Crafting Your eLearning Brand Strategy
A Step-by-Step eLearning Brand Strategy Guide
Crafting a successful eLearning brand strategy can be a daunting task, but with the right guidance, it doesn’t have to be.
This step-by-step guide offers comprehensive and actionable advice on how to create a brand strategy that will set your online learning platform and your e-learning courses apart from the competition.
You’ll learn how to define your eLearning brand, create a unique brand identity.
You’ll also discover the latest best practices for leveraging technology, optimizing your LMS, Marketing website, and using social media to your advantage.
By the end of this guide, you will have the resources and knowledge necessary to craft a unique and effective eLearning brand strategy that will help you stand out from the crowd.
What is an eLearning Brand Strategy?
A brand strategy is the plan you use to create and implement an effective and consistent brand for your eLearning project.
A brand strategy is essential for success in any industry or niche. It gives your program a distinct identity and separates you from your competition.
If you are an eLearning program or company, then your brand strategy will be designed to promote awareness of your online learning platform and help you stand out from other companies.
Brand strategy is one of the most important components of marketing for eLearning companies and online learning platforms.
Without a clear understanding of:
Who your target audience is?
What it is that makes your product or service unique?
Why those things matter to your customers?
You could be missing out on countless opportunities to attract new customers and make the most of your marketing budget.
Defining Your eLearning Brand
The first step in crafting your eLearning brand strategy is to define your brand.
This step is all about understanding who your e-learning project is, what you do, and whom you do it for.
When you break down these basics, you will find that they’re really the same things that your learners want to know as well.
This is why defining your brand is essential to crafting an effective eLearning brand strategy.
It will give you a clear path for the direction of your marketing efforts and the types of learners and community you want to attract.
When you define your brand, you will want to ask yourself the following questions:
What is your project asset?
What industry do you operate in?
What are the benefits of your courses?
Who are your Learners?
What is your project mission?
How do you want to be known?
When you have answers to all of these questions, you will have a clear understanding of your brand.
This will allow you to build a strong foundation for your eLearning brand strategy.
With this knowledge, you will be able to easily craft a brand identity that attracts customers and sets your eLearning program apart from the competition.
Creating a Unique Brand Identity
Your brand identity is what sets you apart from your competition and tells your customers what they can expect from your project and e-learning courses.
Think of brand identity as the face of your eLearning brand. It is the visual components of your marketing efforts and the first thing that learners see when they come into contact with your project.
Your brand identity includes your logo, colours, fonts, images, animation, instructional design, structure, video, audio, scenario...
When you are creating a brand identity, you will want to make sure that it is authentic to your organization.
One great way to do this is to hire a branding agency or branding expert to help you create a brand identity that will set your project apart from the crowd.
Your brand identity should reflect your:
values,
training methodology,
and your goals as an eLearning manager.
Your brand identity will be the foundation of your marketing efforts, so it’s important to make sure that it is unique and authentic to your eLearning brand.
Identify your Target Leaners
Next, you will want to identify your target audiences.
When you know who your target audiences are, it becomes much easier to craft a marketing strategy that resonates with these learners and encourages them log on your e-learning platform.
If you want to be successful in eLearning, it’s important that you know who you are targeting and why.
There are a few ways to go about identifying your target audiences.
The first way is to conduct a SWOT Analysis.
A SWOT Analysis is a way of understanding your project’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
A SWOT Analysis will help you to understand your project and its place in the marketplace.
When you conduct your SWOT Analysis, you will want to consider the following questions:
What are your project’s strengths?
What are your organization’s weaknesses?
What are the opportunities that are presented to your Platform?
What are the threats facing your e-learning Project?
The second way to identify your target audiences is to conduct customer research.
Customer research is a way of learning about customers:
needs,
challenges
and expectations.
You want to learn also how they like to learn :
video,
audio,
microlearning,
gamification,
interaction.
Once you have this information, you can use it to inform your marketing strategy.
Develop your brand positioning
Your brand positioning is the promise that your eLearning brand makes to your learners.
The goal of developing your brand positioning is to help you to stand out from the crowd and be memorable.
Your brand positioning will help you to get noticed and make a lasting impression.
When you develop your brand positioning, you will want to consider the following questions:
What is the purpose of your eLearning brand?
What is your eLearning brand promise?
What are the benefits of your eLearning brand?
Why will customers choose your eLearning brand?
When you have developed your brand positioning, you have created a clear path for your marketing and sales strategies.
Develop your messaging strategy
Your messaging strategy is the way that you communicate your brand promise to the world.
It is the way that you talk to your learners and convey your e-learning brand positioning.
Your messaging strategy will be reflected in your marketing materials and website editorial line.
Your website is the virtual storefront for your project and needs to support your e-learning platform, so it’s important that it reflects your brand promise and is consistent with your other marketing efforts.
There are many considerations when developing your messaging strategy.
You will want to consider your brand positioning, your brand promise, the needs of your learners, and what your competitors are doing.
When you consider these factors, it will be easier for you to develop a consistent marketing strategy that reaches your customers and helps you to convert leads into sales.
Your messaging strategy will be reflected in your website copy, social media posts, blog posts, and any other marketing materials.
Develop your blog and vlog
The next step is to create a blog and vlog editorial strategy.
A blog is a great way to not only attract new customers, but also engage with your existing customers.
A vlog is a video blog where you can share your story, knowledge, and expertise.
Both can help you boost your search engine optimization (SEO), increase brand awareness, and generate leads.
To ensure your blog and vlog are optimized for success, you’ll want to follow these key tips:
Create quality content. Crafting high-quality blog posts and videos is crucial to the success of your blog and vlog.
To create quality content, ask yourself what problem your audience is facing, what questions they have about a certain topic, and what their learning goals are.
Then, use that information to create blog posts and videos that will help your audience overcome their challenges and achieve their goals.
Selected a brandable eLearning platform like the Learning Lab
eLearning platforms are the digital classrooms where your eLearning courses are hosted.
There are several eLearning platforms available, each offering its own unique features.
Before you select an eLearning platform, you’ll want to consider a few key factors, including:
Authoring Tool,
Video-based Learning,
library,
Branding capacity,
Layout builder
and automatic translation.
You’ll want to brand the platform to match your eLearning brand strategy.
The Learning Lab is a fully brandable and video first solution innovative e-learning platform.
Conclusion
As you can see, crafting a successful eLearning brand strategy is a daunting task.
However, if you follow this step-by-step guide, you’ll have all the resources and knowledge you need to create a strategy that will set your eLearning platform like the Learning Lab apart from the competition.
Remember, your brand is the face of your project.
It’s the first thing potential customers will see, and it will either grab their attention or cause them to click away.