eLearning Providers Are Poised For Growth: The First Step Is Building Trust

Building Brand Trust To Boost Digital Presence
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Summary: As remote learning comes to the forefront, software and service providers have a unique opportunity to grow their businesses. In a crowded marketplace, it's important to stand out by establishing authority and trust online.

Improving eLearning Providers Digital Presence: Establishing Brand Trust

The eLearning industry has grown more than 900% since 2000, to the point that an online curriculum has become a staple in many American students’ education routine. Then, in March, the COVID-19 outbreak—and the resulting quarantines and stay-at-home orders—changed everything about how we work and live. What was once considered a supplemental resource, became the singular education method overnight. In light of this new normal, it is more important than ever for eLearning providers to rise to the occasion.

It’s clear that eLearning technology has made a huge difference in today’s changing world, and as life slowly returns to normal after the pandemic, it is likely to remain at the forefront of how we learn.

With this strong foundation already in place, the stage is set for eLearning companies to boost their market share to reach an ever-growing audience. But with multiple players in the space, how do you ensure your product is at the top of everyone’s list? At this intersection of abundant demand and never-before-seen interest in eLearning, marketing—or lack thereof—can mean the difference between rapid growth or falling behind the competition.

4 Tips For Building Brand Trust

The key to gaining visibility and establishing yourself as an industry leader is creating trust between your business and your buyers. Here are 4 strategies, or trust signals, that can aid in creating trust among your target customers when you are competing in a crowded market.

1. Own Branded Search And Your Google Presence

You’re probably already listening to social media conversations that mention your brand name and have Google alerts set up for mentions of your brand and product names. But you also need to pay attention to what comes up when someone searches your company or product names.

Stats tell us that even when someone searches your company’s name only 30% will click through to your site. That makes the Google search results page your second homepage—making your Google My Business listing and Google knowledge panel critical to brand perception.

Google My Business is a free tool that gives you the opportunity to list and promote your business on Google Search and Maps. You set up a business profile, update it regularly, and it allows you to connect with customers. Google My Business helps your business show up when customers use Google to search for businesses and products like what you sell. Even if you already have your own website, Google My Business helps give you more visibility. By putting in important information like business hours, website, contact information and promotions, it’s like having your own professionally produced advertising and website, right there on the Google search results.

Google knowledge panels are the automatically generated boxes that appear on a Google search page and give a short snapshot of information about a search topic, based on what Google knows about the topic. Google gleans information from various sources. They often draw from verified entities and self-authoritative, prominent individuals.

2. Manage Your Presence On Industry Review Sites

Review sites allow your customers to give you feedback, giving you the opportunity to gauge customer satisfaction and improve Customer Experience. You must monitor these sites carefully because customers can say anything they want, and it might not be positive. In the eLearning space, this can be especially tricky as your “customers” may be disgruntled 16-year-olds who would much rather be playing video games than learning at home.

More and more people are turning to these sites to see rankings and reviews before making a purchasing decision. Though reviews may seem like a small part of the overall picture, you need to be managing your presence there if you want to ensure a positive public image.

Your online presence is important but that doesn’t mean you should be getting rid of all negative reviews. That feedback can actually be helpful and lead you to address an issue or make internal changes to a product or process to improve the Customer Experience. Consumers read reviews and make decisions based on them almost immediately, so what’s being said about you online can affect your bottom line.

3. Secure Your Place In The Media

eLearning is more present in the news than ever before. From trade publications to business press, reporters are covering the evolution of education in light of remote learning. They are actively looking for data-driven commentary from industry leaders to substantiate their reporting on the topic, which means this is the perfect time to identify the trends on which your organization can offer a meaningful point of view.

Are you letting the media know what you’re doing—your key differentiators in the eLearning industry, programs you have to offer, new initiatives you’ve introduced? Are you offering your executives' insights on the current eLearning landscape, commenting on industry trends, and presenting your organization as a thought leader in the space? If not, you have a great opportunity to leverage PR and media engagement to join the eLearning conversation.

Work with your PR team or agency to make sure you don’t miss the chance to elevate your voice in the eLearning news cycle. With the right mix of announcements, timely thought leadership, and proactive trend-related pitching, you can establish a steady cadence of media coverage to drive brand awareness and reputation.

4. Create Smart, Thought-Leading Content And Share It With The Appropriate Audiences

Content serves two purposes when it comes to establishing authority in the eLearning industry: gaining and retaining attention.

Have a content strategy. Your strategy will help you plan out and produce useful content on a regular basis. You need quality content that’s aimed at serving, not selling; targeted to your audience, and written to elicit a specific response from them. By showing your audience content they’re interested in, they’re more likely to take action. Make sure to maintain a consistent voice across all your content. Consistent Customer Experience helps build trust in your brand.

A thought-leadership program will provide answers to your customers’ biggest questions, help establish you as an industry expert, and bring attention to your business. Housing that content on a smart, search-oriented blog will help increase visibility for those who are searching for specific keywords. You need content that not only tickles the algorithms but also provides value once that content is found.

Once you’ve built an arsenal of great content, you need to make sure people are actually seeing it. Social media—both paid and organic—and digital advertising need to be used to make sure that content is being seen by your target audience.

Last, monitor your content, have a way to measure your results, evaluate what’s working, make adjustments, and repeat the process.

Conclusion

These are just a few of the trust signals (you can find a long list here) that can influence buyers on your website, in SEO and across the internet.

The world has never been more engaged or interested in eLearning, and, for providers in the space, it’s imperative to strike while the iron is hot. With the right marketing program, you can seize this opportunity to elevate your brand to new audiences, drive your organization’s reputation and expand your market share. Don’t risk fading into the shadows when a few simple marketing initiatives could put you in the spotlight.

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