They know that they make the best burgers in town, but McDonald’s still spends billions of dollars on marketing. If it is fried chicken, then it has to be KFC, but the makers still market aggressively. The truth is that your learner has choices, so they won’t come to you. You have to take your offerings to them!
Marketing is no longer a dirty word in eLearning. In fact, now it is not even an option. As eLearning designers, you HAVE to take your courses to your audience and convince them of their value. Else there are just 0-5 percent chances that they will take them.
The time has come for you to double up as a marketer. Below are some smart marketing tips to make your courses fly off the blocks:
The first rule of marketing is: Create buyer personas. This rule applies to eLearning too. You shouldn’t start creating an eLearning course without knowing exactly who your learner audience is.
The key is to think of your learners as customers. Take the time to learn about your audience and create detailed learner personas. Delve into their lives and psyche to find out what makes them tick, their needs, motivations, workplace challenges, and the solutions they seek. This knowledge will help you create customized marketing messages that will resonate with your audience. Knowing about your learners will also help you create courses that are relevant to them and provide the solutions they seek.
Read more:
A Template to Carry Out an eLearning Audience Analysis
These 27 Questions Will Help You (Really) Know Your Learners
The trailer comes out long before the movie hits the cinemas. Ads come out in newspapers and commercials flood primetime long before the restaurant opens. Excerpts and posts, tweets, and contests centering around the pages and the characters show up on social media long before the book is launched. These are all ploys to make us sit up, take notice, and get all agog so that when the restaurant opens its doors, we make a beeline for it or queue up in front of the stores to get our hands on the book.
Teasers grab learner attention and excite them more than marketing messages because the former gives a taste of the actual product. A well-designed teaser not only wows the audience but also leaves no room for doubt in their minds about the relevance of the program.
Here are some pointers:
It is natural for us to trust the recommendations made by a trusted acquaintance than belief in a marketing message sent out by an unknown entity. So it is good for the chances of your eLearning program if it comes recommended by those whose opinion matter in your company. These influencers and evangelists can be the members of the C-suite, managers, opinion leaders, and team leaders. Do not forget the employees; these Internal Evangelists can be an enthusiastic lot, and some even have large social media follower bases.
Keep the following pointers in mind before you go about enlisting the support of influencers and evangelists:
Read more: Factors For Ensuring a Successful eLearning Implementation
Creating a distinct brand identity establishes you as someone who offers unique and useful learning experiences, always. Your brand identity is your personality, and it should lay bare everything that your audience wants to know about your eLearning program to trust your message and take your courses.
Ensure that your brand identity contains the following pieces of information about your program:
Before you create a brand identity, keep the following in mind:
Emails, blogs, and newsletters are powerful marketing tools to not only help you promote your eLearning program but also stay on top of the learners’ minds. Create effective email campaigns, sticky blog posts, and newsletter that audiences can’t wait to read with the following tips:
You are actually the best person to market your own courses because no one else knows them better. So put on the marketer’s hat and get going!