How You Can Grow Your eLearning Platform

With the internet fundamentally changing the world of work and play, many companies have implemented their own upskilling and education programs for would-be employees to learn as they earn. The eLearning market is booming, with over 70% of all formal education programs expected to rely upon EdTech solutions by 2027. Not just for children and high-schoolers, education technology solutions are being developed for all demographics, creating a vast ecosystem of resources available on the web.

Localization

With a large audience, comes a large demand. And with such a plethora of online learning materials, developers of eLearning solutions can themselves, learn the tricks of the trade online. Focus on

One of the very first things that you are going to need to do if you want to grow your eLearning audience would be to focus on localization. What is localization? As an online voice-over agency and provider of professional localization services, Voquent explains it as the process of adapting the training material and translating that material for a specific language and culture.

The more people that can understand your eLearning content, the larger your potential audience will be, and this can be done via subtitles or audio dubbing. To reach new audiences, especially if they are in another country speaking a different language, you need to have material that has been adapted for those countries.

Keep in mind that it is not just translating; any expressions used in the native language might not translate but will need to be conveyed in the new language, which requires an understanding of the culture and further script adaption, commonly referred to as transcreation.

Perform SEO

The next thing you will need to do if you want to reach new audiences, or grow your eLearning audience, would be to perform SEO. If you are unfamiliar with this, SEO means Search Engine Optimization. It is the process of optimizing your site to be more discoverable on the search engine results pages or SERPs.

The good news is that you already have a website, so now all you need to focus on is optimizing your site and any off-site content. You could reduce the loading speed, ensure that the site is visually appealing, that users can find everything they need, and more. The higher your site appears in search results; the more likely someone will click on your site over another.

Ad Campaigns

Running ad campaigns can also increase the size of your eLearning audience. This is one of the easiest things you could do, and it is very effective on search engines such as Google. You have probably seen ads on Google already since they are prefixed with “Ad” before the URL and appear as organic search results on the results page.

The best method for Google Ads would be CPC or CPE (cost-per-click or cost-per-engagement). This is because, with both of these methods, you would only pay when a user actually clicks on your ad or engages with your ad in some way. There are also various campaign types, such as display, app, video, search, and shopping campaigns. Paired with localization, it is also beneficial to advertise in all languages you provide content.

Assess Audiences

One of the most important things you will need to do to grow your eLearning audience is to assess this current audience and the other groups you intend on targeting. The primary reason you should do this is that you need to find out why they are using your services and their average level of knowledge going into the courses.

Once you have that information, you need to find out why your intended audience would use your services and how much they know about the content within the courses before they begin. Not every country has the same level of education or approach to education, so it is necessary to determine if all audiences will and can use your eLearning content in the same way. If not, changes will need to be made to the promotional material you use when selling to this new demographic.

Make Use of Influencers

Another method is to make use of influencers. Influencers have amassed quite a following, usually on social media platforms, and will advertise a product or service in exchange for remuneration. There are many different types of influencers;

• Nano influencers: 1,000 to 10,000 followers
• Micro influencers: 10,000 to 50,000 followers
• Mid-tier influencers: 50,000 to 500,000 followers
• Macro influencers: 500,000 to 1,000,000 followers
• Mega influencers: 1,000,000 plus followers

When choosing an influencer, there are a few things you will need to keep in mind. The first is the size of the influencer’s audience compared to the demand for your service; it would be pointless marketing to millions of people with a particularly niche course when only a few hundred thousand or less would be interested.

The next and most crucial factor is choosing an influencer within the same niche as the content within your courses. This is how to achieve the best value for money, as a more significant percentage will likely be interested in the product shown to them.

Again, when paired with the localization of your content for global audiences, foreign influencers will also help to increase the number of foreign-speaking participants in your eLearning content. Say your course is currently only in English, then you are missing out on the 360 million Spanish speakers who might also want to take part, and influencing is a great way to kick this off with a new audience.

Guest Blog

The next method you could use to grow your eLearning audience would be participating in the guest blogging. Guest blogging is when you create content for other websites. Why would you do this? Because guest blogging is one of the best ways to gain backlinks, and backlinks are essential for gaining more traffic, as well as increasing the authority of your site.

When search engines such as Google see that your website is gaining backlinks, it will assume that the content you are creating is credible and entertaining, which will help your site increase in the rankings. This benefit is that you will begin gaining more organic traffic, and more people will see your site on the search engine results pages.

Featured image: seb_ra, iStock.