Course marketing in pandemic is an art and requires a lot of efforts to get it right in the first attempt. Here is a quick guide on how to achieve it.
Course marketing in a pandemic is not easy because the results of your marketing efforts are unpredictable to a certain degree. The tiniest of actions can make things go extremely good or extremely wrong. The good news for online course creators is that ever since lockdowns began, people have turned to the internet to beat boredom, connect with loved ones, and most importantly to learn new skills. In fact, COVID has resulted in the number of internet users growing by 70%.
This presents an interesting opportunity for digital businesses; possible the best opportunity in decades to genuinely help people and earn huge profits in return. Let’s look at how you can effectively do course marketing in pandemic for maximum reach and conversion.
The digital footprint of your business is the culmination of whatever your business looks like in the online world. This includes your presence on social media, your website, and directory listings. Search engines consider all of these to help people find your business. So it is imperative that these are claimed and updated to reflect the current status of your online education business to communicate your brand message during pandemic times.
Make a list of all the places where your business features online and set a reminder on your calendar to update them once a month. Google your keywords on incognito mode to see how your target audience is finding you.
During the pandemic, businesses of all sizes are choosing to communicate directly with their customers online. More and more businesses have turned to email marketing (email blasts or simple reach outs), phone calls, and direct mail. Take a list of the top 20% of your contacts and directly contact them via email or phone.
Rather than trying to sell someone a new course out of the blue, make sure to continuously maintain a connection with your audience and update them with whatever is new in your business and the topics they are interested in.
Along with consistent communication, empathy should be central in your messaging during these times. Do not be too pushy with your messaging as most people are in money-saving mode and spending less than before. But, try your luck with marked-down prices.
Ask your target audience how they are doing and listen to what they are saying. What are they struggling with? How has the pandemic changed their problems and priorities? Your message should show that you are in this together. Create courses that will help your audience solve their problems.
Customers expect to get information about your business in as little time as possible in the digital age. Is the business still open? Do you have special hours? Are your taking safety precautions? Are you releasing any special courses to solve any pandemic-related problems or to help people upskill?
Keep updating your social media. If people notice no activity on your social media handles, they will assume you are out of business and move on to your competition.
Make it easy for them to do business with you – be direct and upfront about the status of your business and how you can help them solve their problems.
These disruptive times demand a thorough assessment of your marketing and overall business strategy. Use this time to reflect on the purpose of your brand and define a new set of messages. Start asking questions like: what would your customers want from you in a time like this? What do they need to hear? Can you make their lives easier by offering a course or a longer payment period?
If you can do something for your customers during these times, make it the core of your message.
Don’t follow the crown and send out a COVID-19 related email to your email list. That is a heavily over-messaged environment. People are already overloaded with such messages from their employers, doctors, social media, and family WhatsApp groups.
Instead, only message them at the event of something important. For example, when you are releasing a new course or when you are putting a course on discount. Other than for these, don’t disturb your customers.
Redefining your business goals will also help you identify the most effective channels of your omnichannel offering. If your course had offline points of contact or points of sales, make sure that people turning up there are redirected to your website.
A little bit of personalization can go long way. Using consumer data from profiles in your customer data platform, give them personalized experiences across channels and devices. The way to stand out from your competition during these times is using individualized product recommendations that are delivered at scale or with special offers that will make your message stand out from the rest.
To know how well you are able to manage the surge in traffic from inbound sources, take your inbound marketing channels for a test run. This includes websites, chatbots, resources, videos, brochures, etc.
Find out how easy it is for people to find your business using a simple Google search, including voice search.
Also, look at the relevancy of the content on your website including blog pages.
Data capturing and analysis are more important than ever because the business and marketing landscape is very unpredictable at these times. Knowing what kind of search terms your users are using and how many of them are getting traffic for your website will help you fine-tune your marketing to deliver content that resonates with them.
As you analyze your data, ask questions like: How can you nudge your most important offline prospects towards an online conversion? What kind of messaging is creating the best impact? The list is endless.
Further Reading: Marketing your online course: Tips and Tricks
Now that you have seen how to tailor your course marketing in the pandemic, it is time to know more about Learnyst. Our services are perfect for your eLearning business to grow during the pandemic. After you have created your course using our platform’s robust authoring tools, marketing them becomes easy. For example, for inbound marketing advantages, your website will be SEO optimized. And you can easily integrate outbound marketing tools like MailChimp into Leanyst.
To know more about us and how we can help you with course marketing in Pandemic, get in touch with us now!
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