Q: In the LERN Magazine summer issue, an article titled, ”Online Certificates at the take-off point” mentions in the last year LERN helped one continuing education organization to make over $200,000 a year on just one online program. Other successes mentioned are West Virginia University, San Diego State, and the U.S. Green Building Council. We have recently seen an overall decrease in our online programs. Can you share best practices and marketing brochure examples of how other successful continuing education units market their online programs? A previous article on page 3 of the Summer LERN Magazine mentions the government pushing online classes. Do you have suggestions on how we can best market our online programs to them?
A: ts: By I have studied your web site and brochures and have a few suggestions. Just like marketing in-person classes, there are no quick easy solutions, but there are some good practices. One, more visibility on your Home Page. At LFCCworkforce.com you do not mention online at all. You should have “Online” or “Online Courses” prominent and with a link. You do a good job on your Lumens Classes web page of showing online courses, so that’s not a problem. Two, highlight the best sellers. There was no way to tell what your best sellers are. So the typical viewer would have no idea what’s hot. You should feature and highlight your best sellers. These are the SuperStars that make money. Three, no online courses in your brochures. You basically do not have any online courses in your brochures. (I reviewed the pdfs of the brochures on your web site) You should take your top online courses and put them in your brochures, alongside the in-person courses, with fees and ability to register right from the brochure information, just like your regular in-person courses. Use Income, Operating Margin and ‘cancellation rates’ to evaluate whether an online course goes into your brochure, Just like you do for your in-person courses. You have a page on online courses in one brochure (general one?) but there’s no way someone could register for one from that information. Four, try targeting water treatment. I noticed you have quite a few online courses on water treatment, waste, quality. If this IS a specialty for you, then do a targeted brochure and mailing list and then email to just water professionals. You should also have a separate web page on this subject area. If that works, then select 2-3 other targeted areas and do the same: flyer/brochure; mailing list; email. Five, you should offer our LEED GA online course and run it next to your in-person course. Rarely does online compete or take away registrations from your in-person course. By offering our online course as another option for LEED GA, you should increase registrations and income. As our course gives you 50% of the income you should do just as well financially, so win-win. Six, email in OFF PEAK months. You probably hit up your current participant list with brochures and emails during peak registration weeks. But there’s other weeks of the year. Email them during those months. Seven, try our hot online Certificate programs. Partner with UGotClass and offer our hottest 4 online certificates. Social Media for Business; eMarketing Essentials; LEED GA; and Online Teaching Certificate. Other c.e. units are making good money on these. We have others, of course, but these will get the most registrations and money for you right now. Eight, format might impact registrations. Obviously topic/subject is critical. But I noticed a number of courses that look mainly like self-study, and that is a weaker format than the start-end online courses with interaction with other participants and the instructor in the online classroom. I don’t know if that’s an issue for you, but you might compare your numbers just on a format basis and see if the self study option pulls less, same or more than other online courses based just on the format. As to the government pushing online courses, we do not have any information on how to do that from our members. The only suggestion has been to get on the GSA list of approved providers. Beyond that, when we get successful techniques for reaching government workers, we certainly will pass them on. Thanks for asking. To get going with UGotClass, just email Michelle at michelle@lern.org We will have a publication on the top tips for promoting UGotClass courses, based on our most successful Partners’ experiences, coming out next month.