Legal Marketing: Tips for Landing Video Projects with Law Firms
Looking to land more corporate clients for your video production projects? Consider learning the ins and outs of legal marketing.
Cover image via AMC
Corporate video is a well-covered subject on the PremiumBeat blog, as it’s a fantastic way for video pros to make money while honing their skills. One of the more lucrative spaces within the corporate video world is legal marketing. Law firms vary in size, but as a whole, they represent a huge industry in the United States and abroad.
With increasing competition and the new age of digital distribution, legal marketing is becoming more of a focus for even the “stuffiest,” most traditional legal institutions. This means video production is fast becoming an in-demand service, which can be quite profitable.
Let’s explore some of the types of video projects that exist in the field, as well as how you can distinguish yourself and your brand to land some remunerative clients.
Landing Page Films
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Law firms are built to be trustworthy and reliable. Of course, by their nature, they can also be very slow moving and conservative in terms of marketing, branding, and embracing new technologies. This is especially true for the larger firms that deal work with the largest of clients.
However, even the giant institutions are finally coming around to the age of the internet, and, as such, are embracing their websites and web presences to a much larger degree. For video professionals, this can be a good thing.
Most mainstream brands, which have been closer to the forefront of building their online footprints, have already done years of work in video projects. For law firms finally catching up to the curve, many are just now looking to define their video brands.
A smart first step (which can result in years of additional projects) is to work with law firms to produce their brand identity or website landing page films.
These are the videos which will appear on their website homepage, often used as a catch-all identity, recruitment, sales pitch video which leads a visitor into how to connect with the firm and learn more.
If you can get your foot in the door to produce a landing page video for a firm, you can position yourself as the firm’s de-facto video producer of record to further define their brand and work on all additional video projects in the future.
Client Testimonials
Video via Crisp Video
Law firms have also been less advertising and marketing-based in general because they traditionally rely more on personal relationships, recommendations, and word of mouth. If a firm services a person or client well, they are recommended and passed along to others.
From a video production standpoint, this can be another lucrative avenue for work. Client testimonials are a great way to give these recommendations (or “testimonials”) a polished look, and the final product is incredible shareable.
Award Videos
Award videos are another path to working with major law firms, as the legal industry is known for honoring itself every year with different awards, recognitions, and lifetime achievement ceremonies. In the past, a quick slideshow may have sufficed, but modern award ceremonies most always include video tributes to honorees.
Don’t think of these as “minor” projects with smaller budgets — think of them as perfect foot-in-the-door projects which can provide an inroad to legal marketing.
They also usually all need to be uniquely produced and tailored to each individual and ceremony, which can be a steady stream of work year in and year out.
Subject Matter Explainers
Many law firms (and solo practice lawyers) often focus on one main subject of expertise — intellectual property, family divorce, hail damage on cars, etc. In their crowded fields, they must work very hard to brand themselves as the “de-facto expert” on their subject matter.
A great way for these lawyers or firms to show their expertise is by producing short, in-depth explainer films in which they offer practical advice on these subjects, while encouraging viewers to contact them for more specific counseling. These can be anything from subject background information, specific client examples, or animated explainer videos.
How to Distinguish Your Brand
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So, how do you land these legal marketing gigs? Besides doing due diligence in terms of marketing yourself and reaching out to make connections, a good deal of work will need to go into making sure you’re the right person for the project. Here are some key elements you’ll need to define to distinguish your brand.
Exude Professionalism
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Above all, working in legal marketing requires the utmost level of professionalism. If you still operate as a film student or indie startup, law firms are simply not going to give you the time of day. The major, established firms build their reputations on being the epitome of professionalism — it’s how they land those million-dollar retainers. Unless you reflect their professionalism, they won’t let you reflect theirs.
“Presentable” Is Key
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Law firms are (usually) not the most fashionable of places. In fact, they’re usually the opposite, as their conservative trustworthiness is reflected in the absence of flash or distraction. While working with lawyers and their clients, you do want to put them in their best light (literally and figuratively), but you will always want to keep everything (yourself included) as straight-laced and presentable as possible.
Maintain Confidentiality
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A big tenet of the above-mentioned professionalism is a strict adherence to client confidentiality. Along with the external-facing video work, there are ample private and internal video projects in law firms that require 100% contractual confidentiality. Legal matters are not to be taken lightly — if you break confidentiality, you’ll be squarely in the crosshairs of the very people most equipped to notice such things.
Have any other tips or tricks for video professionals in legal marketing? Let us know in the comments below.
