Money for nothing and your legal marketing video for free?
Thursday, October 8, 2009 at 02:39PM 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.
Reader Comments (1)
Creating original content is not that hard at all. The standard of quality excepted on You Tube today is not the same as TV or other means using videos. Since it costs are very low, you can buy a flip camera for serious footage which is a hundred something or even use your mobile camera if you are shooting video for fun.
Cheers,
Mukul Verma