As learning leaders, if we want to improve engagement, create impactful learning experiences, and improve ROI from our training initiatives, we need to get even more creative in capturing our audience’s attention and keeping them coming back for more. Instead of simply coming up with a course and telling people to take it, we serve ourselves and our audience better by finding ways to inject a learning spirit into the company.

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:

Looking at all the things that are involved in creating an eLearning course could make you feel like your first step should be to “Give Up.” However, with these 12 steps, we break down the process into manageable chunks, which is a big part of what makes for a killer eLearning course design. Sounds good, right? Read through these steps, and soon you’ll have a good handle on what is needed and where to start to create your first eLearning courses.

eLearning is an option that more and more companies have started to embrace. But now, what do you do with your existing Instructor-Led Training (ILT) training material? If that content is effective, don’t ditch it! You can convert it into an eLearning program without reinventing the wheel... just taking into consideration some key factors. Look out for these common mistakes that companies do when converting their existing PowerPoint slides and Instructor-Led Training to eLearning - most of them don’t realize that eLearning and classroom learning are different:

Besides just a mere obligation to prove employees passed or completed the course, assessments play a key role in measuring their capacity to grasp the material. By combining different test and quiz options, and at different intervals of the course, studies have shown – we are effectively providing opportunities for a learner to practice the material. By practicing the subject matter of the course, an employeee has a much higher chance of retaining more of the content for their future use.

When you go into a funhouse or corn maze, there are literally dozens of paths that you can try to take. What strategy do you take when trying to complete the course? Do you run as fast as possible, not caring how many wrong turns or dead ends you take? Do you develop a strategy and create markers for yourself, so you don’t backtrack? Do you set markers and have an idea of how far you have gone? These are all different choices that you make. Similar choices can be made when it comes to authoring an eLearning course. It can be overwhelming to actually sit down and create the course. However, there are tried and true steps to take before firing up that authoring tool and start designing an eLearning course.

At the beginning of their journey, eLearning and online training professionals need to find the “secret sauce” for what works best with learners. The following five helpful mantras provide refreshing ideas for creating eLearning courses that go beyond the conventional approach.

What if the secret to life existed but was locked in a box that no one could open? Well, you’d pretty much just have a box, wouldn’t you? And that is also what you have when you design an eLearning course without taking usability into consideration. It matters little how relevant information in a course might be if your audience can’t access that information. While engaging students and making sure content is entirely covered are critical parts of course success, it is just as important to go through and make sure your user interface (UI) ducks are in a row. Taking the time to go through and check for user-friendliness will help ensure that your students don’t lose out just because the course is difficult to navigate. Keep in mind that an eLearning course often isn’t a choice for most people. They are taking this because they have to and will have little patience for guesswork. Make it clear what the user needs to do in order to advance in the course. Learning is difficult enough without the added annoyance of having to hunt for what to click on.