Before proceeding further, answer this question first. My intention in writing this blog is to introduce you to some of the popular online marketing channels through which you can reach your target audience. Having an answer to this question will help you define your messaging, marketing content and further refine your strategy within each marketing channel to reach your laser target audience. So spare some time to list down who your target audience is, where they are spending their time online. Get to know their geographic, demographic and psychographic characteristics. All this will help you get high-quality leads to your e-learning websites which ultimately results in higher sales for you.
You can classify your promotion strategy into two buckets – free & paid. Both ways will drive traffic to your website & require significant investment in terms of time and money. In other words, free traffic isn’t free – you need to still dedicate time and human capital to building an intelligent strategy and executing these marketing operations.
In this blog, I am sharing some of the popular & free marketing techniques that can drive initial traffic to your e-learning websites.
There are several popular ‘free’ traffic drivers (These are also known as organic or referral traffic drivers) in online marketing.
Build relationships with journalists to gain visibility in media channels. Connect with top blogs in your industry to contribute content and thought leadership on behalf of your brand. Keep your local news publications in your email lists. keep them posted about your progress, new courses, your institute achievements. Leverage your influence to get a publication on your e-learning websites.
Search for popular directory listing sites where you can list your teaching service. Create your profile on such listing sites and provide a link to your e-learning websites. Here are some popular listing services more specifically for the Indian market.
http://www.indianyellowpages.com
http://yspages.com/edit/company/createnew
Ensure that you have provided page title and page description for you eLearning web front. You can provide these details using Learnyst website builder (by clicking on settings). Add relevant sections (using Learnyst website builder) that describe your expertise & authority on your subject. Use relevant keywords within your section headings. Make sure that you are not overdoing it by compromising on messaging and readability.
This is going to be a big influence in getting organic search traffic for your website. It is highly recommended to have a blog attached to your e-learning websites. You can also link your external blog sites to your school front page using our website builder. By blogging, you can share your thought leadership and demonstrate expertise in your industry. More importantly, your audience’s trust in your brand is enhanced and you will be rewarded by search engines.
Start building your presence on social networks like Facebook, Twitter & Google Plus. Post about your e-learning websites launch. Share about courses that you offer. Keep your audience engaged by posting interesting problems & solutions. Involve them by asking questions, conducting friendly competitions. Reward your students by announcing top scorers (mention them in your posts). To start with & to keep things simple you can post the same information on all these social sites.
Identify questions that are specific to your subject/industry on these social platforms. By answering such questions, you can get high-quality leads to your site.
Create engaging videos to help explain your products and to tell the story behind your brand. Branded videos can also yield entertainment value. You can also post few course videos as promotional videos to advertise your course offering. Host these videos on popular sites like YouTube & Vimeo.
Your e-learning websites are created using Learnyst is built to achieve maximum conversion on your site. You can offer some lessons for free so that students can signup and watch those lessons. By promoting your course with free lessons or with useful resources you can drive more traffic to your site. Who doesn’t like free stuff? This will help you build a sales funnel that you can work on later for achieving optimum conversion.
Bringing visitors to your website just once isn’t enough. You need to keep them coming back. Learnyst provides you email campaign builder using which you can send emails to your trial and paid students. For instance, every time you publish a course or assessment you can send an email notification to your students.
There is nothing like people referring your courses to their friends or sharing among their social networks. If you are teaching students in a classroom setup you can share details about your e-learning websites among your students. These students can be your early customers who can help you in refining your offering and in providing valuable feedback. It’s not a bad idea to provide them free access to your online courses for the initial month or so.
One advantage of being an educator is increased opportunity in getting an invite for guest lecturing or for contributing on other educational sites. These opportunities will help you build your brand image and establish your authority as a subject expert. A proportion of these audiences will find their way back to your website.
Paid distribution channels are powerful traffic drivers. These channels include online advertising through banners on websites, search engine marketing campaigns on Google and Bing, social media advertising, and also on retargeting campaigns for users who have visited your site before.
I will be writing about paid marketing in my next blog. Feel free to share your experience with marketing your website. I would be glad to hear if you had success with any other channel of marketing.
