[author: Noreen Fishman]

72% of marketers believe that webinars have a direct impact on revenue. Since the pandemic, many industries have seen the value in conducting webinars, including law firms. But putting on a successful webinar is a lot easier said than done. Just simply setting up a Zoom meeting isn’t enough, law firms should work to implement tactics that will allow their webinars to function as a tool for generating brand awareness and leads. And now that many firms have gotten down the basics since the pandemic, they may be looking for ways to take their webinars to the next level.

Here are 14 tactics that law firms can use to improve their webinars:

1. Make it Solutions Based

Your audience will get the most value out of your webinar, and will be more likely to register, if your webinar is working to mitigate some stress they feel. Take a look at your client personas when figuring out a webinar topic and try to have a deep understanding of what their challenges are and how your webinar can solve them.

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2. Interact With Your Audience in the Promotion Stage

The promotion stage is key to your law firm’s webinar success. We recommend you start promoting your webinar 1 month out. This promotional stage is the time for you to start building valuable connections with your audience and make the value proposition of your webinar clear. Be sure to post on social media, post blog posts teasing the topic, and send out email blasts. All these promotional tools should detail what will be discussed in the webinar and should have a CTA leading users to register. As you send these items out, make sure to watch out for any responses and promptly answer any questions people may have. You’ll also want to create a sense of urgency by pointing out the time left to register or how many spots are left.

3. Focus on Designing a Stand Out Slide Deck

The slide deck is what keeps people interested throughout the webinar and encourages them to stay and become warmer leads. Remember these design tips when creating your slide deck:

• Try to use some kind of image or graphic on every slide
• Limit the amount of text on each slide and keep text in a short bullet point format
• Visuals should correlate with the topic discussed in a clear way, consider creating infographics to correlate with topics
• Use a large font
• Use contrasting colors between the text and background, usually opting for a light background and dark text
• Avoid busy backgrounds
• Add a title to each slide that covers the subtopic discussed
• Include a table of contents at the beginning
• Align the colors and font with firm branding and include your logo on each slide
• Leverage blank space to ensure slides aren’t too colored
• Have a consistent design or a couple consistent designs throughout the presentation

4. Create a Hashtag

You can streamline social media conversations by creating a hashtag for your webinar. This way your firm and other users can easily have conversations leading up to and after the webinar.

5. Collaborate with a Thought Leader

While you probably have many experts at your firm, it’s great to look to others to help you broaden your scope. Not only will they bring an exciting new angle to your webinar, but they can also promote the webinar to their own audience, further broadening the amount of registrations you’ll get.

6. Get Prepared

Make sure to meet with any speakers beforehand. You’ll want everyone to have an understanding of which slides they’ll be speaking on. Consider having a host dedicated to presenting the speakers and their background. Make sure to practice the cadence and talking points, but make sure your speakers are prepared to not sound too rehearsed and keep the tone casual.

7. Add Social Media Handles to Your Presentation

To make sure this connection with your audience goes past the actual day of the webinar, include social media handles for your law firm and the speakers. This way users can easily follow everyone and you can engage with them further.

8. Use Different Types of Media

As we mentioned, it’s important to have visuals in your presentation to keep it interesting. Don’t use just any stock images. Include images of your speakers, infographics on topics, short videos, GIFs, or screen share yourself using tools live when necessary.

9. Engage Your Audience in Unique Ways

Keep your audience engaged by including polls, questions, or quizzes throughout the webinar. This helps keep them engaged and keeps the presentation interesting.

10. Include an Offer

A great way to generate interest is to include a special offer in the webinar like a free ebook download or giveaway. Tease this offer as you promote the webinar and make sure to say in the beginning of your webinar that you’ll have more details on the offer at the end.

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11. Focus on Time

You’ll want to keep your audience’s time zones in mind. Don’t select a time that’s too early or late in the day, and don’t select times in which people will be commuting. Focus on a time that’s around lunch, when many people have a break.

12. Make it On Demand

The value of your webinar doesn’t end when it’s over. You should record each session and make it on demand. Then, you can continue to promote this on demand session, as well. This is also great, because anyone who missed the webinar can easily view it.

13. Optimize Your Landing Page

Users will need to go to a landing page in order to register. You should create a specific landing page for this purpose. Include details like date and time, speaker info and background, the topic, and what attendees will learn. You can take this page to the next level by leveraging a chatbot, adding video, and including testimonials from past webinars.

14. Use a Pop Up

Instead of linking to your landing page every chance you get, try creating a pop up form. To keep it non-invasive, you can have this pop up slide in or be at the top or bottom of your website so it doesn’t scare visitors off.

Takeaway:

Webinars continue to be an amazing tool for generating brand awareness and leads. Law firms will do well to work to improve their webinars over time by leveraging these tips.