Streaming Lawyer Commercials: A Law Firm Guide on How to Advertise on CTV, OTT and YouTube.

If you think TV lawyer commercials are just for daytime broadcast television, there’s a whole new TV universe you should know about, and its name is Connected TV. It has nicknames, too: CTV and even OTT, which is short for Over-the-Top TV.

With its increasingly popular streaming video entertainment, Connected TV advertising has the potential to revolutionize the way plaintiffs’ law firms think about lawyer commercials.

How so?

Streaming lawyer commercials via OTT platforms provides a powerful and compelling hybrid option for law firm advertising, combining the greatest strengths of television and digital marketing.

“Linear TV,” which is the term for traditional cable and broadcast television, is still the best medium for getting your message in front of big audiences, using rating services like Nielsen to help you target to the desired demographics.

But today’s television law firm marketing strategies can also marry the branding power of video and the data-driven precision of digital marketing. CTV streaming TV adds that digital potency to the mix.

These new streaming platforms mean new opportunities to reach new clients and expand your law practice.

Ready to tune in and learn more…?

What is CTV, OTT Advertising for Law Firms?

You may not know the terms “Connected TV” or “over-the-top media,” but you’ve likely seen them in action.

Here are just some of the platforms potential law firm clients use to watch video-on-demand television whenever, and often wherever, they wish:

• Smart TVs
• Personal devices like mobile phones and computers
• Connected boxes or sticks like Roku, Apple TV, Chromecast and Amazon Fire TV Stick
• Gaming consoles like Xbox and PlayStation.

This ecosystem includes subscription-based platforms like Netflix, HBO Max, Disney+ and Amazon Prime. They typically don’t include advertising.

But there are also widely used advertising-supported apps, like Hulu, ESPN+, Pluto, Tubi, Crackle, Sling and many more.

Of course, it’s those advertising-supported models where you can stream lawyer ads.

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Why Should Law Firms Include OTT Platforms in a Legal Marketing Strategy?

Video has always been an attractive medium for attorney advertising. Engaging, dynamic and memorable, it inspires potential law firm clients to action.

But television advertising for attorneys isn’t always easy, in part because it can be tricky to reach your target audience. Too broad a strategy, and you’re tossing money into the void; too narrow, and you’re missing potentially valuable clients.

This is where CTV advertising for lawyers fills the gap, retaining video’s traditional appeal while adding geographic and demographic targeting.

Linear TV, particularly broadcast rather than cable advertising, is available across wide areas—wider than you might like, even. Depending on your goals and the transmission signals, your law firm may be airing to audiences outside your preferred geographic region, such as across state borders.

By contrast, because CTV is a digital platform, you’re in control of the households you reach. Want to confine a commercial to the limits of a state, city, or even particular zip codes? CTV can do that.

Likewise, because CTV is data-driven, you can target key demographic statistics about your audience:

• Age
• Education level
• Ethnic origin/race
• Gender
• Languages spoken
• Marital status
• Number of children and their ages
• Various household financial data points
• Information about homeownership
• Hobby and lifestyle data

Keep in mind that a household often has multiple people living there, so for many factors, e.g., age, the data will show the “presence of” someone with this demographic living in the home. That said, if you wanted to target an audience of a certain age, at least ensuring that someone of that age lives in that household helps you eliminate the households where they do not.

You can also use CTV advertising for “remarketing.” That means people who visited your law firm website but did not convert into a lead will see your law firm commercials, reminding them about calling your firm.

Streaming TV can even put your attorney commercials in front of visitors who went to your competitors’ websites.

That’s not to say you should ditch linear TV. You shouldn’t. Your potential clients are spending a lot of time there. Broadcast television remains the most powerful tool for disseminating TV law firm commercials.

But if you want to take full advantage of today’s technological opportunities, you should consider diversifying and adding CTV/OTT to your law firm marketing strategy.

How CTV/OTT Streaming TV is Changing Television Advertising for Attorneys

The Connected TV user population is too large to ignore. Statistics indicate that as of 2021, over 150 million U.S. adults subscribe to a streaming platform, and that number is growing.

Some are “cord cutters,” only watching streaming platforms. However, most are alternating between whatever platform—broadcast, cable or CTV—provides the television programming they want, when they want it.

“Every year more people are watching video content through connected devices—smart TVs, smartphones, tablets,” says Mandy Lee, media manager at Firmidable. “These new streaming channels give us the opportunity to insert attorney TV commercials. And using digital targeting along with a good television commercial has gained tremendous momentum in the past couple of years. It’s a no-brainer to include OTT platforms in your law firm advertising media schedule.”

A major takeaway message here should be that consumers have never had more control about how, when and where they watch TV.

“Going forward, if you want to engage with clients, you’ll have to do it on their terms,” says Daren Sarphie, a Firmidable client and managing partner of Workers’ Compensation, LLC, a New Orleans area law firm representing injured workers from all over the state of Louisiana.

“You’ve got to keep up with the industry. You’ve got to get your message to people who aren’t always watching traditional television. And you’ve got to reach people who maybe don’t yet know they want to be reached. That’s what drew me to Connected TV,” he explains.

CTV is here to stay, and you don’t want to miss out on that trend by sticking purely to linear TV.

Luckily, you don’t have to.

Firmidable, a respected law firm marketing agency, can help you get on these new streaming television platforms.

Lawyer Ads on YouTube? This Is How To Do YouTube Advertising.

YouTube lawyer advertising is an interesting case.

Is YouTube OTT? Technically, no.

It’s the world’s second-largest search engine, surpassed only by Google itself.

That said, YouTube remains a pioneer in online video content, and it provides an intriguing, powerful space for streaming lawyer commercials.

Firmidable recommends to its legal marketing clients interested in YouTube that they use its TrueView in-stream ad format.

How does YouTube TrueView work?

If you’ve ever watched a video on YouTube, you’ll be familiar with the brief in-stream ads that appear before or during a video. You’ll also recall that after five seconds, you usually have the option to skip the commercial and continue straight to the video.

If a viewer chooses to abort your attorney advertising to jump to the YouTube video, you don’t pay. As the advertiser, you’re only charged when viewers watch at least 30 seconds of the ad or to the end, whichever is shorter—or when they click creative elements, such as a link to your website or landing page.

For lawyers on YouTube, this makes TrueView among the surest ways to get results for your marketing dollar.

This tool becomes even more compelling for law firms when considering that not only does TrueView target based on the YouTube searching data, it also has targeting capabilities that consider a viewer’s demographic profile and web-surfing habits.

“When your law firm doesn’t have to pay for a video commercial because the audience says ‘not interested,’ that’s hard to beat,” says Nathan Chapman, Firmidable legal marketing agency president. “These days, your law firm should consider including YouTube ads for law firm marketing.”

The Top Law Firm Marketing Takeaways on OTT and CTV Advertising

What should law firm managing partners and marketing managers pull from all this?

Here are Firmidable’s top-line considerations for Connected TV and YouTube:

1.) People are increasingly consuming media on their own terms. Legal marketers must engage them accordingly.

2.) CTV/OTT advertising provides a hybrid model that fuses digital targeting ability with the law firm branding power of television.

3.) CTV/OTT should supplement linear TV. Streaming TV is not a substitute if you want to maximize new law firm intakes.

4.) YouTube TrueView provides valuable information on consumer behavior, and you won’t be charged if users opt out of your YouTube ad.

Law firms have never had so many ways to interact with potential clients, and we understand that can seem daunting.

If you’d like to review your firm’s marketing strategies and tactics, the nation’s most strategic law firm marketing agency is just a phone or Zoom call away. Talk to Firmidable.

Firmidable has been a national expert in legal marketing for 30 years. It brings law firms customized, data-driven marketing strategies and services, including online and traditional media for a wide range of legal practices. From Maine to Hawaii, it has transformed the lives of attorneys—and their clients.