Video marketing for law firms: how to develop a successful video campaign and why it's essential to the marketing mix.

• Author: Orton, Linda Sedloff

Most marketers know that B2B and B2C companies have been using video marketing to distinguish their business and products for quite some time. Over the last few years, video marketing has exploded and forever changed the face of online marketing and the Web experience.

However, most law firms are still in the inception stages of video creation and distribution, catching up to their clients in both the creative and technological aspects. Producing basic video content may be acceptable for a regular blog post, or for a video on YouTube showing your Summer Associates' bowling night. However, like all the marketing tactics your firm implements, a video will paint a picture of your firm, your professionals and your approach to clients. If the video looks sloppy, sounds poor or looks hastily thrown together, people may assume it is representative of your firms work. Law firms need to create video as they would any other professional marketing project, with care and intelligence.

Video can enhance traffic to a firm's website and serve as a destination. Additionally, video can be used as a marketing tool, independent of the location on which it resides. Either way, brand marketers surveyed and data analyzed from websites in Q2 2010 show continued increased investment in online video and mobile initiatives.

This article will present the following:

1. The latest statistics and research on the general video marketing industry from BrightCove and statistics for professional services use of video marketing from Muzeview Competitive Intelligence

2. A mini-primer for creating excellent video content

3. Samples of best-in-class business use of videos

4. Overview on analytics tools

   Let's get started.

1. What follows is research on video from Bright-Cove & TubeMogul's Online Video and the Media Industry Quarterly Research Report for Q2 2010. Data is from 2,000 news and entertainment websites representing 3.4 billion video streams.

   More than 65 percent of brand managers show that the primary focus of their online video activities is to increase awareness of the brand, followed by lead generation and then e-commerce. Nearly 60 percent said they intend to invest in online video in the next 12 months. Seventy percent said they intend to add mobile video to their marketing mix. People who find marketing video via Facebook and Twitter have the longest viewing times, (1:24 minutes), while traffic coming from Yahoo and display ads tied for the shortest times.

   Video...