Storyfarm New Media's small headquarters in Canton's Emerging Technology Center consists of two desks and video recording equipment stashed in a corner. But the space is downright palatial for founders John Sherman and Beau Kershaw.
Locally, lawyers are a bit behind their counterparts across the country in using online video marketing, according to those in the business. Mark Glova, the local client development consultant for Findlaw, estimated that one-fifth of his clients have online video, compared to more than 30 percent of Findlaw client's nationwide.The spots are designed to supplement a website's text, not supplant it. This allows lawyers to make a pitch to viewers with their bona fides visible elsewhere, Kershaw said as he edited a video for a client."Too long we've erred on the side of caution that too much information is a dangerous thing, he said. "There's a tremendous need for information.""I liked the idea they were guys who cut their teeth in the real world," he said.The van belonged to WBAL-TV, where Sherman and Kershaw's reporting won the Peabody Award and a handful of Emmys that sit on an office shelf. Now the duo are using their combined 28 years of news experience to help lawyers and other professionals market themselves through online video.In Stecco's case, filming took less than an hour. Sherman and Kershaw rearranged the furniture in his office to create the interview space. Stecco reviewed the video two days after it was shot, and the final product was ready in less than a week."People are not looking for TV commercials," said Zimbalist, whose company has a handful of clients in Maryland and hundreds across the country. "It's not what one guy does versus another. It's who they are."In fact, Sherman conceived the idea for Storyfarm two years ago after searching online for a doctor. The sea of text and photos he encountered lacked a personal connection he was looking for, which Sherman felt he could create using his reporting background."Do you want to know all of the specific areas of law they practice or why they became a lawyer?" he said."You need to want to do it and need to come across as relatively comfortable doing it," she said."Baltimore is still on the cusp of leaving the Yellow Pages and fully committing to an online marketing campaign, but we are trending in that direction," he said.David Zimbalist, director of marketing and sales for FacesMedia in Boston, said the videos reflect the proactive nature of Web advertising, where prospective clients seek out lawyers, not vice versa."If we can spend seven years in a van together, a 382-square- foot office won't be a problem," Sherman said with a laugh.Carlos G. Stecco, a Pikesville solo practitioner, met Kershaw during a Maryland Association for Justice event. He had been thinking about adding a video component to his marketing and knew Sherman from television.UnscriptedShe added, though, that Storyfarm made it easy for her to feel comfortable.Storyfarm client Linda M. Schuett agreed.Videos also keep viewers on a website for minutes at a time, an eternity compared to the 30 seconds or so most people will spend on a site without a video, said Irwin R. Kramer. A partner in Kramer & Connolly in Owings Mills, he is also executive producer of the Legal Television Network, which provides more than 100 informational videos that users across the country have posted on their websites through the CLIENTELEVISION brand."The future of video is the Internet, not antenna," Sherman said. "Every website is like a TV station."Schuett, a partner with Linowes and Blocher LLP in Annapolis, acknowledged that the advertising strategy is not for everyone.Not surprisingly, the duo's videos have a news quality to them. The lawyers never look directly at the camera, for example, because looking off-camera makes someone look more like an expert than a salesman, Sherman said. The conversations are also entirely unscripted for a more natural sound."It didn't feel canned, and I don't think it looks canned," he said."So much is feel, so much is comfort," Sherman said. "This is the person you're paying to represent you. We're empowering people to make informed decisions."Storyfarm hopes to capitalize on a growing trend of video marketing. The idea, the company and several of its competitors say, is to allow prospective clients to see lawyers as people, not just as resumes and verdict lists common to many law firm websites.A website with video, Kramer said, becomes "more than a marketing tool. It becomes a practice tool as well."While nervous about becoming small-business owners, they were buoyed by what they believe is optimal timing: Almost everyone has access to a computer that can play high-quality video, and, more important, people now expect to see interactive elements on websites, Sherman said."It's a style and format we think is effective," Sherman said. "It's amazing how good people are at being themselves."Sherman and Kershaw kept Storyfarm as a side business until they left WBAL, amicably, at the end of April.
"It's a style and format we think is effective," Sherman said. "It's amazing how good people are at being themselves."
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