Sales strategies for your eLearning business

 

What are the steps to build a successful eLearning Business Model? What are the effective sales strategies for your eLearning business?

With eLearning markets booming during the past couple of years, and the competition getting more rigid, many companies specializing in eLearning are looking for new opportunities for attaining business growth viz., creating a product line, customer acquisition, expanding to recent locations, absorbing other similar companies, leveraging modern technology to develop sales strategies to differentiate your product from that of your competitors to a point where the difference creates a unique market value, etc.

It is a competitive eLearning market, and without a proper eLearning business model and sales strategies, your eLearning venture is likely to sink before it is launched.  Therefore, test your eLearning Business waters before venturing into it.  You need to determine the learning needs, gaps in eLearning offerings, kind of eLearning programs in demand, groups of learners, their size, their expertise, and their geographical distribution, language, and cultural considerations, etc., Once you have defined your target market, begin developing your business model and your goals and objectives. Your goal should be to determine what makes your course unique compared to your competitors.

Before developing an eLearning business model, prepare to answer the following questions:

1. What will be your relationship with your customers?

– Whether you are serving the whole market or only a subset of it (ie., segment).

– What makes you unique from your competitors

– What is the level of competition in the market.

– What is your selling strategy

– Instructor-led Instruction (tutoring)/Video based Instruction OR  Purchase and download?

2. Define the scope of your eLearning program

– What is your area of focus?

– What courses are your competitors providing for the same program

3. Factors that influence your learners to select your course?

– Define the value you provide

– What are the gaps you are addressing that currently do not exist in the market?

– Benefits to the learners from your offerings

4. Effective Strategy to implement eLearning

– Define effective methods to develop eLearning programs

– Effective marketing strategies

– Technologies used for developing the eLearning program

Developing an eLearning Business model earlier in the development process is crucial for the success of the business.  By implement, the above questions in your eLearning program will enable you to sell your online courses.

The growth in technology seems to continue offering new and untested solutions.  One technology is replaced by another novel technology in a short span of time.  Hence, an average shelf-life of a particular skill is hardly beyond two years.  Therefore the phrase, Market place for lifelong learning is no longer an option but has become a necessity.  Upskilling with new technologies has become an essential ingredient for learners in both academia and corporate sectors, enabling them to boost their skill levels, develop knowledge bases, build in-house expertise, improve employee motivation and retention, etc., Using digital eLearning solutions, educators can target learners spanning to large geographical areas, and hence, can promote inclusive learning.

An online platform can stand out from the rest, by offering users a better learning experience by leveraging new technologies to add value to their services.  A few sales strategies that can take your eLearning marketplace to the next level are:

1. Know your competitors: Do the research on your competitors, the courses they are offering, their prices, discount and promotional offers, their marketing strategies, their strength, and weakness, compare the differences between the competitors and figure out where you are lacking, etc.,
2. Understand key insights, target the right buyers and make your outreach personalized: Discover key insights (ie., Insights provides a deep understanding of your customers and reveals the action to be taken to improve your business), trends, and customer behavior, and do research on the markets. Efforts must be made to advertise your course effectively. To personalize the outreach, you need to analyze your market and segment them to target the right customers easily.
3. Drive website traffic, generate leads and build brand awareness. Lead generation is the main focus for any organization interested in generating consistent and reliable revenue, for which various marketing strategies and well-defined processes are employed; Trust plays a crucial role in building customer confidence. To develop trust, you must first understand the challenges and opportunities, and leverage information ie., personal attributes to narrow the scope of the campaign to target prospective customers. Developing meaningful relationships with customers helps shape brand perception.
4. Content marketing strategy: There are several types of content you can use to market your eLearning course viz., Newsletters, Blogs, EBooks, Videos, Audios, Lead Magnets, etc
5. Feedback from Learners: Understand the preferences of your learners, the device they are using to access the online learning resource, inquiries, complaints, doubts, social media and forums they are active, offer suggestions for improving the course if any, etc
6. Use Webinars to educate leads: You can use virtual seminars to educate your lead prospects about the course.
7. 7. Invest in Email Marketing: Send out email newsletters to your prospective leads informing them about your eLearning courses. You can also use email marketing campaigns to prompt lead prospects to visit your website and sign up for the course.
8. Run social media Ad-Campaign: it is a great strategy to target leads that are just beginning to purchase an eLearning course. You can use the social media ad campaign on Facebook and Instagram to target a specific customer base. You can prompt customers to visit your website and sign up for the course..
9. Utilizing digital technologies: Businesses must have a solid digital presence. If you lack a robust digital presence, you are in big trouble. In fact, most of the time, it’s your digital marketing strategy that influences purchase decisions. Also, create a responsive website and a mobile app, user-friendly interface, cloud-based solutions, and CRM Software, etc.,  Hence, eLearning businesses need to understand that technologies are essential not only for day-to-day processes but also to achieve sustainable growth in the long run.
10. 10. Improve Customer Service: The business growth of the company depends on acquiring and retaining existing customers. Therefore, businesses must provide a high level of customer service to all customers.
11. Minimizing Operational Cost and Maximizing Revenue: Focus on increasing productivity and Operational efficiency within your team, as well as with your customers. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software helps benefit both businesses and customers.

All the sales strategies mentioned above can help your business reach its full potential. Businesses of late have started to shift their strategy to digital initiatives from public conferences like seminars, colloquiums, webinars, etc, making it easier to leverage data and understand the Return on Investment (ROI), and optimize campaigns.   Efficient eLearning solutions have proved to be the most sought-after thing that will truly stand out with engaging, interactive, and high-quality app development.  As you can see, eLearning platforms have a lot to offer in terms of Courses, Technology,  micro-learning, improving knowledge and skill of job prospects and employees, providing Learning Experience Systems (LXS) for personalized immersive education built to eliminate shortcomings of traditional LMS which are focused on delivering intuitive and interactive user experience,  customization, etc. The eLearning platforms we see today are getting more diverse and industry-specific.   The popularity of eLearning is only going to grow from now on, along with the demand for new courses, constant updates, engaging content, interactive design,   innovative technologies, etc.  Your main goal should be to create a memorable learning experience for the learners.   The solution hence lies not only in adding new courses on a regular basis but also in revolutionizing existing business models.