Creating outstanding educational attorney videos comes with practice. Below are seven ways law firms can start shooting better video today.

1. Start by identifying who your videos are for. In other words, video allows you to target your ideal client. You must strategize and figure out who you want to create these videos for before ever turning on the camera.

2. What should you talk about?

   Once you have identified your ideal client, the next most important step will be to identify what you need to talk about. Notice I said “need” and not “want.” These are two distinct things that will provide drastically different results for your efforts. Lawyers tend to focus on creating video content that they want, or video content that their video company wants them to create. This type of thinking is so wrong. Instead, you need to focus on content that your ideal client needs.

   Importantly, I’m not talking about giving legal advice either.

   Lawyers ask me all the time, “If we cannot talk about the law, and we cannot talk about ourselves, what can we actually talk about on video?”

   The answer is simple.

   Explain how things work.

   Explain how things work in your office.

   Explain what happens the moment a client calls the office as you process their case from start to finish.

   Lawyers are afraid to become transparent and show their consumers and potential clients what they do. It’s like belonging to some sort of secret society. Only the attorneys and the legal staff can get past that closed door. What’s hidden behind that closed mahogany door holds the secret to their case.

   How about being a little transparent and pulling back those curtains so that now consumers can truly understand what happens to their case once they come into your office?

3. Stop copying your friends & competitors.

   One of the key ways that lawyers can create better video is to stop doing what all of your colleagues and competitors are doing.

   That means no teleprompters.

   That means being conversational.

   That means no shooting video ‘off the cuff’ and winging it.

   The reason why so many attorney videos are not very good is because the attorney spends very little time preparing and practicing.

   Imagine this scenario…

   Imagine if you were to walk into court for a trial and tell the judge that you just got the file that morning and hadn’t spoken to your witnesses, hadn’t lined up your expert and barely read the medical records. What type of reception do you think the judge would give you?

   Importantly, what type of service are you actually providing to your client if that’s the case?

   How do you get to Carnegie Hall?

   Like with anything else, if you want to get really good at creating excellent attorney video, there is absolutely no substitute for preparation and practice. None.

   Every professional must practice and prepare in order to make things look simple and easy.

   I’ve dealt with many excellent trial lawyers who thought that simply because they could speak to juries so well that they could create video without having to prepare. Boy, did they have a rude awakening.

4. The video equipment doesn’t matter.

   Stop focusing on the equipment. Lawyers who are interested in creating video for their law firms are initially so focused on what microphone to use, what lights to use and what camera they should buy. That’s working backwards and not asking the right questions.

   The right questions focus on:

   What content should you be creating to attract clients and consumers?
   Understanding what creates a compelling message.
   Not copying what someone else has done, but figuring out what works for you.

   I see too many attorneys trying to copy what they believe to be a successful style of video.

   I will share something important with you. Failure to understand the psychology behind a particular video will destroy your ability to utilize it properly.

5. Tell your viewer what to do.

   Every video must have a call to action.

   These great educational videos are known as direct response, education-based marketing videos. You are not selling anything. You’re not pitching anything. Instead, you are educating and teaching your ideal client and consumer.

   At the same time, you still must give your viewer the opportunity to get in touch with you.

   Or the opportunity to get your book.

   Or the chance to get your free report.

   Or the chance to e-mail you something.

   You always want to give them an option to reach out to you to get answers to their legal problems.

6. Who are you?

   I see so many lawyer videos that fail to do this one simple step, it amazes me.

   So many attorneys don’t introduce themselves on video.

   Why would you ever do that?

   Actually I know why, but I can’t believe that attorneys allow that to happen.

   Think about when a new client walks into your office. What’s the first thing you do?

   You stick your hand out and you introduce yourself to your new client. Likewise, when you go to a party and meet someone new for the first time, what’s the first thing you do? You introduce yourself. Why wouldn’t you do the same thing on video?

   Many times the video company that you hire to create these videos don’t understand who your ideal client is. They don’t understand what compels a viewer to call. They don’t understand how significant the small psychological factors are in motivating a potential caller to form a bond with you.

7. How often are you shooting video?

   You must create video consistently.

   Whether it’s every month, every two weeks, every week or some other timetable, you must do it on a consistent basis.

   Simply throwing up a handful of videos every six months does nothing for your visibility online. The mantra of “throw your videos up online and forget about it,” simply doesn’t work. Instead, you need to keep adding to it consistently.

   Failure to continue adding video will make it much harder for the search engines to reward you for the great content you have created to market your practice.

Who is your video for?

Conclusion

These seven methods that I just described are just the tip of the iceberg that forms only one out of the three different legs of the stool necessary to create great educational attorney video and have it seen and published online.