At Pathmonk our goal is to help you get more website visitors and signups for your courses. that’s why we’ve done the necessary research, discovered the techniques that work best and now we can confirm that when you begin applying this SEO strategy you’ll begin to see an increase in website traffic. Throughout this blog post we’re going to give you the information you need to gain a better understanding of the course buyers mindset.
When it comes to marketing ideas for e-learning, it’s worth noting that the Projections of Education Statistics has shown that the projected total enrollment of students between the years of 2008 and 2019 was and is still expected to rise by 17%. Since we are now in the age of technology, these people will certainly be taking their research and applications to the online world.
What this change means is that you must react accordingly and sell courses online more effectively… but how do you do it? Today we are going to share a unique strategy with you so that you can gain a better understanding of exactly how you can sell your online course using aunique SEO strategy.
When it comes to marketing ideas for e-learning there are six crucial steps within this strategy that we believe must be followed exactly as given – whether you do so will make or break your success in selling courses online. The six steps are as follow:
- Track your course category urgency and category awareness
- Choose tactics and channels based on category awareness
- Perform keyword research
- Establish which specific channels (and tactics) are needed in order to be found
- Maximize your most effective channel – recommendations
- Execute, measure, repeat, and have patience
These six steps when applied correctly will be the driving force behind selling courses online and will give you the information you need to hit your targets in time with enough work and dedication!
Step 1 – How to Track Course Category Urgency and Category Awareness
When it comes to brainstorming marketing ideas for e-learning, the process for selling courses online starts with identifying the awareness and demand for a particular course. Category urgency is the actual demand for a course by potential students while Category awareness is how known a particular course is – let me provide an example.
A Bachelors degree in ecotechnology might have a rather low category awareness or urgency. In other words, the majority of people won’t know what this course is or be in need of it. A Marketing degree however would fall within both high category awareness and urgency as most people know what a Marketing course is (awareness) and be willing to wait for a spot within the course (urgency) given the plethora of career opportunities it provides.
Step 2 – How to Promote Online Training by Choosing the Right Tactics and Channels
Now that you have in mind which kind of courses are in high and low category awareness and urgency it’ll be time to choose which channel will be best suited in order for your course to be found online!
The below image demonstrates which channels should be used depending on your course’s level of awareness. When it comes to knowing how to promote training courses online, a good strategy for high awareness type of courses is an SEO Strategy
Take a Marketing course for example – this is high category awareness because everyone knows about it and a lot of students want to do it. There’s high demand and high competition and thus both high category awareness and urgency. That’s where SEO comes in as the above image suggests. That will be your number one channel for gaining more sign-ups because people are already searching for the term “Marketing course” left, right, and center because it’s so popular! When you use the appropriate channel for the appropriate course you gain incredible results because you’re matching the right channels with the right course demand and competition online.
Step 3 – SEO Strategy = Keyword Research
If you’re not taking advantage of what people are searching for then you’re missing out! That’s where keyword research comes in.
The process of keyword research is quite thorough but it boasts significant results and is absolutely worth the headache! Keywords are the exact words that people search online via search engines, leading to the results that they find A.K.A. your website. This process consists of analysing search queries in competitiveness, volume and relevance (to your offered product). To skip the technical talk and put the end goal simply – the higher the volume and relevancy and the lower the competition, the better.
From the above image we can deduce that the keyword ‘law courses in dublin’’ has the most potential due to the high opportunity score while ‘music courses in dublin’’ has the least for the same reason. This article from 2015, although somewhat dated, still holds great relevance today and details the process of keyword ranking quite well.
Step 4 – How to Promote E-Learning Courses
With the relevant and strongest keywords added to your marketing ideas for e-learning arsenal, you can now begin your attack on the search engines results (not literally) for selling courses online. When you type in each keyword onto Google lets say, you’ll immediately notice the vast number of links to specific websites on the first page right down until the last – where do you want to be within these search results? Ideally you want to replace all of them with your course but unfortunately that’s next to impossible so let’s move on to the next best thing!
You need to know how to promote your e-learning course effectively which is done by taking notes of what link each of these search results actually are, by doing this you can determine your SEO titles strength and thus possibility of outranking other SEO titles.
With this in mind you can begin to type each keyword into your chosen search engine and see what comes up. You can then begin to document your findings on a spreadsheet to later determine which keywords offer a real possibility to rank on the first page and which offer outright digital suicide when selling courses online!
Step 5 – How to Attract Students Using Recommendations
Of all the marketing ideas for e-learning, the one channel beyond all the research and planning, the one strategy that beats all others is that of recommendations! Ok, so it’s not really a channel but it is the most important aspect when it comes to selling courses well anything really. Regardless of how well you market your courses and website, how well optimised everything is – if your content isn’t the best quality it can be and if it doesn’t offer real value then people will leave bad reviews instead of good ones, they won’t recommend your academy and that’s going to negatively impact your business!
This step isn’t as complex as the previous steps but that fact makes it no less important. If you provide top-notch content that people love while they’re attending your course then they’ll spread the word and put your brand in the theoretical hall of fame and make your academy a superstar overnight!
When selling courses online you can’t force people to like what you provide, but there are a few tricks you can use to give your academy a helping hand and discover how to attract students to your course:
- Measure baseline recommendability
- Gain insight and find out why recommendations are requested and provided – this can be done via surveys and tests
- Make it easy for people to recommend you – simplify the message
- Create a generous referral programme that rewards recommendations
Step 6 – Wash, Rinse, Repeat and Have Patience
Rome wasn’t built in a day and nor will your sign ups skyrocket with the snap of your fingers (unless you’re the first ever digital marketing wiz, in which case – why are you even reading this) but by following this guide, continuing to analyse your academy and the relevant channels and keywords – over time you’ll surely begin to see an increase in your sign ups to the point where you won’t even need to follow this guide anymore! After that, there’s always room for more marketing ideas for e-learning and a continuation of keyword research and a crafted SEO strategy as Google’s search results are forever changing depending on what people are or are not searching for at that time.
Those all-powerful recommendations I told you about earlier? They’re going to be the reason why. You can do all the planning and research you want but in the end, if you know how to provide quality content that really benefits students and offers them something more, something useful that your competitors don’t, then that’s half the battle won – the other half won relies upon recommendations and that’s something I can’t emphasize enough!
To improve your odds at selling courses online you should go through your marketing plan every six months and implement the necessary changes because all of the aspects we’ve spoken about today – category awareness, keywords and channels are ever-changing. The former change naturally based on what people search while the later will change depending on your academies rise in popularity.
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