You Should Be in Pictures!
The tide of video viewership has been rising for years now, but it’s crested in 2023. Video ranks as the most popular type of online content, expected to amass nearly 83% of all web traffic this year. Many people find videos to be highly engaging and seek them out in preference to articles. When you share information via video, you create connection because viewers get a sense of who you are based on how you look, speak, and move. And it’s sometimes easier to understand complex concepts via video because of the multiple ways information is conveyed.
So, should you be in pictures? Yes, and…
Video is an important avenue for marketing, but especially if your practice is business-oriented, you should continue producing written material as well as part of your business development strategy. There’s no either/or here: when you offer the same information in video and in writing, you significantly increase the benefit to your recipient.
Let’s take a quick look at three types of video you might produce:
- Professionally produced website videos: These high-production value videos are designed to be more formal and to convey information that doesn’t change rapidly, such as broad strokes about practice areas or discussions of representative matters.
- Short, semi-off-the-cuff videos that will build connection and position you as the just-in-time source of key information: These are short, conversational videos that present relevant and timely information in a manner designed to speak to your ideal client. Quality matters, and it’s especially critical that your lighting and audio is crisp so that your video is easy to watch and hear, but you can shoot these with a webcam or smartphone. Done appropriately, these short videos can set you apart when you know your business development contacts are likely receiving updates from other lawyers and firms as well.
- Video interviews: Like a podcast, you can use video interviews to offer conversations with relevant industry professionals. (You can even strip the audio and offer a podcast as well.) These videos require more planning but can be quite effective in positioning you as a well-connected, highly knowledgeable member of your field.
What do you need to understand to succeed with video as part of your business development strategy?
- Your clients’ demographics and psychographics. What interests them? How sophisticated is their knowledge about the topics you want to discuss? Fortunately, if you’ve created a business development plan, you already know this information, and it’s just a matter of shifting the way you use it. Before you create a video, ask who this video is for and why they’ll watch it, and keep those guidelines in mind throughout your production process.
- Your objective for the video. Do you want to convey information about your practice or your firm? Are you shooting a video to share information on a recent development or a legal concept that’s relevant to your practice? Know what you’d like the video to accomplish as part of your business development plan and be sure your objective lines up with the reasons a viewer take the time to watch your video.
- Your script. Your script forms the bridge between your viewer and your objective. Use your first few seconds to capture your viewers’ attention and establish why they should keep watching, and make your points clearly and concisely. A script or detailed outline that you can post near your camera will keep you on track. Practice before you press record.
- Bells and whistles. Add closed captioning to your videos so that a viewer can get the content without having to use audio. YouTube and several other platforms can automatically generate subtitles for your videos, and many third-party tools exist for adding closed captioning.
- Your distribution plan. As you build your business development video library, all videos you generate should reside on your website, and YouTube is the most obvious external option for distribution. Consider social media (LinkedIn most particularly, where video can make you stand out from the crowd) as well as your own newsletter distribution that might offer the same information in a video and in an article. You may even want to send the video directly to certain contacts. As always, you’ll want to pay attention to the results you get, in terms of viewing statistics (how many views overall, how many make timed stages, etc.) and direct response to you.
Video is a strategy that allows you to build a connection with viewers before you ever meet. Using video can help you to extend your professional platform and your reach. Take a few minutes during your next business development planning session to see how you might add video into your toolkit.
