I'm building an advice focused, two-side marketplace (similar to Clarity) so I was curious if anyone knew how they initially drove the demand after building up strong supply.
Clarity has taken the virtual learning or e-learning concept to all new levels. Clarity is a service that helps you find, schedule, and pay for expert advice over the phone to help you be more productive and grow your business. In short it helps you to virtual learn or e-learning more about your business so that you can grow it. Since you have expressed interest to launch a similar platform, here is the few things you must keep in mind:
1. Choose an Industry: If you are already in an industry that fits the e-learning space, you are in luck. Or you can create products specifically for e-learning. Some subjects that are perfect for e-learning are education, business opportunities, how-tos, computer and information technology, and retail and e-commerce.
2. Build A Sales Funnel: A sales funnel is how a potential customer can research and purchase an e-learning course online without the need to speak to a salesperson. The main parts of a sales funnel are generating a lead, a video or webinar to sell the e-learning course, long-term marketing to the lead and the buying process. It is important to automate the entire sales process so fewer human resources are required. Then it is much easier to scale your marketing budget and skyrocket your revenue.
3. Create An E-Learning Course: There are many learning management systems (LMS) that you can use, including some free options. For example, WordPress has free LMS plugins that work well. For paid services, there are plenty to choose from. There are closed platforms, where customization is limited, and open platforms that are completely customizable. Since the e-learning space is growing rapidly, there is also rapid growth in the LMS space. Using a closed platform is nice because it is easier to create your e-learning course. Once you are signed up, you just upload the course. There will be some configuration required, such as design and colour changes, but it is simple to get the course up and running. The negative side of using a closed platform is the lack of customization. Open platforms allow you to custom build your e-learning course. There is more work upfront, but in the end, it can be well worth it. For example, using a custom e-learning platform can allow you to automate cancelling accounts if a customer doesn’t pay their monthly fee or have agreements e-signed in the sales process -- plus many more features that might be crucial to your growth down the road. The best thing to do is outline your entire sales process and make sure the LMS has the required features available.
4. Generate Leads: The key to this business is lead generation. Once your sales funnel is created, all tracking should be set up, so each marketing channel is tracked for conversions and cost per acquisition. YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, and AdWords all work well for paid marketing. Search engine optimization is important for organic traffic. And, of course, social media is especially important today for any online marketing campaign. There is also offline marketing such as radio or TV, but that can be expensive. Plus, if you do not have experience, you can lose money quickly. Online marketing is the cheapest way to drive in leads for e-learning, and it is also extremely easy to track, manage and scale. The reason I personally love the e-learning industry is because of how scalable it can be. The ability to sell e-learning to potentially hundreds or even thousands of people per day, with minimal additional resources, is a huge plus. The key is to automate the entire sales process. With the use of an online sales funnel to drive in the leads, automated long-term marketing to make sure your potential customers do not forget about you, and automated selling so you can sell to the masses online, it’s amazing how quickly this type of business can scale. Of course, the key is to figure out which marketing strategy works best so it is profitable. But once it is profitable, you can turn up the marketing budget and watch the sales pour in.
You can promote your project by:
1. Set your goals: Now that you are committed to adopting eLearning into your training strategy (or improving the training strategy you already have), let's talk about what you hope to achieve. First step; like any other effort, is setting a specific goal. What are you trying to accomplish by including eLearning? Goals are at the heart of your project and selecting the right ones can make or break your adoption or implementation strategy in your company. Establish goals that meet the SMART methodology:
I. Specific (Specific)
II. Measurable (measurable)
III. Achievable (Achievable)
IV. Realistic (Realistic)
V. Timed (Programmable)
2. Consider your audience: Determine who your audience is going to be, what are their roles in the company, how many they are, what are their ages, and why they are taking the cause. Think about what your company is trying to approach with the eLearning course. Is your objective to inform about a new product, educate about new company rules and politics or are you just giving a orientation course to new employees? Ask all these questions to analyse your audience, the answers will help you define the right message for the campaign and the appropriate way to transmit it.
3. Branding: After defining objectives and analysing the audience, it´s time to kick-off a marketing campaign. To create successful marketing plans, follow the BAIDA methodology:
I. Branding (Branding)
II. Attention (Attention)
III. Interest (Interest)
IV. Desire (Aspiration)
V. Action (Action)
It is a fact that when something new slowly leaks into your company, it is in danger of eventually being irrelevant (or at least not important). Workers commonly resist putting anything new on their plates. This way, kick-off campaigns are a good way to gain awareness. So, think about what you are offering: think about your organisation, your objectives and importantly, your target audience. How could you brand your initiative? Position eLearning as a pathway to promotion? A way to make daily tasks easier? or Just a way to stay current?
4. Attention: When it comes to eLearning adoption, it is always better to market it to changing perceptions. Trying to impose a new training method can be more than harsh. Identify what are their fears, their issues, barriers, and what are their weaknesses. Analyse these data in the context of your project and this will make it much easier for your audience to find the courses interesting no matter what they used to think.
“I didn’t know about it”, “It’s not relevant to my job”, “It doesn’t look like fun” and “I have ‘real’ work to do” are some of the common objections workers make. They are a result of bad internal marketing. Therefore, learners need to understand why they need to take the course and how eLearning can help them. No one has sold them on eLearning benefits, so you need to highlight some such as convenience, ability to revisit resources whenever they want, join interactive discussions and boards, and receive live help while taking the course.
5. Interest: Define the message you want to convey clearly and briefly. Note that human beings are selective; therefore, it is necessary to capture your audiences’ interest quickly. Limit your strategy in a way that its highlights’ a maximum of 5 key messages, and then relate them to the weakest areas you found in your audience. For example, if you discover that your audience is afraid, they will not be able to keep up and they are not comfortable using computer regularly, you need to adapt your campaign to solve these issues.
6. Desire: Create a list of all the different aspirations of your audience and why would they like to start the eLearning course, in order of importance. Then, conceptualize your message in a form of an ad and devise a plan of attack to get those learners engaged.
7. Action: Make information accessible and easy to find. The more people know about the project and its benefits, the more they are going to act upon it. Make it as easy as possible for them to access the course; to start. Become a guest speaker. Just because you are about to draft a few posters and newsletters to your audience does not mean that they are going to read them or understand the implications. You need to engage your audience by making the plan visible. This means getting out in front of groups of employees to talk about the plan and answer their questions.
8. Run the campaign: Which is the most effective medium to launch the campaign? What is the cost? Consider all the information gathered in the previous steps and the budget available to run the campaign.
Some options for promoting the project in your company:
I. Newsletters
II. Interactive Posters
III. Emails
IV. Banners
V. Seminars
VI. Personalized items such as pens, t-shirts, mouse pads, etc.
VII. Have department open houses.
VIII. Bring employees together for discussions on the topic.
IX. Deliver company news by walking and visiting each department.
X. Create videos to help people learn more about the project.
XI. Invite representatives of the Training Department to meetings with employees.
Execute the marketing plan within a reasonable period, schedule activities with time.
9. Be constant: The goal of your project is to take your audience from a current situation or position to a future one. The only way to lead this process of change correctly is through a proper communication and marketing strategy. A period of 9-12 months is a reasonable range to run a mixed marketing plan. This mixture can help the audience remember the message and familiarize. If you start raising awareness from the very start of the project, you are more likely to get support from your learners.
Besides if you do have any questions give me a call: https://clarity.fm/joy-brotonath
