How to Plan and Promote a Law Firm Webinar
Why a Law Firm Webinar?
The best way for lawyers to market their practice is by sharing their knowledge and experience. Many law firms do this by creating thought leadership content, speaking at conferences, or hosting podcasts. One of the best ways lawyers can demonstrate their knowledge and experience is to create a law firm webinar. In the event that you’re not familiar with webinars, they’re similar to an in-person event only attendees call in or join online to view a presentation and listen to one or more speakers. There are many third-party webinar platforms that law firms can use to host their webinar. A few of the most popular ones are: GoToWebinar, Zoom, ON24 and Workcast. Webinars are great to generate leads and enhance the thought leadership of your attorneys or your firm, but you might be curious about where to start. Here’s our advice on how to plan and promote your law firm’s webinar.
How to Promote Your Law Firm Webinar
1. Choose your topic and guest
To host a webinar that is helpful, consider your typical client and what they usually ask about or struggle with. Think about their problems and what information will help to address it. From there, you can decide who is best to speak on this information. Most times, that will be an attorney in your firm, but it also could include a guest or even a panel. Once you have a few webinars under your belt, you might consider a series of guests that you can promote to your database.
2. Set up a registration platform
You’ll want attendees to register on the web. That means you’ll need a landing page where people can fill out a form. Include information on the webinar (date, time, speaker, etc) and a place for attendees to enter their contact information. It’s also important to ensure you’re communicating what’s in it for those who attend – what will they learn, and what can they expect? Most webinar providers offer templates so you can create these pages easily, without design resources. See: A Review of Four of the Top Law Firm Webinar Services.
3. Invite everyone
Well, maybe not everyone. Market your list to your email database. Include existing clients and prospects and consider offering an incentive if they invite a friend. You can also begin building an audience by offering to speak as a guest on someone else’s webinar – for example, a professional group or industry association. Prepare an email with the invitation,
How to Produce Your Law Firm Webinar
1. Link to the landing page you created as part of the previous step
Then, promote your webinar with the same link across social media platforms and in any professional groups.
2. Host the webinar
On the day of the webinar, it’s important not to try and go it alone. At a minimum, there should be the host, the guest or main speaker, and an assistant who won’t speak but can help set up laptops, make sure things record properly, etc. Generally speaking, the guest is the main speaker and provides the bulk of content. The host will ask questions and help to guide the conversation and fill any gaps. The assistant can help funnel attendee questions (or make some up) and make notes for the debrief. Good audio is key, so test your equipment and microphone beforehand. Additionally, you should run through the Powerpoint presentation a few times before the day of the webinar to make sure the design is high quality. In general, it’s a smart idea to hold a “dry run” the day before the real webinar so everyone is comfortable with the presentation, the flow, and the technology.
3. Conduct follow-up
You can’t expect any business to come from people attending the webinar alone. Anyone who attended (or registered for that matter) is now a lead. Ensure you have a real follow up strategy that documents what the steps after the webinar will be. Who will call attendees? What emails will they receive? How will attendees be treated differently than people who registered but did not actually attend? Make sure you’ve recorded the webinar and make offering that resource part of the follow up.
4. Repurpose the webinar for lead generation
Since you have the webinar recorded, you can use it as a resource for clients or to gain new leads. Add the link to a resources section of your website, but gate it so that people need to give their contact information to gain access. Similarly, you can leverage the webinar recording as part of an email nurturing campaign. For any webinar you conduct, think about how else you can use the webinar once it’s over.
Takeaway
If you’ve never included webinars as part of your law firm marketing mix, hopefully we’ve given you some thoughts on how to plan and promote your law firm webinar. For more information on how to plan and promote your webinar, reach out to us today.
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