Legal Webinars 101: Why Is It Vital to
Your Firm’s Success & How to Do It Right
Most law firms are working hard to enhance their online presence and create a memorable brand. Yet webinars are still an overlooked tool.
Most firms have upgraded their website and social media, yes. But some are still reluctant to incorporate webinars to stand out in a competitive market.
Legal marketers have struggled to get the budget for webinars, perhaps because of a lack of resources or belief in their value. Either way, this slow adoption is a pity, considering how simple they are to produce and their potential to increase ROI.
Webinars are a staple in other businesses, like the multi line phone in call centers.
Firms discovered creative data-driven tools that help them reach new audiences with interactive content and bolster their brand.
This article explains why legal webinars are a vital strategy in your firm’s success and the best way to produce them.
But first, let’s unpack why they represent a huge opportunity for your firm.
No Reputation Without Representation
Webinars allow firms to connect with prospective clients irrespective of physical location. It is also useful when creating online courses or instructions to inform people about legal subjects. When they can access your content from anywhere, clients understand that you’re there when they need to get in touch.
Webinars let you represent yourself and educate clients at the most opportune moments when used as part of an overall marketing strategy. On top of that, you can use a website personalisation software to boost your reach.
Free Consultations
For busy law firms, time is precious. Yet few realize the potential of video calls online. For instance, how they enable attorneys to focus on more productive areas and activities. Or how you can leverage your likely prodigious knowledge of the questions that came up with the countless free consultations you’ve already given.
When you do have a prepared presentation, you’ll have a substitute webinar available that addresses questions in a time-effective manner when clients reach out with areas of concern related to your specialty. It gives you the ability to reach many more clients with free consultations than possible with time-consuming one-to-one endeavors - meaning more potential leads and paying clients.
Pro tip: place your webinar in the optimal place in your sales funnel, where potential clients are likely to find it during their research.
Imprimatur
Another way webinars can affect your success as a law firm is by creating authority. Authority is vital in attracting new clients. And you earn it by positioning yourself as an expert among your peers, partners, and adjacent professional groups.
You can produce high-quality educational webinars on recent changes in legislation that affect your target audience and apply to your particular niche, for example.
That way, you won’t be stating your dedication to your clients’ needs - here, to stay informed - you’ll be proving it. You’ll also engender good PR.
Educated clients are more likely to turn into leads - that you can follow up on your fixed VoIP phone - when they need the legal services discussed in your free webinar. So, shape your topics around hot-button issues to capitalize on topical questions.
Deeper Relationships With Clients
Here’s a wild guess: law firms don’t differ from any other business that stands to benefit from connecting with their potential clients as much as possible. By creating exclusive value-added webinars, you make an even better impression on existing clients and both increase your chances of retaining them and attracting new ones.
You can design engaging webinar content that addresses themes and matters that help you connect with new clients and answer their questions.
Flexibility
Another key upside of using webinars as a marketing tool? Their flexibility in reaching out to your intended audience and educating your employees internally on the latest developments, giving hands-on training, or information on new policies or protocols.
So you can provide some live training on a legal matter that offers practical knowledge to your target audience and accrues the goodwill of clients existing and new.
Crucially, the same benefits that flow from using webinars as a marketing strategy apply to their internal use within your law firm. They eliminate the substantial costs involved in training and educating employees and add convenience.
Pro tip: personal development content is transferable and a big hook to get people to events
A Few Legal Niceties on Doing It Right
With lawyers’ exploration of webinars having begun, let’s dive into some best practices.
Content
Most of us have experienced how webinars can go wrong: wooden and scripted or unstructured and rambling. Instead, aim for snappy content that meets needs or solves the pain points of your target audience. Sure, the aim might be to promote your business but focus on providing value and increasing the awareness of your firm. The leads will follow.
Experiment with humor, video, and gifs to break things up. Always keep it simple, audible, and actionable. And in an ideal world, automate your workflow meaning your calls to action and responses to the data you collect.
While your attorney will usually deliver your webinar, it’s also worth mixing things up and bringing in a guest speaker expert in some related aspect of your topic. Collaborate early like talking through SIP calls to share ideas and invite input.
Repurpose Content and Cover All Your Bases
Creating content for your blog, writing a marketing copy for example, adds value takes time, effort, and money. Hence, why reusing your highest-ranking or best-performing content in webinars is a brilliant way to get the most mileage and ROI content marketing. Inversely, you can develop spin-off content from successful webinars, turning a webinar into an article or podcast.
In essence, your webinar is a source of extra content, improving your rankings on search engine results - ideal for including in custom domain emails or on your website for clients to peruse at will. So go forth and multiply and reap the benefits.
Pro tip: polls are a tried-and-true means of getting the attention of participants keen to learn what their peers think, not to mention fruitful information for future webinar content ideas.
Software
There are a variety of webinar platforms that make implementing your webinar relatively simple. Remember how influential mobile devices have become when choosing your software.
If you’re looking to get the most out of webinars as a marketing tool, having analytics capability lets you connect the dots on audience engagement, and pursue leads. Regardless of which platform you use, get to know the functionality to get comfortable troubleshooting any technical issues.
Some big legal firms looking to streamline and automate some of their data-driven processes have been weighing up on cloud ERP vs traditional ERP, and are increasingly opting for cloud contact center solutions to action data gleaned from webinar events and so forth.
Tell Stories
Who doesn’t love a good tale? Include stories and case studies that illustrate your key takeaways and learning points. Your content will be easier to understand, more relatable, and resonate longer.
Post-Game
If you’re truly intent on raising your game, ask for feedback at the end of your webinar. Q&A sessions are an excellent way of planting a seed and creating a memorable question should attendees ever need related legal advice. Surveys or email will do as well. And follow up on any items that arise during your webinar with attendees offline.
Of course, the best way to make sure your future presentations hit all the right notes is to play back and evaluate your recording to catch what you missed.
Bring your data insights concerning views and engagement to your post-webinar debrief with the team to reflect on how it went and make adjustments and drive content for your next event. Track who is engaged and who is not and act on it to scale your business.
Pro tip: for learning, it’s well worth documenting the bones of your process mapping software to speed up optimization and allow fresh faces to integrate seamlessly when necessary.
Think Ahead
Book your conference room or space with enough time on either side of your event to cover preparation, set-up, debriefing, and packing up. By all means, weigh up the merits of winging it versus completing a dry run, and then come down firmly on the side of “practice makes perfect”.
And a comprehensive script, printed out in case of teething problems, gives you something to fall back on.
Promote the Heck Out of It
Don’t take promoting your webinar lightly. Set up an effective landing page for registration, laying out the key details and benefits of attending the webinar to encourage your audience to get involved. Send out your email invitations to suitable contacts and share links across your socials. Drop a reminder to cut through a sea of content via SMS message if you have a phone number database as these work best.
A Close Brush With the Webinar
Are on-ground or even virtual law firms irrespective of their size? Put it this way: for local firms who believe that they’re doing outstanding work, ramping up webinar output is a must. Adding that virtual element and reaching out to a new audience with the events you’re already doing will boost your ROI to no end.
Yet with technological transformation afoot, more and more legal firms of all sizes are buying in and taking advantage of the opportunities webinars bring. To produce a kick-ass legal webinar entails getting a few key factors right.
With enough planning, collaboration, and verve, you can elevate your authority and extend your brand.
Follow our guide here to pull it off and make more connections that count.
About the author:
Grace Lau is the Director of Growth Content at Dialpad, an AI-powered cloud communication platform for better and easier team collaboration. She has over 10 years of experience in content writing and strategy. Currently, she is responsible for leading branded and editorial content strategies, partnering with SEO and Ops teams to build and nurture content. Here is her LinkedIn.