Blog / Getting the most mileage out of your webinar

Producing a successful lead-generation webinar for your law firm takes preparation, flawless execution and follow-through. Translation: it's a lot of work. However, do it right and you'll reap the rewards in qualified marketing leads for your practice.

But then what? It feels a bit like successfully organising a big surprise party - you devote time and energy to it for months, and then it's over before you know it. The good news is that unlike a party, after a webinar you can capitalise on the valuable information gained to generate more leads, boost search engine optimisation on your website, increase awareness and extend your thought leadership even further-- and this post will tell you how.

Send the recording to registrants

Most webinar providers allow you to record and archive your webinar. Email a link to the recorded webinar to everyone who registered, whether they attended or not. Include a link to a PDF file of the slide deck so they can view the slides if they don't want to watch the recording. Suggest that they share the link with colleagues, and that they contact your firm if they have questions regarding the subject matter or would like to know more. Ask them what topics they would like to see in future webcasts; not only will this give you ideas, it also allows you to reach out to the person who made the suggestion to discuss why the issue is of interest.

Post on your website

If you have a resources page on your firm's website you can post links to all of your on-demand webinars. It's up to you whether viewers need to complete a short contact form first (so you can follow up with them), or if they can just click through to view. This webinar archive will drive traffic to your website.

Repurpose as an email offer

Many business professionals simply don't have 45 minutes or an hour to commit to watching a webinar on a specific date and time; or they have a prior commitment, are on vacation or simply forget to log in to the live webcast. Others may never have opened the original email invitation. You may have better luck reaching them the second time, especially if they know they can watch at their leisure. Think of on-demand webinars like the Netflix of lead generation - you can press pause to answer the phone or get a coffee and the webinar will still be waiting for you when you come back.

Turn it into a white paper

This is easier than you may think. Have someone transcribe the speech to text or simply use a speech to text software (you can find freelancers on websites such as Elance or use a software such as Dragon). With minimal editing, some graphics and a branded white paper template you have a complete white paper to offer for your next marketing campaign. If your topic lends itself to a more graphical treatment you can format it as an ebook, and include charts, tables and infographics.

Create infographics

Speaking of infographics, parts of your webinar may work well in infographic format, such as timelines, historical data, statistics and processes. For more on the value of infographics read our blog post on the subject.

Carve it into blog posts

Take your webinar transcription and divide it into logical 'chapters' for a blog post series or standalone posts. At the end of the post, you can recommend that for more information on the topic readers click to watch your on-demand webinar (seeing a pattern here?).

Post on YouTube

Post your webinar recording on your firm's YouTube channel. Include keyword-rich words in your description as well as a link to your website.

Dice it into social media posts

Take interesting nuggets or bold statements from the webinar and use on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook. Post infographics and charts on Pinterest. Don't forget to include your hashtags!

Post on SlideShare

LinkedIn SlideShare is a no-brainer. Take your slide deck and save it as a PDF. Write a short description, including those SEO keywords. Then go to either your LinkedIn profile, your law firm's LinkedIn company page or directly to SlideShare and upload your file for free. Both websites offer simple instructions to get you on your way.

Use as training for staff

Webinar recordings are an effective, inexpensive way to bring staff up to speed on your firm's perspective on a particular topic and provide a tutorial on that area of your expertise.

So is a webinar hard work? Yes - but with a little ingenuity, you can extend the life of your webinar far beyond its live debut.