Promotion

To ensure the success of your organization’s eLearning initiative, use of basic marketing techniques to attract and retain users is critical. For example, you must do the following:

• Launch the new eLearning program to the organization
• Promote it internally and register initial users
• Create opportunities to maintain and increase usage over time

Effortless marketing and promotion methods can substantially contribute to the success of your eLearning initiative, particularly in increasing and maintaining employee participation. Consider how the techniques given below could be used in your organization to increase the use of eLearning.

Integrate electronic learning into your new employee orientation program. Give all your new recruits an overview of your organization’s eLearning viewpoint, the various options available, and how to sign up and get started.

Use your company’s internal email system to promote eLearning and its benefits. Email can be used to promote explicit courses, provide useful tips, outline benefits, and share suggestions for incorporating eLearning into employees’ personal development. Always look for ways to position and communicate eLearning as a vital solution for dealing with business issues in your organization.

Set up a help line. In case any of your employees have questions or face difficulties while using the eLearning system, make it easy for them to get answers.
Create business cards with help line contact information and distribute them to all employees.

Conduct a short seminar on eLearning for managers, supervisors, and HRD professionals. Provide bag lunches or refreshments during the seminar and show attendees how they can incorporate eLearning into their own development plans. Make sure attendees understand how eLearning can be used in employee development and performance improvement. Demonstrate to the attendees how eLearning can be integrated into developing, coaching, and mentoring activities.

Integrate online courses into employee development plans and performance improvement initiatives. Working eLearning into a structured process can be helpful and easy for managers and supervisors, who can offer suggestions for personal development activities at performance reviews or annual goal-setting meetings.

Create online brochures and flyers and send them to employees via internal mail. Design the flyers in such a manner so that employees can fill them out and return them with registration information and course selections. Most organizations do this quarterly or when new courses are added to the curriculum.

Carry out regular course evaluations to pinpoint the strengths and weaknesses of your online learning initiative. These can be formal assessment or simple phone calls to random employees once they’ve completed a course. Get in touch with employees to find out what topics interest them and consider ways to incorporate those interests into your online offerings.

If you work for a large organization, look for more ideas and resources from other departments, such as marketing or communications. You can also get additional support and internal marketing assistance from your eLearning vendors.

Most of the suggestions presented are simple and inexpensive to implement. But, they can be vital to the continuous participation, acceptance, and overall success of your Web-based training program.

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