Turn Your Training Administrators Into Marketers

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You hear it time and time again, implement LMS training software or a training management system into your business and you will quickly maximise your return on investment.  But how? As a software house it would be easy to focus on system functionality which will streamline processes and reduce resource, but I would prefer to focus on alternative activities administrators could undertake to drive additional sales. 

In real terms the impact on your business would be to turn the traditional administration function into a new vastly more interesting role which explores the boundaries of digital marketing and communications. 

4 areas your administrators can impact with marketing

1. Segmenting

Use reports to analyse why some courses are more successful than others.  Your training management system should give you the ability to create lists and reports from any data source in your CRM.  These lists can be filtered and sorted into separate mailing lists based on previous training, location and job title, among other factors.  Use this, together with post course survey information to define the most appropriate existing clients to target.  This can be supplemented by importing new lists into the system.

Mailing lists can, for instance, be automatically generated and collected. Existing mailing lists can be imported, and the resulting contact database can then be filtered and sorted into separate mailing lists based on previous training, location and job title, among other factors.

2. Targeted communications

 One of the most effective ways to share course opportunities is to email it out to your prospects, but don’t send emails one-by-one, make sure you set up an email campaign. You’ll be able to see who opened the email from your database, and who clicked on links, read your articles and visited your website.  For better results explore incentives, such as discounts and promotional codes, all of which will be automated through your online booking system.  You could even follow them up with a call and use it as a lead generation tool.

Delegates on a current training course can be kept up to date with an email outlining how many modules have been completed and motivational messages about how to tackle future modules, as well as general information on how many people have attended the course and what it has enabled them to achieve.

3. Content marketing

Well-written and valuable content is one of the key ways to engage your target audience and offer information about your courses.  Websites that attract large traffic numbers are the ones that give visitors a reason to come in the first place.  Think about topics for two or three blogs per week. Each time you write include information and links to relevant courses.  Use shortened links (shorten at https://bitly.com/) to push these out on your social media channels. And, it’s not just content that will spark that interest, great offers and promotions are likely to have a similar impact. Why not try a combination of both?

Content marketing for training companies

4. Social media 

Use the most appropriate sharing sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook etc.,  to notify connections of your latest piece of content.   Be sure to connect with the right people (it’s quality not quantity), join appropriate groups and share in a community where your courses will be welcomed.

To learn more about using content marketing to drive course bookings download our beginners guide to content marketing. 

Other articles you might find interesting include:

Automating Processes Could Benefit Your HR Team | Series

How Content Marketing Could Benefit Your Company

Some Training Companies Still Enter Their Data Manually!