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 discuss ongoing trends in their industry. By now, professionals throughout the world are familiar with the idea of webinars and understand the value of attending them. 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.
Today, we will discuss the 6 ways legal marketers are using webinars for their firms.
Training and Demonstrations:
Training and Demonstrations (or How To’s) are probably the most common type of webinars delivered within Law Firms. More than most industries, lawyers are constantly seeking the latest knowledge within their field to better their practice (much of which is mandatory to keep their license). Legal Marketers understand that there is a new approach to reach their clients and prospects; they need to be up-to-date on the latest trends, such as blogging, social networking, and business development. 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:
More and more, companies are hosting virtual events to bring together their teams throughout the world. Whether your firm has branches in Seattle, Boston or Tokyo, its important to deliver the same message through one seamless channel. 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.
eLearning Delivery:
Lawyers today are tasked with continuing their professional education on a yearly basis. Virtual CLE is widely used today as an alternative to dedicating a day or week each year to traveling to seek the latest information within one’s practice. Lately, a trend has been taking place amongst larger law firms who wish to create CLE content to deliver to their own lawyers or clients to provide easier access to content.
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. It’s a common thought that in lead gen marketing, you have to give to get. When creating a webinar, your registrants gain access to your valuable content, while you collect their precious information (names, e-mail addresses, etc).
Customer Retention:
We all know that keeping an existing customer happy and satisfied is a lot harder than acquiring a new customer. Making your customers want to stay and become brand loyalists is a never-ending job. Providing remarkable and educational content (such as webinars) make it easy to nurture your customers by keeping them informed, answering their questions, and making you an approachable business partner. Ultimately, making them never want to leave.
Branding and Reputation Management:
If your firm claims to know a lot about a specific industry, webinars are also a great way to establish your credibility. Further, 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. When you are delivering a webinar, always use every branding opportunity made available to you (like adding your logo into the webroom). 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.