In early 2006, Torys produced a client memo on the top ten corporate merger and acquisitions (“M&A”) trends in Canada. It was well-received and attracted a great deal of interest, but it also prompted a number of calls from clients who had additional questions and wanted more information. We considered a number of options that would allow us to continue the conversation with our clients and decided to launch a series of video podcasts on these M&A topics.

We landed on video podcasting as a solution for a number of reasons. Our lawyers have traditionally been more comfortable with content-heavy marketing efforts. Our 330-lawyer firm has a long history of sharing knowledge with our clients through client memos, bulletins and articles. Our hosted client breakfasts, seminars and other presentations have also been well-attended, and we have received feedback that clients like the personal delivery of the content from our lawyers.

In this case, we wanted to communicate with our clients and friends of the firm in a new, innovative and forward-looking way to match the trends document itself. Video podcasting seemed to be an interesting and exciting approach, as well as an efficient way to reach people on a broader scale. Our effort won the coveted “Marketing Initiative of the Year” award at the Marketing Partner Forum in January 2007.

Revealing the firm personality

An additional benefit is that these videos would reveal some of the personality of the firm and give potential clients a sense of what it would be like to have conversations with our lawyers. We didn’t set out to “humanize” the firm, but certainly saw some advantages to having our people out there a bit more than would be possible with a client memo.

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 five partners who participated in the initial series included three of our top M&A partners, a litigation partner and the head of our competition group. We were pleasantly surprised that all five of the fee-earners we approached to participate agreed to be part of this project. We later learned from a media quote given by Sharon Geraghty, who is the co-head of our M&A practice group and who was featured in the second video, that when first approached, she was quite reluctant to get in front of the camera. But after participating, she acknowledged that that she was now quite comfortable with the project.

It certainly helped that the videos were part of a series and involved partners from different practice areas. This approach is consistent with Torys’ culture and helped develop support for the project internally, both on the part of the participants and the rest of the firm. It was also a way to reach out to a wider audience of clients and potential clients, and to keep many of them interested and engaged throughout the duration of each series.

Available for iPods

For the initial series, a new video presentation was posted each week for five weeks. Each presentation was made available on our Web site, www.torys.com, in multiple video and audio file formats. One of the file formats allowed the user to download the video or audio file to an iPod. We also made the videos available for free download through the iTunes store. People could either return to our site each week or subscribe to our series so that they would receive emails announcing future videos as they were released.

We included several other features on our Web site. The page for each video included links to the presenting lawyer’s bio, to that lawyer’s recent media highlights, and to his or her relevant publications. We also created an online feedback form so that clients could participate in the conversation and request further information. In response to a client request through our feedback form, we added a summary of each video’s content in pdf format.

We were able to keep track of how clients then chose to interact with our Web site after watching each video. We were encouraged by the high number of viewers who continued on to review a bio or to download a recent article.

The filming of the videos was quite inexpensive. There was a cost to have the videographer come to our site and film the videos, and there were various costs associated with preparing the files for our Web site, but they were not substantial. We also supported each new video with 1/8-page banner ads in a national newspaper. Even with the advertising, the cost of the entire project was low and easily covered by the existing marketing budget.

A positive response

The immediate response was very positive. The first video, featuring Phil Brown, co-head of our M&A practice group, was viewed by nearly 1,000 people in the first week, with visitors accessing our Web site from 14 different countries. Viewers left very positive comments and Phil received a number of calls and emails from his clients and friends. The web statistics also seemed to suggest that a large percentage of viewers also visited Phil’s bio page afterwards.

Latest pop-tech craze

Following the release of the second video one week later, one of Canada’s national newspapers published an article, “Torys tunes in to latest pop-tech craze,” which caused a spike in interest in our videos. The article also brought our firm to the attention of bloggers around the world—some who focus on legal marketing and others who focus on podcasting. Most of the comments were positive and people were excited to see a “billion-dollar-deal law firm” using video podcasting as a marketing tool. We were certainly happy to see our firm be described as creative, innovative and trail-blazing.

Some blogs reviewed our video podcasts in great detail, examining the content as well as the performances of our fee-earners. These reviews turned out to be a great feedback tool for us and we put some of the suggestions into practice on our Web site.

With all of this attention, the first video was ultimately viewed approximately 3,000 times. The following videos had lower numbers, but still greatly exceeded our original expectations. We continued to receive comments and questions from people who visited our Web site, and a number of people also downloaded the videos from the iTunes music store.

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.”

The project has continued to attract attention and there have been more recent articles, including a piece in The National, a magazine published by the Canadian Bar Association. We also received a number of calls from other law firms after we were mentioned in the column, “What’s Hot and What’s Not in the Legal Profession” in Legal Communiqué, the annual publication by Robert Denney Associates.

Torys also received the Hubbard One Excellence in Legal Marketing Award for marketing initiative of the year, which was presented to us in San Diego at the 2007 Marketing Partner Forum. This award and our presentation on the project have resulted in some additional media coverage, which has helped with the launch of our latest series of podcasts.

Our next series of video podcasts are available on our Web site and the initial response is again very positive. We have once more focused on a single topic—in this case the new landscape for income trusts in Canada—and are generating a number of questions from our clients. It has been a great experience exploring what we could do with this new marketing tool and finding a new way to connect with our clients.