Lawyers videos land biotech client

Stuart Wood of the Canadian firm Torys LLP writes on LawMarketing.com about the firm's efforts at vidcasting. They won a Marketing Initiative of the Year award for their videos.

Our main challenge was to produce videos that the fee-earners would be proud of, and that clients would want to watch. We hired a videographer to come in to film the fee-earners so that the videos would have a professional look and feel. Our fee-earners and marketing team agreed that the videos should maintain a conversational feel, and therefore, they should not be scripted; they should be kept short and the format should be simple, with no music and little graphic treatment.

Each presenting lawyer worked with the marketing group to identify the key questions that clients were asking. The videographer then asked each lawyer the questions off-screen and recorded the responses. Some of the fee-earners were more comfortable in front of the camera than others, but we were pleased with all the outcomes. There are limits to the ground that can be covered in a short video, but by staying focused on only a few points, each lawyer was able to present his or her thoughts effectively.

The videos earned Torys thousands of views and some press coverage. But the real payoff came from the sixth video (proof that frequency is important):

We later added a sixth video on life sciences. Cheryl Reicin, the head of our Life Sciences practice group, was featured in this video and made us aware of one client who contacted the firm as a result of this project. Cheryl’s email said, “A biotech company called to schedule a meeting with me last week. Today we met, and they are retaining us. The CEO wanted me to know that he learned about Torys through the advertisement we put in the paper for the video and that when he saw the video, he felt that the issues addressed were exactly the type of advice he needed. In other words, we have a new client solely as the result of all of your efforts! Many thanks.”