If your law firm hasn't yet started producing webcasts, time to get started. Also known as webinars or web conferences, these remote "live" presentations were the second most popular lead generation tool for B2B marketers in 2007, according to MarketingSherpa (to assist firms looking to launch a webinar program, eLawMarketing recently launched a law firm webcast service).
In this first post focused on law firm webinars, we'll review the top 5 "turnoffs" cited by webinar attendees in a MarketingSherpa study. In other words, if you want to follow "best practices" in webcasting, avoid these mistakes:
- Lack of honesty about webinar content in promotions - typically caused when marketers "pitch" webinars using copy that is appealing to the target audience, but don't confirm topics with the experts who will be presenting. Presenters should sign off on the marketer's promotional copy.
- Presenters who read directly from the slides or spoke to slowly - presenters don't need to be stand up comics, but they do need to be sufficiently dynamic or else they will lose attendees to boredom. To obtain constructive feedback on how they sound, it's a good idea for presenters to practice a presentation before colleagues at least one time prior to the "live" event. Firms might also consider speaker training for regular presenters.
- Webinar began with company/sales information - get straight to the topic - webinars are intended to be educational, not promotional. But no need to worry - simply by presenting on a complex topic, your speakers are positioned as authorities on the subjects about which they present, and that has proven adequate to generate leads.
- Already familiar with information on the first few slides - understand the knowledge base of your audience. If you approach a topic at an elementary level and the audience is already sophisticated about the topic, they will lose interest quickly.
- Webinar was too long - about an hour seems right - but intersperse the presentation with Q&A and interactive polls.
Here's a chart displaying the results of MarketinSherpa's research.
Next week we'll review further guidance from MarketingSherpa on producing a webinar.
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