Attorney videos are gaining traction as useful online marketing tools. Videos can help provide prospects with answers to some basic questions about their legal needs. When people are searching for a lawyer, they are often also looking for answers and information, too.

In addition, videos introduce people to your firm’s personality. The most effective videos can help create trust with visitors. People often make hiring decisions based entirely on whom they like and trust.

Since you may never get a chance to try to win a prospect over in person with the proliferation of web-based research, attorney videos can help serve that function in your stead. Consider your video, or series of videos, to be both a critical link to visitors and a way to promote your firm through word of mouth in the absence of one-on-one contact.

Using video also increases your reach online. You can upload videos to your website and to YouTube, which allows you to then share them through other social media outlets. This increases the chances that others will share as well.

Step one in any video marketing effort – before starting any script writing or filming – is to lose all lingering Yellow Page-esque thoughts. A good video is not a brochure about you or your firm. Attorneys, often at the encouragement of marketing companies, have historically used videos to talk about themselves and their qualifications. You can almost hear the bulleted list in the script.

An effective video will speak to the client. It will give them useful information that assists them in making a decision about whether you can help them. The client, although it may seem counterintuitive, is not actually hiring you. They are hiring your ability to solve their problem. Your video must address this.

Once you are in the video making mindset, here are some tips for making the best of it:

Pay attention to lighting and setting. Your video's backdrop and lighting setup can be the difference between making you look like a professional or an amateur. If the production quality of your video is poor, people may draw unwarranted conclusions about the type of service you provide. Users are also less likely to share lower quality videos.

Write a script. You do not have to read a script word-for-word. Paying too much attention to a script can actually backfire, making you appear stiff or unapproachable. But at least write one out. Make notes about your most important points. Chances are, if you have been practicing for some time, you have plenty of useful information to share. Allow yourself to have a personality in your video. Show why you have a passion about your area of the law and how clients benefit.

Use calls to action in your video. At a minimum, include a phone number. If you are posting the video on YouTube, include a link to your website as well. This can be done throughout the video or - at least - on the final frame. YouTube also allows you to annotate videos, and the text you use for annotations is clickable. Take advantage of annotations to provide links to targeted pages on your website.

Gerry Oginski at Attorney at Work, makes an excellent analogy for attorneys thinking of putting together a video. He says, think about buying a car. You do not care how many cars the sales person has sold or how long he has been selling cars. That information is superfluous. You care about the car, and you care specifically about the details of the car that will help you make a decision.

Discussing the information clients’ need to make a decision in your video will help produce more results than a dry bio piece.

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