An essential factor in any winning legal marketing strategy is a high-quality brand video. It’s not just our opinion, either — the fact is, using video can help you grow revenue 49% faster than you would without video assets.
Knowing that 64% of consumers make a purchase after watching branded social videos, and that social video generates 12 times more shares than text and images combined, how can you not dive head-first into producing a video for your legal marketing strategy?
First things first — every effective legal marketing video requires a plan. Once you have planned your video, then you can properly execute.
It is not only necessary to know each step involved in the process, but also how to properly execute every action. It is equally as important to educate yourself on the video process, so you can decide whether or not you want to produce your own videos or hire professionals who are experts in the field.
In order to make this process simple, we’re laying out the four main steps to producing a video for you. Get started with this information, then use it to decide what the best course of action is for your firm’s success.
- Use the Right Equipment
- Determine Your Shoot Details
- Edit the Perfect Cut
- Create a Placement Strategy
1. Use the Right Equipment
When producing your video, the equipment that you use will directly correlate with the quality of the video and the brand standards you have defined for your firm. Equipment, however, is not just limited to the type of camera you choose to shoot with.
The proper equipment required to produce your brand video also includes lighting equipment, audio equipment, and external accessories.
Yes — should you choose to, you could simply shoot your video from your smart phone and call it a day. However, in order to achieve a professional video that accurately reflects your law firm, a smart phone will not cut it.
Your footage should be captured with a high-definition camera, such as a digital single-lens reflex camera, or a DSLR. In addition, you will also need to have external lighting, mics, a tripod and a slider.
While this equipment can be expensive to purchase, there are also options to rent. If you choose to take the renting route, be aware that damaging or mismanaging the equipment can be a costly mistake. There is also a steep learning curve with video production equipment when it comes to creating your own videos. Using this equipment is not typically something you can just learn in a day. Having the expertise of a professional is highly recommended in order to save you time and effort, as well as ensure the quality of your video.
Ultimately, the most important factor when it comes to video production equipment is that you have someone available who is knowledgeable enough to operate it. A videographer must be able to determine which lenses, cameras, sound sources, and lighting options are most appropriate for a specific shoot.
Furthermore, any videographer that you hire needs to know what aperture, exposure, and film rates are most appropriate for the specific video that you are producing. Crisp Video boasts a team of expert cinematographers who handle the entire equipment and filming process, making it simple for all of our clients.
Your video does not have to cost tens of thousands of dollars, but it does need to be done correctly — whether your investment is $5,000 or $50,000.
2. Determine Your Shoot Details
Producing your video will require one big day for shooting most (if not all) of your content. There are many moving parts on the day of a shoot, but filming does not have to be an overwhelming event. In fact, it should be an enjoyable day that empowers you to capture the best essence of who your firm and your team truly are.
Here are some common pitfalls to avoid on the day of your shoot:
- Not blocking off enough time for the shoot.
- Lacking preparation for interview questions and content ahead of time.
- Forgetting to bring the release forms for those featured in the video.
All of these things can be avoided through preparation in the pre-production steps. Make sure that you have clear and detailed direction for the day. This includes a detailed schedule that outlines who is coming in at what time, who is talking about which topics, and what is being filmed when.
When creating this schedule, don’t forget to account for set-up and breakdown time. This is a critical mishap in the itinerary, especially when multiple locations are being filmed. You should always over-budget for how long any shot may take as a precaution for potential delays.
As a general rule of thumb, half-day shoots generally run four hours, which is adequate for a single promotional video or two testimonial videos. A full-day shoot of eight hours is needed when multiple videos with different content are being filmed in one day.
Proper time management is best achieved by following the storyboard that was created in pre-production. Straying from the story can create a snowball effect of changes throughout the entire day leading to a longer shoot or missed content.
When choosing who you want to hire to produce your brand video, you can guarantee avoiding pitfalls like these by ensuring that the production company provides you with a project manager to handle pre-production organization and day-of itinerary. This reduces the stress of planning everything on your end, and increases the likelihood of a successful shoot day overall. Every client that works with Crisp Video gets a dedicated Project Manager who partners with them to help showcase their unique value, coordinate production details, and handle the day-of schedule.
3. Edit the Perfect Cut
Your legal brand video will not be complete as soon as you’re done filming it. The process continues after that into the editing phase. Without video edits, you’ll be stuck with hours of video and nothing that really sells.
A great editor takes all of the video content and cuts it up to make it a short, cohesive piece that showcases your firm as the solution to your ideal client’s problems.
The amount of time required to properly edit your video relies on many factors, including the length of the video, the goal of the video, and the amount of raw footage that was acquired on the day of the shoot. The entire editing process can range anywhere from eight to 30-plus hours.
The editing process is typically not complete in one step, either. The footage must be transferred from the camera to the computer, and every clip must be reviewed to determine what is valuable enough to be included in the final video. The clips are then arranged in a format that accurately depicts the overall story. Video editors watch the footage numerous times to ensure they are telling an engaging story.
Once a cohesive story is put together, the clips must be color-corrected to maintain consistency throughout the video. Audio content must then be synchronized to the video, depending on the camera and audio source that was used for the shoot.
Once the audio is synced, editors clean it up to remove unwanted background noise or to create consistent volume levels throughout the video. An editor will also ensure that the video is properly synced to compelling music that contributes to the video’s narrative.
It is also important that you select licensed music that can be used for commercial purposes. If you do not have a license to the music you choose, then you are limiting the number of avenues that you can use to feature your video. At Crisp Video, we maintain access to a database containing thousands of licensed music options for our clients’ video needs.
The editing process can be one of the most daunting parts of video production. The softwares used to edit and the intricacies of video editing is an art that takes years of experience to master. Luckily, hiring a partner that specializes in legal video production to handle the ins and outs of this journey is easy.
4. Create a Placement Strategy
Once your legal brand video has been fully produced and you are happy with the final product, it’s time to put it on display. Choosing the most effective platforms for your video is essential to boosting your brand awareness and attracting the right clients.
Ultimately, there is no reason to produce your brand video if you don’t utilize it properly. By strategizing the best platforms for your law firm to use, you are able to ensure that your video is seen by the right people: your ideal clients.
Fortunately, one of the benefits of video content is the multiple platforms that it can serve. As the most popular form of content, users typically prefer consuming video over photos or text on any platform.
The most common platform for video content is a firm’s website, but it is also essential to showcase your video on social media platforms, in emails, through ads, and anywhere else that makes sense for your firm. You’ll want to position the video in the places that people are already searching for you, as well as in places that make you easily discoverable.
The next thing to consider when choosing the most effective platforms for your firm to use is your ideal audience, and which platforms they spend the most time on.
Leveraging your legal video can be done in many ways. To ensure the effectiveness of your placement strategy, you’ll need to set goals, measured by key performance indicators (KPIs). Goals will vary from firm to firm. Your goal may be video watch time, overall revenue, or anything in between. This will depend on your firm and the mission you’re setting out to accomplish with your legal brand video.
Tracking these KPIs will determine the success of your strategy. Tracking is crucial — at the end of the day, you paid for a great video, and it won’t mean anything unless it’s helping you reach the goals you set out to accomplish.
Managing your video marketing strategy, placement, and tracking is no small task. Typically, this is just as complicated as creating your video in the first place — and certainly more time consuming, since it is a long-term process.
Since these skills aren’t learned overnight, and more importantly, since you don’t have the time to juggle all of this along with the legal work you’re already stretched thin with, we’ve made it simple for you. With Crisp Social Stack, we saturate all of the major social media channels with your law firm’s messaging, while creating a massive reach to targeted prospects and ideal clients.
Final Considerations When Producing Your Video
Video marketing is, without a doubt, one of the most effective ways to convert prospects into clients for your firm. Standing out in the legal market is essential now more than ever. While there are many steps involved in creating your video and incorporating it into your marketing strategy, and it’s not typically a process one law firm owner can take on alone, there are many professional options available.
Whether you decide to produce your brand video solo, hire your firm’s own marketing team, or hire an outside company, you can make this decision confidently knowing that the correct strategies will boost your firm’s brand awareness and overall revenue.
Working with a professional video company can seem like an intimidating investment, but often, attempting to produce a brand video yourself can be even more expensive. Any mistake that is made along the way can create a much larger setback resulting in lost time and increased costs.
Determining the path that will be most beneficial for your law firm is not always clear. Book a free session with one of our legal marketing strategists today. They can help you create a plan to solve your firm’s marketing and business development challenges while developing a strategy for growth.
