Thank You Card

When we were younger, we were taught to be polite and say “Thank you.” It’s a kind gesture; an acknowledgment that you went out of your way to do something nice. A few years ago I saw an assistant store manager use the power of a ‘thank you’ in a remarkable way. My wife had gone into a Brighton store (handbag and accessories) and made some purchases. A few days later, upon our return from vacation, my wife was greeted with a beautiful, hand-written, detailed thank you from the assistant store manager. I was shocked.

That type of personal attention and personalized thank you typically comes from somebody who spends a ton of money in a store. I am particularly grateful that my wife did no such thing that day. Instead, she made a few ordinary purchases and was rewarded with an extraordinary response.

I got a new car this week and a few days later got in the mail a thank you from the car salesman who sold me my car. The envelope was handwritten and it had a real stamp on it. I opened the envelope and almost burst out laughing. It was a single piece of photocopy paper that had been folded in half and then folded again into quarters. It was something that my 8 year-old would print out from a 10-year-old computer program that would print out a little message on one corner of the folded paper and then again on another quarter of that paper. The quality of the paper was basic photocopy paper that was thin and flimsy.

The salesman simply scribbled his name to the preprinted message, folded the paper and shoved it into a small envelope. That was it. He was done.

Mind you, I did not expect a thank you note nor did it really matter to me whether I received one for my purchase. However, there is a big distinction between a cheesy thank you and one that takes a few moments of your time that represents a quality thank you. The difference is night and day. The thank you I received from the car salesman showed a total lack of creativity, interest and quality in the message he was portraying to a valued customer. On the other hand, the assistant manager who sent my wife a handwritten note on custom stationery created a lasting impression of someone who truly cared about her customer, even though the purchase was not that significant.

What’s the take home message that you can use when you market yourself to your potential clients? Instead of sending them a canned thank you for visiting your office, take the extra time to write out a personalized handwritten thank you showing them that you care. I think I’m going to take my own advice and get myself some new personalized stationery and make sure that every new client who walks through my door, whether I take them on as a client or not, will receive a handwritten personalized thank you from me.

To all those people who use personalized thank you’s, congratulations. It makes a difference.

Gerry Oginski, Esq., Founder, Lawyers Video Studio

You’ve made the decision to jump into attorney video to market your law firm online. You think you’ve found the right video production company. How do you really know whether the video producer is right for you? Let’s look at the basics first.

Experience

Clearly you want someone who has experience creating attorney video. That goes without question.

Quality

You want somebody who can produce quality video.

Knowledge of your legal specialty

You want somebody who knows who your ideal client is without you having to tell them. You want somebody who knows how to create content that converts online viewers into callers. You want somebody who understands why online viewers are online searching for an attorney.

References: You must make sure you ask for videos they have done and then go and watch those videos. Then call those attorneys and asked them what their results have been using those videos.

Video Metrics
Ask your video producer whether they track your video metrics. If they do, ask them whether they track which videos convert viewers into callers.

Legal background

Ask your video producer whether they are a lawyer. Ask them whether they are a trial lawyer. Ask them whether they are a medical malpractice trial lawyer. Ask them how they know what content to help you create if they are not a lawyer.

How do they market your videos?

Ask them how they distribute and publish your videos. Then, ask them whether they put your brand-new videos on their own website. Ask them whether they create a blog post about each of new video you create. Ask them whether they create an article about each new video. Ask whether they use Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to promote each of your videos. If they don’t, ask them why not?

Ask them how many videos they create just for lawyers

Many video companies create attorney videos part-time. Some are wedding videographers; some are college kids looking to make a few extra dollars; some are video companies whose entire focus is to create video for businesses, not necessarily for attorneys.

Your video producer is the most important element in helping you create and produce your online videos. In order to create good, effective and compelling video, you need a video producer who not only understands the law, but who can answer all those questions above. You need a video producer who recognizes why viewers go online searching for an attorney, and importantly how to make you stand out from the crowd.

If they only create attorney video, how do they help you distinguish yourself from other attorneys who handle the same type of law? The answers to those questions will help you make an educated decision about who your video producer should be.

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VIDEO CHANNELS FOR REALLY SMART ATTORNEYS

Want to see some of the cool video channels we create for really smart attorneys? Click here, the Lawyers Video Studio channel to see for yourself just one way we help attorneys stand out from the crowd.

1. Lawyers Video Studio New Online Newsletter-Dec. 10′

2. Want to Know What It’s Like Shooting Video in the Lawyer’s Video Studio?

3. Napoleon Hill Reveals the Secrets of Success

4. Lawyer Video Marketing: 3 Keys To Success

5. Lawyer Uses Canon T2i to Shoot 938 photos and 35 videos on Vacation

There you have it. My top 5 attorney video marketing blog posts of 2010.

Gerry Oginski, Founder of the Lawyers Video Studio

Have a great new year and I’ll be speaking with you in 2011!!

Best regards,

Gerry

Lawyers Video Studio New Online Newsletter Dec 10'

Learn how really smart attorneys use online video to stand out from the crowd. Learn what happened when an attorney lost all of his content right before we started shooting video. Find out how many videos Gerry Oginski created to market his practice this year alone. See a photo of Gerry’s new secret weapon he uses at every video shoot.

Click the photo for an immediate download!

Video allows you communicate with your viewers. It allows a viewer to get to know you before they ever meet you. It allows you to educate your viewer and it shows how you are different. Video allows you to establish yourself as the clear expert and leader in your field without you ever having to say “Come to me because I’m the one in this video.”

There is no other method of marketing for attorneys that is so effective, inexpensive and offers the best return on investment dollar for dollar compared to any other form of advertising media.

Your goal when marketing is to make the telephone ring. The the way to do that is to stand out from the crowd. The best and most effective way to do that today is with the use of video marketing. Lawyers who take advantage of video marketing today will reap the benefits in the years to come since video is the future of the Internet.

I’ve encountered attorneys from the old school who don’t believe that video should play any part in their advertising or marketing efforts. I disagree. Lawyers who neglect to get onto video today either have so many cases that they cannot handle or they simply don’t realize how effective video marketing is.

Lawyers Video Studio Sept. 10' Online Newsletter

In this month’s newsletter, we welcome four new law firms to the Lawyers Video Studio.
Learn how really smart attorneys are using video to market themselves today. Read about the newest law firms who recognize how important video is to market their law practice.

Click here to read the newsletter.

Read about 4 different ways I’ve used video in the last few months to market my own practice. Find out why you don’t want to be a videographer and learn all the technical mumbo-jumbo.

Click here to read the newsletter.

If you’re interested in getting onto video today I urge you to call me at 516-487-8207 or by email: Gerry@lawyersvideostudio.com. I look forward to speaking with you.

Corvette

I just don’t get it. I know that our blackberries, iPhones and smart phones encroach upon our personal lives. People use their mobile devices anywhere and everywhere they go. It is not uncommon to see a man standing at the urinal holding his Blackberry checking his e-mail. (Yes, I have seen this.)

Likewise, high-definition video cameras have gotten smaller, more convenient and easier to use. With the advent of the Flip video camera, the Sony Webbie, and the Kodak Zi8, creating good quality video is as simple as pressing the red record button. However, I repeatedly see videos of attorneys who create video while driving. I just don’t get it.

There is a time and place for everything. Most attorneys who are creating video on their own use these small little cameras to hold the video camera with one hand at arms length and start talking. This is the simplest way to create a bear-bones, quick and dirty video. Admittedly, many times the footage is shaky and the production values are often lacking.

But what’s the deal with creating a video while you’re driving? In New York, it is against the law to operate a motor vehicle while using a cell phone, except for emergencies. Hence the advent of hands-free wireless microphones or speakerphones for our cars. Aside from the multitasking that is associated with holding the camera at arm’s length, driving at the same time, observing the flow of traffic and negotiating other cars, you must keep up a stream-of-thought level of consciousness to create your video. The attorneys who create these videos fail to realize that the moving background is incredibly distracting.

These same lawyers argue that if they have some free time while they are commuting from one meeting to the next or from court back to their office, then why shouldn’t they use that time constructively to create an educational video message? Here’s my response: Use that time constructively to listen to marketing CDs from well-known experts. Listen to lectures and seminars on ways to improve your attorney marketing. Don’t create a message that may get you killed because of your multitasking while driving.

When you put that video online, the last thing you want is a distracting background of cars zipping by that takes away from your informational message. It is distracting. If you really want to create a two or three minute video while sitting in your car, then pull into a parking lot, tape your message, and then go about your day. This way you can show people that you’re a busy attorney sitting in your car on the way to some important event.

My advice: skip the moving car video and pull over. The last thing you want is a police officer to pull you over and tell you that you were driving under the influence of videotaping. That would surely make the front page news.

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog.

Want to learn how to use video to market your law practice today? Spend the next 58 seconds watching this video to learn more.

Have a great day!

You think you have the guts to create attorney video?

You think it’s simply a matter of standing in front of the camera and pushing the red record button? You think it’s as easy as pressing the ‘upload’ button directly to YouTube without editing? It might look easy when the professionals do it but I guarantee you that unless you have the desire, the time and inclination to learn how to do it really well, it’s not easy.

Admittedly, it has become much easier to find video equipment that is convenient and simple to use. We even have push-button video publishing which allows you to take your flip camera and immediately upload your content directly to YouTube without even editing it. Although it’s convenient, if you are attempting to create good quality educational video to market yourself online, I will tell you right now that that is not the way to accomplish it.

Your online viewers tend to be relatively sophisticated and they’ve come to expect good quality video as a standard. If your video disappoints them in any way from the outset, you can be sure they will click away, never to return.

How do I know this? Because I see it every day. I receive calls every day from online viewers who call me asking me to help solve their legal problems after they have watched my videos. I have spoken to them and asked them about other videos they watch online in order to make that decision to pick up the phone and call me. I have also become an avid marketing student of online advertising.

If you have the guts to stand in front of a potential client and explain the law to them, you have what it takes to create great attorney video.

Traditionally, attorneys have shied away from things they are not familiar with or were too technical. One of the big hurdles for creating quality video was the expense associated with getting a camera crew into your office or you going to a video studio to shoot your formal and often pretentious message.

A viewing public searching online for an attorney to solve their problem does not want to see stuck-up attorneys talking about themselves. Instead, they want answers, and they want them now. While I always advocate never giving legal advice in your videos, there’s plenty of other content to discuss that will show off your expertise.

Most video production companies that create attorney video are quite proficient at creating good quality video. However, none of them have an experienced medical malpractice trial lawyer as their video producer. If you haven’t read my blog post titled

20 Questions You MUST Ask When Choosing a Video Production Company

I highly recommend reading that when choosing which video company you should hire to create your lawyer video.

Most attorneys don’t want to be involved in the nitty-gritty of learning all the technical details of how the equipment works and how to get the video compressed and edited and up online. Instead, they simply tell me “Gerry, just get this done for me so I can go back and do what I do best; which is practice law.”

Lawyers who join my total online video solution learn how simple, fun and easy it is to create video to market themselves online. There’s nothing technical to learn. We do it all for you. All  you have to do is show up and start talking.

The real question is not whether you have the guts to get onto video. The real question is whether you have the insight to recognize how powerful video is and how powerful video will be in the future.

All the big Internet companies including Google, Cisco and YouTube strongly believe that video content will represent 80 to 85% of all content within the next three years. That is an incredible statistic. If you are not creating video today just think how far behind you will be two or three years from now.

Do you remember when websites were used by attorneys as static business cards because we didn’t know what to put online? Finally lawyers realized that they could use them to promote themselves beyond the standard attorney directory listing that everybody else was using.

Consumers and potential clients expect you to have a dynamic website now. If you don’t, online viewers seriously question whether you have what it takes to be technologically up-to-date to handle their matter. With video becoming the standard method of providing online content, lawyers who fail to create video content will become less relevant as your colleagues and competitors pass you by.

Want to learn how to use video to market your law practice today? Spend the next 58 seconds watching this video to learn more.

Best regards, and thanks for taking the time to read my blog.

YOUR TRAIN IS LEAVING THE STATION

1. Your potential clients expect you to be on video,
2. Consumers searching for an attorney want to see you and know who they are calling when they pick up the phone,
3. Viewers want to hear you and see that you sound intelligent,
4. Your consumers want to see where you work,
5. Online viewers want to see that you are an expert in your field of law,
6. Viewers who are searching for an attorney online want to know if they can trust you. Video allows you to generate and earn their trust,
7. Creating educational video is the best return on investment of any form of attorney marketing,
8. Within the next three years, Google and Cisco predict that 80 to 85% of all online content will be video. If you don’t start getting onto video now, you’ll be way behind the 8-ball and you may never be able to compete online with your colleagues and competitors,
9. Lawyers who have started creating educational and informational video messages are way ahead of the game since the search engines love fresh new video content,
10. Creating a series of videos allows you to systematize your content so that you don’t have to repeat yourself hundreds and thousands of times a week.

Lawyers need to embrace video. Don’t get left behind.

Want to learn how to use video to market your law practice today? Spend the next 58 seconds watching this video to learn more.

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog! Let me know if you have any questions about creating video with the only experienced medical malpractice trial lawyer who is also a veteran video producer. Call me at 516-487-8207 or send me an email to: Gerry@lawyersvideostudio.com. I welcome your call or email.

Want to get started? Give me a call at 516-487-8207 or send me an email to Gerry@lawyersvideostudio.com. I welcome your call.

Want to learn how I use video to tell the world about recent verdicts, settlements and new legislation? Watch this 58 second video to see how you can benefit from creating video.

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog.
Have a great day!
Gerry