The State of Legal

Webinar Marketing

IntroductionWhat is legal webinar marketi ng and what’s the scope of its capabiliti es? When it comes to webinars in the legal realm, they can serve a number of purposes. Two prime areas in which legal webinars are largely uti lized are 1) for Conti nuing Legal Educati on (CLE) and 2) legal marketi ng.

In this white paper, we’ll take a comprehensive look at the state of legal webinar marketi ng from the perspecti ve of CLE as well as the legal marketi ng fi eld. Read on to uncover emerging trends, best practi ces, and key insights that illustrate why and how webinars are used as a tool to eff ecti vely market to lawyers.

Let’s begin by diving into webinar marketi ng for law fi rms.

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Law firms use promotion to gain new customers, to retain current ones, and to enhance the value of client accounts through the up-sell and cross-sell of additional services. In the legal marketing realm, direct sales efforts are being augmented by advertising, public relations, direct mail, and Internet selling. In addition, a number of firms are experimenting with dedicated, non-lawyer sales forces. These tactics are used to increase new business volume and the productivity of direct sales efforts. Since 1992, the number of law firms has increased an average of 1.7% each year versus a growth rate of 1.4% across all industries (U.S. Census Bureau). Growth in legal output value and in profits is estimated at 7.2% and 9.7% (Bureau of Economic Analysis) per year respectively.

Legal marketing trends and strategies continue to change to remain relevant to new technological developments. For instance, as wearable technology, tablets, and smartphones continue to take over the digital world, mobile devices will become even more crucial. Current, important legal marketing trends include:

• Mobile Optimization - Legal marketers should tailor their marketing content for mobile outlets. According to eMarketer, 2015 will be the first time that mobile searches will exceed desktop searches. This means creating content that is short and easy to read, or creating videos and ensuring that your OnDemand videos and webinars are accessible from mobile devices, is increasingly important. So, when building your webinar content plan, work with a vendor that provides mobile accessibility.

• Make Your Law Firm Personable - Your clients want their interactions with law firms to be professional but personal, so keep that in mind when creating webinars. Webinars help enhance engagement because they allow you to interact with the audience and provide clients with more information on your services, keeping them up-to-date and knowledgeable of current trends and changes in laws. These types of interactions can help to humanize your law firm and make clients feel more comfortable with your services.

• Creating More Content - Delivering webinars is a great place to start with content because they are easily viewable on any device and create a great opportunity to tell your company’s story. Furthermore, larger pieces of content – like webinars – can easily be repurposed.

•Reputation Management - Strong legal marketing webinars have the ability to position lawyers as thought leaders in order to improve sales and build their brand. Attorneys are typically busy and may not be focusing enough on maintaining or strengthening their reputation. That’s where legal marketers can help.

What is Legal Marketing?

Strong legal marketing webinars have the ability to position lawyers as thought leaders in order to improve sales and build their brand.

Webinars are quickly becoming the method of choice for customers to access information in order to make educated decisions on which organizations to do business with, to learn a new skill, or to discuss ongoing trends in their industry. In fact, in a recent survey, 47% of the people polled said they preferred to access content from a webinar over other methods, such as whitepapers, blogs, or in-person events (BeaconLive). Here are a few ways that legal marketers are using webinars today:

• Branding - Webinars can help build your brand awareness and place your firm as an industry leader by creating a relationship between your valuable content and your customers. Use every branding opportunity available when delivering webinar content. It is also important to match every element within the content consumption experience with your brand. By doing so, anyone who attends the webinar will become familiarized with your brand, creating trust.

• Training and Demonstrations - Training and Demonstrations (or How To’s) are probably the most common type of webinars delivered within law firms. Legal marketers understand that they need to be up-to-date on the latest trends – such as blogging, social networking, and business development – in order to successfully reach their clients and prospects. Luckily, as webinars become more popular for content creators, access to this type of information allows the marketers to be selective in sourcing their information.

• Corporate Communication - Firms today are using Webinar technology to deliver “state of the union” style communications to their employees for monthly, quarterly, and annual events. With chat and survey tools, this method for delivering company-wide communication allows the event to be collaborative.

• Lead Generation - Legal marketers are always looking for a way to recruit new clients to their firm. With the recent shift of marketing focus to content creation, law firms are amongst some of the best placed industries with their wide range of interesting and useful knowledge to share, making lead generation webinars a win-win situation.

• Customer Retention - Providing remarkable and educational webinar content makes it easy to nurture your customers by keeping them informed, answering their questions, and positioning yourself as an approachable business partner, which ultimately makes them never want to stray.

How Legal Marketers are Using Webinars

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In a recent survey, 47% of the people polled said they preferred to access content

from a webinar over other methods.

It is important to match every element within the content consumption experience with your brand. By doing so, anyone who attends the webinar will become familiarized with your brand, creating trust.

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We’ve detailed why legal marketers produce webinars, so now we’ll cover how to effectively deliver a legal marketing webinar. Best practices include:

• Create an Agenda - This plan will set up how you present your information and keep you on track. You should formulate your agenda towards your audience because an engaging agenda will keep your viewers in their seats for the entire event rather than just the first few minutes. When building this plan, remember that the optimal length is 50 minutes.

• Know Your Audience - Remember whom you are talking to. If you are delivering a legal marketing webinar, then it’s likely that your audience is primarily legal marketers. This means you can skip a lot of elementary information about the buyer’s journey and delve deeper into more detailed information. Focus on the idea of continuing education. Don’t give attendees a review of what they know, but instead give them insight to what is changing in legal marketing and keep them up to date.

• Recruit Speakers - According to a study done by the 1080 Group, the second highest reason an attendee leaves early is because the speaker is boring. Find engaging people who are experts in legal marketing. Information that is delivered from someone with a long list of credentials will draw a larger audience than someone who is new to legal marketing. Look for speakers who can deliver strong, in-depth information and analysis and can back it up with experience.

• Employ Professionals - Rather than trying to set up your own and stumbling for days and days over various aspects of presenting, let the professionals handle it. It’s been found that 95% of professionals want a webinar vendor with their own technology (BeaconLive).

• Customize - Non-customizable events look amateur and are sure to deter potential attendees. You could have one of the top legal marketers in the world speaking, but if it looks poorly put together and your registration page is confusing and doesn’t match your webpage, then nobody will want to sign up. Creating a fully customizable virtual event that is easy to use and pleasing to the eye is sure to draw a crowd in.

• Interact - A report done by Adobe shows that over 50% of the audience participates in polls and Q&A sections. Create interaction with your viewers by opening up chats and having a Q&A section.

• Record - Not only does recording allow you to review what went right and what went wrong, but it also draws in more traffic. It’s been found that there is a 26% increase in views when it is recorded versus live only. OnDemand allows attendees who missed the live viewing to watch the whole video at another time. Also, OnDemand allows for people who may have missed information to go back and review the event.

With these key tips, legal marketers will deliver exceptional webinars that educate, engage, and retain professionals in the legal realm. Now, we’ll cover CLE.

Legal Webinar Marketing Best Practices

Distance learning (eLearning) is the most cost-effective and accessible form of furthering your education post-college. It is a booming industry, as continuing education is on the rise. Here are some best practices for marketers to successfully deliver CLE webinars for attorneys who want to continue their legal education:

• Determine the requirements and obstacles you will face when trying to get your program accredited and make sure you have a clear action plan to overcome them.

• Find a vendor that has extensive experience delivering continuing education programs and that can lead you before, during, and after the event. If you are delivering accredited content, be sure that your vendor can meet the requirements that the accrediting bureau places upon online events, such as active participation tracking and final exam delivery and grading. Further, ask if the vendor can help you to get your content accredited. Many providers have strong relationships with local or national bar associations and can point you in the right direction, if not get he content accredited on your behalf.

• Create a captivating, branded registration page that will motivate your potential registrants to sign up right away.

• Secure a prominent speaker within your industry and have him or her work with your webinar provider to prepare all of the technological components (audio quality, PowerPoint presentation, etc.) in advance to avoid errors during the live CLE webinar.

• Test every detail before the live event, especially if your webinar requires verification of participation, polls/surveys, and quizzes.

• Provide proof of completion to your attendees.

• Create an optional evaluation form to share at the end of your presentation and encourage attendees to provide feedback on your program or provide ideas for a future one.

• Extend the life of your webinar by making it available OnDemand for your attendees to re-visit.

• Follow up with your attendees. Whether it’s to thank them for attending, to ask them for feedback, or to provide a link to your OnDemand site, this is important for brand awareness.

Where to Start with CLE Webinars

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It used to be the attorney’s duty to keep up with the law by reading a periodic law digest, attending lectures, and seeking out traditional forms of learning to master their specialization. This type of learning is known as “Mastery Mode” and it is becoming less frequent amongst the new generation of lawyers.

The “Just In Time” model applies to the newer generation of lawyers who look up and master a topic only when the need arises. The commitment to learning and reading every day is replaced by a topic driven search. It’s a powerful approach because the content is more fresh and up-to-date when the attorney decides it’s the right time to learn it.

Marketers should keep the “Just In Time” model in mind when planning to deliver CLE webinars. There’s been a 10% decrease on live programs in the past year alone due to the fact that lawyers are learning differently; they’re becoming more technological savvy and budget conscious. So, how can CLE webinars optimally cater to these key changes? Here are some important tips to enhance the effectiveness of CLE webinars based on this new model:

• Returning events result in higher success. Attorneys will return to the same virtual events provider when they find it helpful and they will be skeptical when a new one-time event is introduced.

• With local bars, everyone is well networked and personally invested. Fostering relationships is important to people, so make sure that your CLE programs encourage people to build their network, whether online or in-person.

• Great speakers draw live audiences (and online audiences, as well). Find a speaker whom others see as a thought-leader and create a buzz around their knowledge and reputation.

• Keep your attorney’s needs and struggles in mind by offering an online option, especially if they don’t have the budget to travel or if the topic covers technology.

• Make sure your presenters and hosts are promoting the event through lists and social networks. This takes networking to its fullest extent.

This is what the CLE world looks like now, but where will it stand ten years from now? Some key predictions include:

• In-person programs will not be the primary form of CLE in 10 years as we begin to accommodate the younger generation of lawyers.

• Attorneys will learn to adapt to technology but they will continue to physically attend conferences in order to develop new relationships.

Understanding How Lawyers Learn Today

There’s been a 10% decrease on live programs in the past year alone due to the fact that lawyers are learning differently; they’re becoming more

technological savvy and budget conscious.

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• As lawyers are inundated with more briefs, laws and research, their att enti on spans get shorter so will most CLE programs. Consider doing shorter events, and following them up with notes from the event.

• The future of CLE will see an increase in social media interacti on.

• Online programs will become a standard part of an att orney’s training; video trainings will be used to train lawyers who lack years of professional experience.

Now you have a clear picture of the current and future state of CLE webinar marketi ng.

We’ve addressed the state of legal webinar marketi ng with a focus on CLE and the legal marketi ng industry. These best practi ces for legal marketers to deliver webinars for law fi rms and for lawyers working to obtain CLE credits will enhance event parti cipati on as well as brand reputati on. In additi on, understanding how lawyers currently learn and what the future of CLE looks like will help you produce content that is truly valuable and relevant, which will make your messages resonate with viewers and build trust. Being well versed in the legal marketi ng arena is clearly a must for legal marketers. With this comprehensive look at industry trends and ways legal marketers are using webinars today, you’ll know how to improve your strategies. Educati onal webinar content, created for the target audience and delivered opti mally, will signifi cantly augment your professionalism.

Key Takeaways

At BeaconLive, we believe in success through educati on and communicati on. Whether you are delivering virtual CLE events or building a collaborati on of ideas, BeaconLive’s technology coupled with our event services team can provide you with the professional experience that you deserve.

BeaconLive

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Key Takeaways!

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Building  An  OnDemand  Strategy    February  2015   11  

Build an OnDemand strategy that is well laid out and makes sense for your content and your company. Viewers that access OnDemand recordings do so in order to get the most out of the material provided and learn more. This should be simple for them, engaging, thorough, and delivered seamlessly. Ensure that you’re providing the end user with all that they need and more. Furthermore, repurpose your old content cleverly to drive viewers exactly where you want them – which should also be where they want to be. This mutually beneÞcial cycle speaks volumes about marketing potential and how to uncover greater business value.