Top tips for marketing eLearning

So, you’ve got your new LMS with courses that you know your learners will love. Now it’s time to get them engaged and excited to learn! Here are some marketing tips to help get you started.

Create a focus group
Your people are at the heart of this project. You may have surveyed your staff in the beginning to discover your organisation’s learning needs, now it’s time to call on them again.

Gather a group of colleagues, ideally from each team/department in your organisation, to include a good cross section of staff and/or volunteers. These people will hopefully become your eLearning champions.

Some of the hardest people to reach with eLearning are those that may not work at a desk, such as retail workers and carers, so make sure they are represented.

Ask your focus group how they keep up to date with your organisation and use this information to drive future communications.

Build relationships with people who have the skills you need
Creating compelling content, copy and graphics to market eLearning may feel daunting. Your organisation probably doesn’t have the budget to outsource, so find people with marketing and design expertise in your organisation and build relationships with them. 

Ask around to see what skills your colleagues have. You might be surprised to find that many people would love the opportunity to do something different. Colleagues often have previous experiences that will enhance your marketing thinking.

Run a webinar
Webinars have become increasingly popular to encourage staff engagement, sharing hot topics and new information. 

Focus on a certain course or type of training, then find a speaker with expertise in this field, or run it yourself. There are plenty of free webinars to help you get started on running your own digital events. The Charity Learning Consortium ran a ‘How to’ session at our last virtual members meeting with virtual learning expert Jo Cook. Please get in touch with us if you would like to learn more and see the recording.

Satisfy learning desires before organisational needs
Your staff may need an initial push to log in to your LMS. Once they’re there, it will naturally be easier to engage them through a learning journey.

Which of your courses is most widely anticipated by staff and volunteers? Why not release it early or tease its content in an email campaign. Start by focusing marketing on these courses over compliance training, for example. Get positive reviews and promote them.

You have hopefully already planned to survey your staff to find out how much they are enjoying your new eLearning, but don’t sleep on the data! You can create meaningful content with the testimonials you collect.

Use any feedback you get to help create a buzz around the office. Word of mouth is often overlooked, as it’s hard to quantify, but it can definitely be used to your advantage. The more content you create with real names and faces the better. 

Remember to also shout about the great feedback you receive to your organisation’s managers, as this will help to increase buy-in from the top down.

Be a storyteller
Most people prefer to hear stories over seeing data. Ensure that your most compelling marketing content is relatable, showing real people and real lives. 

Look to create case studies from the data and feedback you collect. As an example, if you have learners that work from home, find out how the eLearning you have provided has positively impacted them. Take some photographs out in their field or create a short video of them talking. This is a great way to link to new course releases or increase engagement in specific courses that haven’t had much uptake from remote workers.

Add this content to your intranet, staff newsletter or website and push it out via email too. 

In conclusion

Getting your eLearning noticed can take time. But, with resourceful thinking, a creative approach and your ear to the ground, your learners will be inspired by your enthusiasm and the buzz will get them involved. Keep up the momentum and be confident in what you’ve created, your confidence will be mirrored and emulated by your stakeholders. 

Most importantly, have fun! Marketing your learning is a huge step to realising your organisations dream of a great learning culture.