Posted by Lisa Middleton, head of communications and marketing at Legal Futures Associate mmadigital [1]
[2]Online video viewing is going through the roof
This is the third in our series looking at the digital trends of 2015 and how they will affect law firms.
Having looked at the need to go mobile [3], and at content marketing [4], now it is time to consider video.
Online video has been a continually growing industry for the last few years, but research has revealed its true value. Statistics from Socialfresh.com say that videos on a website landing page increase conversions by 86%. With two million legal searches on Google every day, making sure your website stands out is hugely important.
The comparemyfirm.com [5] website from mmadigital, which looked at the websites of the top 200 law firms in the country, found that 90% did not have video content on their home page.
Figures from Google on YouTube content in December 2014 showed that people chose to spend nearly one billion minutes watching the top 10 ads on YouTube this year. The most important word there is ‘chose’. Brands are making content that people want to watch, and people go to YouTube to tune in.
In the last year, creating video via social media platforms such as Vine and Instagram has been popular, but for firms looking to connect with other companies, YouTube is seen as the essential video platform. Twitter is set to launch its own video filming and editing platform this year, offering posts of 10 minutes.
According to eMarketer, it’s estimated that in the US, video consumed on any digital device will pass around 200 million in 2015, making up two-thirds of the entire population.
These are the key videos law firms should be looking at utilising in 2015:
Explainer videos
Law firms should be looking more towards creating relevant, useful content in 2015 for both consumer-led marketing and business-to-business communications. Explainer videos are a great way to put into simple, short, personalised context an issue affecting people, businesses or the legal industry, such as dealing with an employment law issue or advice on clinical negligence.
According to Dr James McQuivey of Forrester Research, one minute of video has the value of 1.8 million words and comScore, which measures online engagement and use, says more than 45% of internet users view at least one video online over the course of a month. The need to go mobile links directly with video as people look for advice and information in bitesize, easy-to-use chunks while on the go.
The infographic video
Infographics have become hugely popular and these can be animated to create informative, visual and easy to absorb films. In addition, the stats that you use in your videos can help support your content marketing and PR strategies by creating a white video, like mmadigital used when it launched its comparemyfirm.co.uk website.
Infographics are an easy way to convey statistics and provide information in small visual sections, so why not use this in video too?
Video blogs/vlogs
Customers are looking for a personal, relevant and useful experience, and law firms have a prime opportunity to do this through digital marketing using video. Making sure your brand is the one a customer connects with to increase conversions online means investing in what people want in terms of information, advice and experience, so video is a perfect medium.
With the wearable device market set to become huge in 2015, people can and are becoming more choosy about the brands they interact with or want to receive updates from. When it comes direct to your wrist, your contacts or followers want to know that the push notification they receive will be relevant or interesting. So creating video blogs talking through a key issue, new legislation or highlighting the work of your firm, are a great way to create personal, shareable content using a medium that continues to grow in popularity.
A Forbes survey of executives found 75% watch work-related videos on business websites at least once a week, with 50% watching on YouTube. And it works: 65% visit the marketer’s website after viewing a video.
Retention of information is strong by video too, with figures from the Online Publishers Association suggesting that 80% remember a video advert from the last 30 days and 46% of those took action after viewing it.
So, in the words of Take That, it only takes a minute to fall in love. Help a customer fall in love with your firm by using video in 2015.