How To Effectively Promote Your eLearning Course To Your Audience
For established businesses, incorporating eLearning courses with employee training also leads to a host of benefits. According to studies, eLearning can increase employee retention rates by up to 60% with productivity increases that can result in 42% growth in revenue. Thus, increasing the adoption rate of eLearning courses each year. Whether you’re promoting your brand or training your staff, here are some of the best ways to promote your eLearning course and reach more people with your deliverable:
1. Search Engine Optimization
Statistics show that search engines are responsible for up to 64% of web traffic. Google alone handles 3.5 billion daily queries in its search engine. So if you’re trying to promote your eLearning course or anything online, Search Engine Optimization is probably the most rewarding strategy there is.
However, SEO success boils down to several key factors that determine the searchability of any online content. For one, Google only deems sites with highly informative and valuable content to be rank-worthy. So the first thing you need to do is to ensure your eLearning course incorporates keyword-rich, updated, and relevant content. Make it your goal to educate rather than promote yourself – your audience will appreciate you more for this.
“The content should be unique, valuable, and more than just self-promotional. The page content should be appropriate and relevant such that a visitor would be unlikely to go “back” to find an alternative and more relevant page or website,” says in this post on Magicdust.
Depending on the platform you're using for your eLearning course, there are several ways to integrate keywords that your target audience will use. For example, a platform that allows article-based online courses, make sure you add keywords in page titles, URLs, meta descriptions, and the content itself. The same practices can be applied if you're promoting your course from your website or a presentation sharing platform like SlideShare.
2. Content Marketing
Promoting an eLearning course is just like marketing any other type of content. You just have to work with all the content elements that each platform has. Additionally, you need to focus on the experience that your eLearning course can offer.
Remember that you’re not ranking for search engines – you’re ranking for people. Ranking 1-3 on SERPs means nothing if you cannot convert your exposure into actual engagement. First, pay attention to your course materials’ titles.Since you only have a few seconds to capture your audience’s attention, you need a compelling title that’s eye-catching and highly shareable. Of course, it should also contain a keyword to improve your visibility in search engines.
Scheduling is also a key consideration when marketing your eLearning course. Again, focus on what works for your audience and promote materials in the most convenient time for them. You also need to plan your posting frequency in eLearning platforms and social media to keep your audience updated.
“Finally, and importantly, time implications; scheduling assists you in making sure that you don’t end up having no content available to post because it’s just not ready yet”, says this article from eLearningIndustry.com.
For all your scheduling tasks, you can count on cloud-based tools like Google Calendar or CoSchedule.
3. PPC Ad Campaign
A lot of online marketers today focus on inbound marketing strategies. Although those strategies yield excellent results, in the long run, you shouldn't underestimate the power of outbound marketing when it comes to getting quick results.Paid advertising, for example, is a great way to push your eLearning content directly to your audience.
However, going for PPC ads require a lot of planning and optimizing. Things can also get pricey if you don’t manage your budget well. If you want to make the most out of your advertising dollars, you need to pay attention to the fundamentals of PPC ad campaigning.
First, make sure you target keywords that have the advantages of volume, low competition, and commercial intent. An ongoing trend is to target long-tail and low-hanging fruit keywords. These are keywords that are very specific to your niche (as opposed to “head” terms) -- thus, making them much easier to rank for.
“The big mistake that many first-time marketers make with SEO or pay-per-click advertising is choosing the wrong keywords,” says this blog post on KISSmetrics.
For keyword research, you can rely on tools like Adwords Keyword Planner and the “Low-Hanging Fruit” feature in RankWatch. Aside from keywords, make sure you are familiar with the types of paid ads and how they work. For your eLearning course, target social media networks where most of your target audience are.
4. Guest Blogging
Guest blogging allows you to leverage the online reach of influential bloggers, earn high-quality links from authority sites, and gain organic traffic all at the same time. In this strategy, it's imperative that you target authoritative bloggers with a huge following. One of the best ways to do this is to utilize a tool like Buzzsumo.
To increase the approval rate of your guest blogs, look for sites that are already accepting guest posts. For this, you can add the following phrases in your search query:
- Keyword + “Guest Posts Wanted”.
- Keyword + “Write For Use”.
- Keyword + “Contribute to our Site”.
- Keyword + “Submit an Article”.
For guest blogging to work, you must be able to provide valuable content that your target blog will gladly share. This should be easier considering you're promoting an eLearning course that packs a lot of content.
“You need a topic that fits their site like a glove… If you can write content that speaks to their audience, you’ll have no problem whatsoever getting your post accepted”, says Brian Dean of Backlinko.
5. Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is a lot like guest blogging. The only difference is that you will be targeting people rather than blog sites. These are influencers with an established presence in various online channels, particularly social media.
“(On Influencer Marketing) you're primarily working with people who are famous in an industry. The idea is to create an affinity for the brand for however that celebrity is shown, and to reach the audience that celebrity has been able to attract", says Michael Stelzner of Social Media Examiner.
Just like guest blogging, you begin influencer marketing by looking for the major influencers. Again, Buzzsumo works fairly well for this. Just remember to create profiles of your target influencers and look for the one that fits your content perfectly. Some of the factors you need to look and include their niche, personality type, profession, and the kind of content they usually share.
Conclusion
Promoting an online course has plenty of marketing benefits, but it's not always easy to reach a broad audience. It is an endeavor that requires a lot of research, planning, and a solid effort in leveraging various promotion channels such as social media and niche blogs. If you want to promote your eLearning course successfully, you need to use the privilege of teaching as your primary motivation: Then everything will be worth it in the end.
