Build it, and they will come.
That used to be the mantra, maybe at one point, but it hasn’t been for a long time, especially in corporate training. That’s why marketing is an essential part of every new eLearning course. It’s not enough to build it and put it in the company LMS.
It’s also not enough to make it a required course if you want results. Employees need to see value in the course, and they have to know about that value. eLearning marketing is the best way to make a course and its value known.
Mandatory training doesn’t guarantee attention and genuine engagement.
The modern workforce demands and needs more. They need more convenience, relevance, and motivation. This is why eLearning marketing is essential. It’s not enough to create relevant, stellar eLearning content and hope your employees will engage.
Build it, and they will come (if you market it well).
You have to market it to them. That means making it known it’s available, why they should take it, and capturing their interest by demonstrating its value in a way that resonates personally and professionally.
Imagine launching a new product without any advertising or promotional strategy. It wouldn’t generate much excitement or awareness, would it? The same principle applies to corporate training. By employing effective eLearning marketing strategies, you can ensure employees know a course exists and are excited about the benefits it will provide them.
Instead of enforcing participation through obligatory measures, businesses can cultivate a culture of self-directed learning. This shift not only elevates the reach of the training but also contributes to a more empowered and proficient workforce.
This post will show you how eLearning marketing strategies can elevate the effectiveness of corporate training initiatives. This ensures the training you worked so hard to make effective and useful is not simply attended passively but embraced and valued.
Why eLearning Marketing in Corporate Training is Essential
In most cases, corporate training will fail without an eLearning marketing strategy. It goes beyond simply creating eLearning content and hoping employees will engage with it. By implementing effective marketing strategies, businesses can ensure that their training initiatives are attended, embraced, and valued.
One of the main reasons strategic eLearning marketing is crucial is because it helps create awareness and excitement if it benefits employees. I know, you’re probably thinking, “Who the heck gets excited about training!?”
How would employees know about an eLearning course if it’s not properly marketed?
Many employees will likely get excited if you did a good job creating something beneficial to employees and market it too. Just like you can’t launch a new product without advertising, you can’t launch a new eLearning course without some marketing.
By strategically marketing your eLearning initiatives, you can capture the interest of your employees and demonstrate the value of the training in a way that resonates with them personally and professionally.
Identify the Target Audience’s Needs and Preferences
A successful eLearning marketing campaign hinges on the course being needed. That means you can’t simply take orders from a stakeholder that says they need a course. It has to be done purposefully, and you must know your target audience.
Just as an eLearning course needs to be created with purpose and a firm grasp of the target audience, marketing must also be done.
By understanding what motivates employees and what they need, you can build a successful eLearning course and marketing to go along with it. Before creating the course, identify employees’ needs and preferences.
Knowing your audience is essential for building effective eLearning and marketing it, too.
Conduct surveys or focus groups to figure out if the course would be something they need and want. If you gather enough information, you’ll better understand their expectations and needs. This should be part of your needs analysis to parlay that information into a marketing campaign.
If your needs analysis was done well, you can use it to create compelling marketing messages that highlight the benefits and relevance of the training. Training should answer the WIIFM (what’s. init. forme), and the marketing that raises awareness should also focus on the WIIFM.
It Better Be Good
No effectiveness of eLearning marketing will be successful without a good eLearning course.
Creating compelling and effective eLearning content is essential for successful eLearning marketing. It’s not enough to simply present information. The content needs to be valuable to employees and, above all else, relevant to their jobs. That’s why relevance is king (and queen) of training.
Sometimes it’s useful to use things like video or gamification, while other times, those are simply a distraction for content that can stand on its own without all the bells and whistles. Whatever makes eLearning more effective and useful to employees is what will make it good.
No amount of marketing will make a poorly created and ineffective eLearning course successful.
One of our favorite methods to make it good, practical, and relevant is to incorporate real-life scenarios that help employees connect the training to their work. This makes the content more relatable and useful.
If employees can see their work in the training then it’s more likely to be successful. That will make it a lot easier to market the training.
Create an eLearning Marketing Plan
Just like you have a plan for the course, there should be an eLearning marketing plan. That could be the cadence for emails, company intranet banners, or an automated messaging campaign.
Marketing a product requires a plan. That goes for eLearning marketing, too. To ensure the success of a course, develop a comprehensive marketing plan. This plan should outline the goals, target audience, messaging strategies, promotional channels, and evaluation methods (this could be part of the course evaluation).
Start by clearly defining your objectives for the eLearning marketing. What do you want to accomplish with the marketing campaign? While the training might have a performance objective, the marketing might be about numbers to reach more employees with the performance objectives.
An eLearning marketing plan is crucial to eLearning being successful.
The next step is determining which promotional channels are the most practical in reaching your target audience. Your corporate enterprise social network (ESN) is a great option, or it could be about banners and strategic links on the company intranet.
There are infinite ways you can market an eLearning course to employees. So, it’s about finding the right blend, from emails to messaging. There’s no perfect way to market an eLearning course, but there is the right way for your company and course. It’s a unique blend that might be different for each project.
The important part is to make marketing part of the plan from the start of developing the course. Ask what the plan is to get the word out and offer to be an integral part of that process plan. You could even write some of the messaging or at least be part of that process to market a new eLearning course.
Wrap Up
An eLearning marketing campaign is just as important as the eLearning itself. Relying on employees finding it or seeing it in the middle of a newsletter isn’t a good plan. Requiring training also isn’t a good plan because it ensures employees will tune out, only feeling the need to complete it rather than learn from it.
Creating an eLearning marketing plan is essential for the success of an eLearning course. That means there’s a plan to get the word out about the benefits employees will receive with training.
By implementing a well-planned marketing plan for your eLearning initiatives, you can elevate the effectiveness of your training programs. A course must be relevant and effective because excellent marketing can’t compensate for ineffective eLearning.
By embracing the need for eLearning marketing, employees will learn about it and determine if it fits their needs. That means more people will take the course, and it will be more effective. Corporate training can’t be successful if employees don’t take it.
Maintaining a marketing mentality will help contribute to successful corporate training and encourage a learning culture with employees seeking professional growth. Creating eLearning is only half the battle; ensuring employees know about it and are enthusiastic about it is the next half.
We’d love to work with you to develop your custom eLearning course and help create a marketing plan. We’re specialists in corporate technical training with a healthy dose of marketing expertise. Schedule a free consultation, and we’ll discuss how we can help make your next digital training initiative a huge success.