We are approached by vendors selling video production every week (it’s not quite as bad as the search engine optimizer solicitations, but it’s getting there). They pitch the idea of producing videos and putting them on YouTube.

“YouTube is the second-biggest search engine behind Google,” they say. And, of course, they’re right. YouTube is worthy of consideration when you’re developing your marketing plan.

However, YouTube is not for everyone. In fact, it’s not that important for many of us. It fails to generate business for many, many practices.

There’s a test you can apply to determine whether YouTube will make a difference for your practice.

Head over to YouTube and do some searches that your prospective clients are likely to use. Type in “divorce law in [your state]” and see what happens. You’ll likely find some videos addressing the topic.

Watch the videos and, most importantly, look at the date each video was posted and the number of views for each video. I’ve checked and, in some states, videos have been up for years and have as few as 50 or 100 views counted. These are the videos that come up at the top of the results.

If no one is watching the videos in your state, then it’s not that important to invest money in getting videos up for your practice. I’ve found that more often than not, the videos aren’t being watched on many legal topics. The only people benefiting from some of these lawyer videos are the people selling the video production services.

I did some digging and found that the statistics provided by YouTube include the number of views recorded on YouTube and on other sites. Those view counts include the plays that take place on your site or on other sites where the videos are embedded. If you see a video that says it has been watched 44 times, then it truly has been watched only 44 times.

It’s hard to imagine that spending thousands of dollars on videos and having only a handful of people watch them is a smart marketing decision. Be careful with your money.

We’ve done some YouTube videos for our firm. We did them ourselves with a consumer camera and a black blanket as our backdrop. Our total expenditure was next to nothing. You can find an example by searching for Raleigh Divorce Lawyer.  It makes sense to experiment. You never know what’s going to work for you. Be careful, however, when it comes to spending big bucks when the data don’t support that decision.

Take a look at the view count and see whether anybody is watching. Video might be the wave of the future, but in your market, the future may be quite a way off in the distance.