as if this marketing guru was using TV-based production to determine the cost benefit analysis. That type of corporate mentality inhibits big law firms from using effective and proven techniques to generate traffic.

As a solo practitioner, video marketing has created the best return on investment for me. I did allude to some of the cases I have obtained because of my video marketing. In response, he justified the fact that my website was well optimized, that my videos were well optimized and that my particular niche is better suited for business to consumer video than his corporate attorneys.

Once again, I felt like it was talking to a brick wall. Despite pointing out that video marketing works for every niche category in law, this marketer was resolute and firmly believed that the return on investment for a small firm would not justify the expense.

After a while, I stopped participating in the discussion. I recognized instead that this was an opportunity for me. The opportunity is that they are many legal marketers with a corporate mentality who actually believe this stuff. That means that there is plenty of room within the video marketing community to help other lawyers who truly “get it” and use it to their advantage.

4. Viewers to our website do not watch these videos

This marketing guy actually cited statistics showing that people who came to his lawyers’ website were not watching the videos. I am proud that he was tracking his statistics. However, in my opinion he does not understand the purpose of creating video to market a law firm online.

The purpose of creating educational video is not to get viewers to watch the video on your website. Instead, the purpose is to get people to see you, hear you and begin to trust you before they ever pick up the phone to come into your office. By educating them through video, on video sharing sites, your goal is to then drive them into your website so they can become even more familiar with you.

The bottom line goal of creating these educational messages is to build trust and to convert an online viewer into a caller. Using video messages happens to be the best way to do that.

This discussion thread clearly suggested that the majority of people going online already know your name and your law firm and are going onto your website to learn more about you.

I didn’t want to tell him that he was wrong. Nor did I want to remind him that online viewers who are searching for an attorney online simply do not care about you or your law firm. The only thing they care about is themselves and their legal problem.

If you can get rid of the egocentric mindset that is so prevalent among lawyers and legal marketers and instead focus on how you can help potential client, you are much more likely to attract viewers and visitors.

Join me in my next blog post as I conclude this series of video marketing myths.

For those of you too young to know what carbon paper is, every time you put the initials “cc” that means carbon copy. Where did that come from? Many years ago before there were copying machines, lawyers had to insert a piece of carbon paper in between two sheets of paper. By writing on the top page it would leave a carbon imprint of exactly what you were writing on the second page. Do you know anybody who uses carbon paper today? The answer is obviously “No.”

With the advent of copying machines carbon paper went the way of the dinosaur.

Do you still use manual typewriters in your office? Five years ago, we still used a manual typewriter to fill out forms.  That too has gone the way of the dinosaur.

Lawyers who refuse to change become obsolete. In order to be successful in today’s economic climate attorneys must adapt. Failure to do so will make you extinct just like carbon paper, manual typewriters and dinosaurs. You need not utilize every new shiny gadget. However,if you do not take advantage of the best way to communicate with your ideal clients, recognize these important truths:

1. Your competitors will gain a huge competitive edge over you, and

2. Your clients expect you to be using the newest technology to communicate with them. If you fail to live up to what your clients expect, you and your law firm will go the way of the dinosaur.

What does this have to do with video marketing for lawyers? Everything.

What is the best way to communicate with your online viewer who is searching for an attorney? It’s not with text based articles. It’s not with flash animation. It’s not with a PowerPoint presentation. It’s not with the CLE lecture. Instead, it’s with an educational video message to teach your client things they did not know before.

Want to learn how to be on the cutting edge and get viewers to like you and trust you before they ever meet you? I encourage you to explore the articles here on my blog. If you want to learn how you can create an entire video library to market your law firm, I encourage you to pick up the phone and schedule your free marketing strategy call with me by contacting Kathleen at 1-800-320-4314 or by e-mail: Kathleen@lawyersvideostudio.com. I welcome your call.

This is not your kid's FLIP video camera

The battle rages on.

In today’s article we explore PRODUCTION

When shooting a TV commercial, an attorney typically has two choices:

(1) Go to a TV studio or

(2) Have a video production crew come to their office

A TV studio is a controlled environment where the team can control all aspects of audio, lighting and video quality. A green screen is often used. The attorney’s office is different and the first thing that needs to be evaluated is where the commercial will be shot within the office. Audio concerns arise; heating, ventilation and air conditioning are an audio perfectionist’s nightmare.

Lighting is limited by the space available. Most TV production gear is big, heavy and expensive. Video quality is an important point and guided by production-quality gear. The equipment the TV production team uses is not your FLIP camera.

The online video lawyer also has options. Go to a studio or shoot video in your office. Things to think about when deciding upon a video studio:

• Location of the studio,
• Length of time you’ll be ‘renting’ the studio,
• Whether to use green screen and if so, what image(s) you will use in your background
• Cost to travel to and from studio

Things to consider when shooting video in your office:

• Size of your office
• Whether you’ll be shooting during the day, on the weekend or at night
• Whether your office is clean enough for viewers to see
• Learning why your online viewers want to see where you work
• Video equipment is typically smaller and lighter than TV production equipment
• Lights are usually fluorescent soft boxes
• Camera can be a dSLR or a high-definition camcorder

The TV ad lawyer CANNOT create a TV commercial on his own. He needs a producer and a crew to operate the equipment and create the broadcast quality commercial. He also needs a team to buy airtime and placement of the commercial. You must have an experienced team to get the best bang for your buck, like Network Affiliates and the grand-master of TV marketing for lawyers, Harlan Schilinger. I’ve gotten to know Harlan really well, and I can tell you that he is one of the smartest guys in the TV ad lawyer business.

The online video lawyer can do it all himself. All he has to do is learn how to be a great videographer, an excellent video editor and a knowledgeable video publisher; all while practicing law at the same time. Having said that, it’s possible to do become an online video lawyer on your own. You just need a lot of time, patience and a great desire to do it all yourself.

The more important question you ned to ask is “Whether you SHOULD do it all yourself,” or “Whether it’s more cost and time-effective to hire an experienced video production company to do it all for you.”

Join me in this continuing series that explore the two sluggers of lawyer marketing: TV commercial versus Online video. Have a prediction on the winner? Tell me below and importantly, tell me why.

Lawyers Video Studio, TV Ads v. Online Video, THE BATTLE IS ON

The battle is still on.

PLANNING & PRODUCTION

The TV lawyer knows he wants a commercial that tells the world he’s experienced and has the ability to handle certain types of cases. He must rely on the TV producer to help him create a script that highlights the purpose of the ad, shows viewers they can do the job and then give a call to action which tells a viewer what they should do next.

The TV lawyer has lots of examples to choose from since so many attorneys advertise on TV. There are many formulas and templates to choose from. Pick a topic, explain you have experience and tell your viewer to call. That’s the formula. It’s been known to work.

The time to create one 30 second TV spot takes approximately 3-4 hours. There are attorneys who create three TV ads in one day and it takes them 8 full hours to accomplish! That’s using a script too. That’s a long time to get 3 fully edited 30 second TV ads.

The online video lawyer has an unlimited supply of content to use for their videos. There are no hard and fast rules using online video. It’s almost like the wild west. However, as with all attorney marketing, the attorney is responsible for staying within their States’ ethical guidelines, no matter what media is used.

The online video lawyer can be as creative as he or she chooses. There is no template, although there are proven formulas that work that are dramatically different from the TV ad formula so commonly seen in lawyer commercials.

The video lawyer must understand their online viewer in order to know what content to create in their video. This is the most critical component of creating online video. If the lawyer fails to understand their online viewer, their content and their message will not be watched. The reasons why someone will watch an online attorney video is distinctly different from the reasons why a viewer will watch a TV lawyer ad. Again, if the lawyer does not understand these differences, they will waste much of their time and financial investment.

The online lawyer typically has no idea what a viewer wants to watch. They will often revert to cliche and hackneyed phrases we are loathe to hear. “Injured? In an accident? If so…”

“Have you taken the drug Avandia? Have you suffered any of the following ailments after taking this drug? If so…”

The Message is Vital

The TV lawyer has to talk about himself and his law firm. The TV ad is all about “Me, Me, Me.”

The online video lawyer only talks about “You, You, You,” and how he can help solve YOUR legal problem.

Join me in the next article as I continue our blow by blow examination of these two sluggers. Predictions? Please leave your thoughts below and let me know your predictions about the ultimate outcome of this battle.

Lawyers Video Studio; TV Ads v. Online Video

The battle is on.

In one corner…Lawyers with TV ads.

In the other corner…Lawyers using online video.

The TV ad lawyer weighs in as the big gorilla in the room. The oldest form of lawyer advertising around. It’s an oldtimer with proven results.

The online video lawyer is a newcomer; a relative lightweight packing a powerful punch.

The TV lawyer has 30 seconds to tell his viewer why they should come to them. He has 30 seconds to show gory accident pictures, sounds of sirens and repeatedly tell his viewer their 1-800-Call-me-now phone number.

The lawyer online has an endless amount of time to tell his viewer anything he wants. He has plenty of time to explain to a viewer things they need to know. An attorney on video has the opportunity to develop trust and form a personal relationship with his viewer.

Cost:

Running a TV campaign is expensive. Being on the same prime-time slot every day costs a lot of money. Creating multiple 30 second commercial spots is prohibitive for many attorneys.

Creating an online video library is a fraction of the cost of a TV ad campaign. Once your video is produced and online, it can be watched 24 hrs/day, 365 days/year without any additional cost at all. It can be watched 10 times or 1 million times, all for the same exact cost of zero dollars.

The TV lawyer must create an ad and distribute that message to people who, for the most part, do not need their legal services at that moment. These people are NOT looking for an attorney at that moment. Rather, they just happen to be interrupted from their viewing pleasure by someone who may have answers to their supressed questions.

An online video lawyer on the other hand creates a targeted, laser-focused video addressed directly to someone searching for that information. That video is watched only by someone who is specifically looking for information on that topic.

A TV lawyer must pay every time their ad campaign runs. Depending on the time of day, the frequency with which it airs and the number of times it airs per day as well as which channels it will be on, determine to cost for the campaign.

Most TV lawyers have call-in centers when running multiple campaigns. Online lawyers have virtual assistants answer calls and emails from prospective clients.

The TV lawyer’s ad runs only at a given time slot on a given day. The online video lawyer has their video played all day, every day, whenever someone searches for and finds their information.

The TV lawyer has no time to explain to a viewer why they’re any different from the next lawyer who does the same type of work. An online video lawyer has 2-3 minutes to teach their online viewer about the topic they’re talking about and never needs to explain to a viewer why they’re different. The reason? It’s clearly apparent in the explanation.

Join me for the next article when these two sluggers battle it out and I provide a blow by blow color commentary.

Lawyers Video Studio Team; Harry Brockman, Gerry Oginski, Kathleen Brockman, Scott Pruitt

I returned from a fascinating legal marketing seminar hosted by AVVO a few weeks ago, where I was speaking about video marketing. Everybody at the seminar wanted to find a way to improve their search engine optimization to get more traffic to their website. However, if a viewer arrives on your website and you are unable to develop a personal relationship, all of your efforts will be wasted. Naturally, I do not mean creating an attorney-client relationship. Rather, a personal relationship.

The best way to do that is with video. Using video, a viewer gets to see what you look like; they get to hear you and if you have useful content and information, they begin to trust you.

Lawyers who think they can convert an online viewer into a caller without developing a personal relationship, doesn’t recognize what a viewer looks for and why. Understanding that concept will change your entire perspective marketing online and off-line.

The referral relationship

Think about why you get referrals from people you know. It’s because of your relationship with them. If you did not have a relationship with your referral source, there would be no reason or incentive for that person to refer a potential client to you. If you leave out the ‘relationship’ component of your marketing, you will miss an incredible opportunity to connect with your online viewers.

If you can develop a personal relationship and have people get to know you before they ever come in and meet you, you’ve done something that we, as attorneys, have never been able to accomplish before video became so prevalent.

Develop the relationship. It works.

NY Medical Malpractice Trial Lawyer, Gerry Oginski

I’m not talking about the domain for this blog, http://lawyersvideostudio.com. Instead, I’m talking about my medical malpractice domain http://www.oginski-law.com. That is the center of my online universe. It’s an established website with thousands of pages of content.

My gut reaction was “No way would I ever sell my main website.” I was  actually offended that someone would want to buy my personal domain.

Putting aside the ethical issues for a moment of having a non-lawyer own a lawyers web domain,  I began to ask myself, “Why would an entrepreneur want to buy a lawyer’s website?”

The answer is simple really. He wants to make money. He wants to monetize a site that is getting good traffic. He wants to benefit from somebody else’s knowledge, expertise and hard work. Plus, he’s willing to pay a good price for it too.

That prompted me to go into my analytics and look at my most recent statistics. I had not looked at my stats in a few weeks.  6,800 unique visitors this past month. Those are not “hits” or page views. These are people who came to my site and watched my videos, read my content, read the articles, free reports, blog posts and much more.

That number clearly pales in comparison to popular websites, news sites and video sharing sites. However, for a lawyer’s website, it’s actually pretty awesome. Especially in a field of law where we market to people who don’t necessarily need our services at this moment. I’m confident that the number of viewers next month will dramatically increase once again.

Getting back to the troublesome ethical issue of having a non-lawyer own a lawyer’s website, it brought me back to the old rule  in New York that says a non-lawyer cannot own any part of a law firm. my website is simply an extension of my law firm. Ethically, I do not believe a non-lawyer could own a lawyer’s website.

Having clarified that in my mind, I quickly began to think “How much would my website actually be worth and what inherent value doesn’t have?” The possibilities are endless.

Let me hear your thoughts about how you think someone could value your law firm website from both an economic standpoint and a goodwill standpoint. I’d love to hear what you have to say.  My reply to the offer to buy my domain: “Thanks, but no thanks.”

“Objection, your honor…he doesn’t know how to create video on his own!”

Lawyers love making objections. Watch the video to learn about a common objection to hiring an experienced video production company and see why their objection is OVERRULED. (And there’s no right of appeal either!)

To get onto video today I urge you to pick up the phone and schedule your free consultation with me at 877-789-9163 or by e-mail at kathleen@lawyersvideostudio.com. I welcome your call.