In the final installment of my three part series on using video in your legal marketing or law firm marketing program I cover the vital importance of being able to syndicate your content over the internet and into search engines.
Now many people are familiar with SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, in which some firm or internet guru comes to you and claims they can put you or your firm on the first page of Google results. The fact is many of them can, but it often is short lived and to stay first in search engine results requires a consistent buy of service, a coherent plan and a lot of work/money. Of course other firms get you there for a short period of time only to see after a few weeks your firm slipping back down into the back pages and almost certain obscurity.
What we have learned at The Legal Broadcast Network is that through the use of our powerful syndication package that our commentators and guests often jump up to the first page of both standard and video Google searches and stay there for a very long time. How we do this is of course some what proprietary and not something I care to share here, but the fact is that unless a firm has a coherent strategy to get their legal video or law firm marketing video SEEN, what is the value of spending money to produce it in the first place?
Check out today's final installment on The Three easy steps to success in using video in legal marketing and watch for next weeks series on Branding your Law Firm or Practice using video on the internet.
In part two of my three part series on using video as part of your legal marketing program, particularly videos related to law firms and distributed on the internet, I discuss the second secret, which is that consistency in how often you produce and distribute video is a huge part of your success.
Lets face it, the object of video is to get your firm noticed and located on the first page of Google results in your area of expertise or the geographic region that you practice in. With the coming expansion and favorable inclusion of video in standard Google and Bing search engine results the amazing value of having quality videos is going to be obvious to everyone.
However, not everyone is going to be able to get on page one of the search engine results largely because they either started to late or as this video points out, because they do not consistently post legal marketing video on a site that Google and Bing recognize as a quality provider of original content.
Take some time, watch part two of my series on the Three Easy Steps to success in legal marketing Video and consider starting a program of your own. You won't regret it and be sure to contact The Legal Broadcast Network studio and staff to learn how you can take part in our Feature Commentator program that develops and distributes these videos for you.
I have recently shot a three part series on using video in your legal marketing program that I'll be introducing each day this week. As you may have noticed, The Legal Broadcast Network is developing a wide range of instructional videos for lawyers, marketing professionals and others interested in developing video programs for use in an integrated marketing plan. This isn't an accident but the start of phase three of the growth and development of The Legal Broadcast Network as we continue to demonstrate our ability to develop excellent video content, place that content over a wide syndicate of affiliated and relevant sites and now offering our amazing search engine placement to a select group of commentators.
There is no question but that video search and search results is the biggest area of growth for lawyers and their marketing over the next three years. However, there is still a great deal of confusion as the best way to develop video, distribute it and integrate it into a cohesive marketing plan.
Toward that end I've developed what I call the three easy steps, each centered around a fundamental marketing principal, easy to execute and workable in budgets as small as $500 per month. If you look at the type of results we are talking about and the potential growth of this area of search, being late to this party is going to cost you a lot of potential clients and allow your competitors to run past you.
Watch the "Three easy steps to excellence in Legal marketing using Video" series and learn how you can build your own video search powerhouse and promote your firm and expertise.
Attached is Part one, The importance of quality video.
With only a modest apology to Dire Straits and the line about "money for nothing and chicks for free" that summed up the MTV rock video generation of the 1980s I often find myself singing a similar tune when I try to explain to people that the days of trade, barter and development are gone in the legal video marketing world. Successful, thriving networks no longer need to bring people on their shows for free to see if people watch, we have the numbers and growth to prove that they absolutely do!
Too often lately I end up having discussions with some of the long time friends and family of The Legal Broadcast Network about the economics of how quality video is produced, lit, shot, edited, distributed and the bandwidth costs associated with all of this. It takes talented camera guys, editors, writers and producers not to mention the internet and marketing savvy to distribute it throughout the internet and have it show up almost instantly in search engines and on page one results for video and other search terms.
While each organization has its own particular business model, the economics are the same for each, and for law firms, legal marketers, trial lawyers and others you need to grasp that this enterprise isn't cheap, but it is a mere FRACTION of what TV, cable, radio, yellow pages and other traditional methods cost, all with the potential to dramatically improve your image, search rankings, professional profile and to make the phone ring with new clients.
If you don't believe internet video is exploding in use check out these statistics:
*62% of Americans are viewing videos online. Youtube alone has 125 million active viewers.
*People aged 18-29, an amazing 89% of them watch video online and 36% of those watch it every day!
*TV and Cable viewing continues to shrink while web TV, video and other ventures are exploding.
*Video conveys emotion in a way that articles and text on your website can never match, which is crucial since people make most buying decisions for services based on emotion.
The Legal Broadcast Network has a unique model in that we produce original content news, commentary and information for lawyers featuring the lawyers that make the news. Those shows and broadcasts are owned by us and we shoulder the cost and reap the benefits, with guests coming from all areas of the law, academia, politics and finance. However, for commentary and channel shows LB Network studio sells production expertise, bandwidth and studio talent to help lawyers, marketers, educators, public interest groups and others to develop unique branded shows that showcase their talent, law practice, special interest or expertise at a fraction of the cost of producing it themselves.
This, for those of you who are not up on economics, is called leveraging our assets and talent and by doing it this way we can offer exceptional production and syndication tools to our clients at prices they can afford.
I share this with you as I am utterly convinced as a result of my work on both sides of our broadcast and advertising platform that lawyers who adopt video into their marketing and educational efforts are going to utterly dominate search results for years to come. All of this is happening at the very moment when law firms are facing tough times, credit line cut backs, reduced marketing and generally are pulling in the horns. My message is very simple, for those who spend the money and make the effort, the pay back in the years ahead is going to be astonishing and the firms who don't start now will spend 10 times as much a few years from now to try and catch up.
Obviously I want you to use Legal Broadcast Network as your partner, but even if you don't you have got to educate yourself, your firm, and your partners on the economics and VALUE of using video to market yourself to future clients, peers and prospects. I can assure you that others in your area of practice are already starting and the price to play catch up is many, many times the cost of developing a modest strategy now.
No it's not "money for nothing and your video for free" and firms like Legal Broadcast Network can't finance development deals out of our pockets, and quite frankly we don't have to at this point so why would we. However, the modest cost of creating your own commentary and video is so small relative to the return that much like that little beach house you could have bought in 1978 in Naples FL for $40,000 that is now worth $700,000, you will look back and wonder why you didn't have the vision to do what in your gut you knew was right.
I was going to entitle this post, the three secrets to achieving amazing results in creating, distributing and broadcasting your legal videos, but I decided why should I give the competitors who read my blog each week any more information then is already out there. So, in the interest of giving our "competitors" who create web videos for lawyers and charge them richly for the privilege of some equal time, I thought we'd spend just a few minutes and share the three biggest money wasters.
Go to one of the old line law magazines or their spin-off web sites and use their "affiliated" video firm.
Look, at one time these law magazines and web sites held a virtual monopoly on legal news, information, education and advertising. However, like all other forms of old media, that monopoly has vanished, but their high cost structure and old media pricing remain. I am here to tell you that quality video creation is not that expensive anymore and if you are being charged much more then $1,000 to $1,500 for a three hour session and finished video you are wasting ALOT of money. When I hear the prices being quoted by some of these old line firms to shoot 10-minute profile videos I don't know whether to laugh or cry. On top of it they post these on their sites where virtually the only people who find them are the friends and family of the law firms. Huge cost, no distribution, what a deal!
Go to one of the road show video creators that visit cities or conventions and "shoot you right there."
I have to tell you, I stumbled across the marketing plan of a few video creation firms that do road shows and conventions where they take a credit card and literally shoot you right there with 30-second and 60-second video profiles. They then take those videos, do the most basic of editing and then carpet bomb YouTube with these really horrible video infomercials. I would post them but I don't want to embarrass the attorneys who paid for these. Many have almost no editing, stammering lawyers, stock backdrops and are sadly a waste of the lawyer's money no matter how much they paid for these. If I were these lawyers I wouldn't want anyone to find these, let alone pay for them.
You find a great video creation firm but then forget that you have to DISTRIBUTE the videos across the internet and search engines.
It is the new media equivalent of the tree falling in the forest and no one being there to hear it. You build a beautiful profile video of you, your firm, your speciality and then you put it on your web site and maybe YouTube and hope someone sees it. If you don't have a distribution and broadcast strategy for your video you are wasting your money in creating it. However, if you have developed a video that is solid, it is a first step in the right direction. It is just that you need to take the second step and create a distribution and search engine strategy to maximize the value of that investment you've made.
In summary, look for a good video creation firm in your area that understands media creation and taping. The biggest obstacles are the "legal video firms" that tape you in the standard "lawyerly fashion" and make you look like some stuffed shirt and drop a bill of $4,000 to $10,000 on you for the privilege. Skip those people, look for a fresh approach and something the reflects who you are, what you are about and gives the viewer an idea of why you are the lawyer they need to call. Please, just stop wasting your money on substandard or overpriced video creation!
Finally, give us a call here at Legal Broadcast Network and discuss a distribution strategy for the videos you have created so you can start getting them viewed. No one can come close to our reach and search engine dominance and you can tap into it by discussing with our production team our Feature Commentator Program. The network is an open platform and you just need to contact us to see if you fit as part of our team of commentators.
Ok, it's a long headline but I wanted to get it out there so you'd read this post!
As our long time readers and fans know, the Legal Broadcast Network has moved from a great idea, to a start up and now is a full blown development stage media and broadcast company that provides not just some of the most original programming on legal topics, but also the very best search engine results for commentators and partners that access our platform.
I was so excited about a recent client and the early results of our Featured Commentator Program that I went in the studio and shot this video explaining how YOU, the attorney or legal marketer, can take advantage of our 1 million plus audience, amazing search engine metric and marketing partnerships for less then most of you spend on a car payment!
Look, I'm as tired as anyone else with the cost, mystery and false promises of internet marketers and search engine optimization firms. They have exploited some early knowledge of how Google and other firms reward "keywords" on certain sites and then teased and gamed results to move people to the first page of Google results. However, those results are usually temporary, cost a small fortune to maintain and worst of all don't make the phone ring! There is no mystery as to how to get solid Google results in video and standard search and this video about the Legal Broadcast Network explains how you can stop wasting time on SEO programs and start elevating your practice and moving to dominate your topic on Google.
You can get "The Perfect 10" but you just have to stop looking for the quick fix, magic bullet and instead take the simple steps in our program, follow them up with good commentary and partner with a network that can spread your content to viewers who want to learn who you are and how to work with you. Give the studio a call and learn how you can apply to be a commentator with Legal Broadcast Network.
We had one of our featured commentators in studio today, the internationally renown Theresa Erickson, who is the acknowledged leader in the area of surrogacy and family formation law. This is a fascinating area of law, particularly with the dramatic increase in women and couples who use surrogates or other non-traditional means of family creation and formation. ( Think Michael Jackson )
While she was in the studio shooting some additional videos I decided to take a look at her initial results as a featured commentator for us, even at this early stage when we are just launching her content and syndicating her shows and commentary. Attorney Theresa Erickson
I have to admit I was delighted with the results as LBN was once again able to demonstrate the amazing power of our search metric and how we completely dominate the area of Google video search on the topics we are carving out for our commentators. If you want to see just how completely Attorney Theresa Erickson is already dominating results just go to www.video.google.com and type in Surrogacy Law.
It's pretty amazing and it's only going to get better, although a 10 for 10 results on page one of Google is a pretty solid start, wouldn't you think?
The bottom line is that our Featured Commentator Program, as a result of our patiently building an amazing RSS signal and syndication network, is going to be a roaring success for the lawyers and experts who partner with the Legal Broadcast Network. If you are an expert in an area of the law, or an area of the country, you NEED to be in touch with us to learn how you might qualify as a commentator for the Legal Broadcast Network.
I was sitting here tonight going through some old emails and catching up on some writing when I was sent an email by my senior producer and the voice of Speaking of Justice, Scott Drake. The subject of the email was " Search engine results you can believe in", and it pointed out that our featured interview for that day, Attorney Stephanie Snyder in just four hours took her to page one in Google results for certain elder law search metrics on Google.
That was just based on the blog posting and once our studio staff pushes her video through our RSS feed for Legal Broadcast Network and syndicates it to the over 30 locations we share our commentators content with such as Itunes, Lexis Nexis and other third party sites she should pretty much own the term and search metric in one of the most competitive states in the country for elder law marketing.
What's my point?
It is pretty simple and that is that our studio and search engine staff have not only developed the ability to create dynamic, timely and high quality video interviews with national experts, but that we have one of the single best search engine results for our commentary that you can possibly imagine.
It never ceased to amaze me how firms will continue to pay SEO firms huge sums of money to trade links, juice up their web pages and essentially game the Google metrics for law firm search topics instead of simply creating high value content and placing it on a network to distribute it so that search engine results turn up RELEVANT material that is high quality and shows the attorney in a favorable light.
About 5 weeks ago I put up a post on this column with the intention of showing how easily search engine hits and traffic can be manipulated by blogs and gamed to accelerate traffic numbers. It was about Senator John Ensign and his affair with Cindy Hampton and it geared specifically to locating a picture of both Senator Ensign and Cindy Hampton.
It had next to nothing to do with anything here on the network, but simply using our RSS feed, hitting the Google image searches and having a relevant and original story was enough to slowly over the last 5 weeks build this particular post and image to one of our leading stories. My point then, as well as my point now, is how easy it is for blogs and "news sites" to drive traffic through careful story selection and knowledge of how Google search habits tend to work for people on topics.
So why bring this back up?
Simply to reinforce my argument and theory here at The Legal Broadcast Network that our numbers and means of measurement are not only more legitimate then most sites, but also the importance of customizing advertising and marketing plans for each advertisers, commentator and channel holder in order to make the phone ring. The days of just tossing up big traffic numbers, hanging a CPM rate on it and then gaming the traffic to maximize the dollars paid by the poor banner or advertising client must come to an end.
Think about it, our traffic numbers here at the network are almost at 1 million views, reads and listens per month with our growth accelerating as we add commentators and commence our marketing and start getting the word out about what we are doing here. Most sites would sell off that number and put a big CPM on it, but we are more interested in partnering with advertisers to customize the exact page, audience and strategies to make their phones ring with business. This takes time and creativity but ultimately results in a happier client and a more enduring business relationship.What good is a CPM number and traffic if the advertiser doesn't have measurable results to drive his business and justify the dollars spent?
I feel the CPM, bogus traffic model is doomed and recent results and attitudes of marketers seem to indicate that is the trend. The new model is crafting marketing and advertising that is very narrowly sliced, appropriate to the product or service and then developing a means where the advertiser and the broadcaster are treated fairly based on results.
Enough of the web games and tricks of SEO, lets talk about how to make your phone ring, how to drive business to your site using quality video content and measure that it is meaningful and relevant. If you want to know more about advertising with The Legal Broadcast Network give me a call at 800-924-2734.
While this video could clearly be considered somewhat self serving given my dual role as commentator and also chairman of The Legal Broadcast Network, I never the less felt compelled to put this short video together to discuss candidly why video is so essential for effective legal marketing.
Online video and commentary with The Legal Broadcast Network is one of the single most effective means of reaching your target audience and doing it in a timely, cost effective and simple fashion. I've grown exceptionally tired of the self promoting "video experts" who put together embarrassing videos that make lawyers look foolish, diminish their accomplishments and encourage them to either spend a huge sum of money for very little or to look ridiculous and "do it themselves". There is a better way, a simpler way and I believe we have put it into place here at The Legal Broadcast Network.
We will be rolling our out Featured Commentator package all during the month of August so you will be seeing a series of videos and informational blog posts on how you can stop being ripped off by big ticket marketing agencies who just want your money and don't care about search results, as well as embarrassing yourself with cheap do it yourself videos. The idea of online video commentary is simple; elevate yourself, put yourself in relevant search engines and don't waste a lot of time or money doing it. Work with professionals and be part of a network that actually gets your video viewed.
Think about it for a moment. Do you want to put your video on YouTube and HOPE someone sees it or be part of a network like ours where over 700,000 views, reads and listens a month across our platform will guarantee you that people will see it?
Like I said, this is the first of a series, so watch them all, take notes and contact our studio if you are interested. I know we have the best solution and value for lawyers all over the country, now it's up to you to take the step and get into the game.
Featured commentator packages with The Legal Broadcast Network are available starting August 10th, 2009.
Thursday, November 12, 2009 at 10:45AM 
