Anthea Papadopoulou, Author at LearnWorlds

How to Create a Community Website: 5 Easy Steps

Anthea Papadopoulou — Fri, 20 Sep 2024 11:48:00 +0000

Online communities serve as gathering places for like-minded people to share opinions and ideas, build relationships, participate in events, or work towards common goals or shared interests. And these communities can all benefit from one key thing: a community website.

A community website gives your members the space, tools, and updates they need to make the most of their experience.

Not only that but the market for community engagement platforms is projected to see massive growth between 2021 and 2023 – 280%, to be exact – meaning that creating a community website site could be a worthy investment for your brand.

In this article, we will provide a step-by-step guide to creating a website for your online community. We’ll compare different platforms and give you tips for critical features and design elements so you can craft the best site for your members.

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Plan Your Online Community Website

If you plan your community website well, you can expect some serious benefits for your brand. Identifying which benefits are the most important to you can help you plan a site centered around reaching your goals.

Common benefits of having a community website include:

Increased customer loyalty: After engaging in an organization’s online community, 40% of users are more likely to stay loyal to that brand.

Better member engagement: Forums, polls, and events encourage member engagement and help instill a sense of belonging. Better engagement can also positively impact loyalty and organic reach.

Control and ownership: With your own site, you have more control over branding, features, functionality, and community guidelines than using a platform like LinkedIn or Facebook.

Analytics and feedback: Having a community website lets you gather real-time feedback from your audience. This feedback combined with analytics can help you improve your offerings and services so you can give members what they really want.

With these potential benefits in mind, let’s begin planning.

1. Define your purpose and goals

To see results from your community website, you need to know your desired results. Then, you can design your site around them. While outlining your goals, consider asking yourself:

These three questions are great starting points, but don’t be afraid to go deeper and create more specific goals unique to your organization. These could be:

…or any other brand goals you may have.

There are many types of communities, each with a different goal and purpose. Here are a few examples.

2. Define your audience and choose a niche

The most reliable way to ensure your community website has what your audience wants is by thoroughly understanding them. There are several ways to do this, including:

For example, let’s say you offer online courses in the fitness industry. You might start by searching popular hashtags to see what type of content is trending to understand your potential members’ needs, interests, and problems (pain points).

Keeping with this same example, when analyzing competitors, you may look at popular course creators in the fitness industry:

Finally, “The riches are in the niches” is a popular saying for a reason. Choosing a niche or specific area within your industry helps you create helpful content your audience will value.

Within the fitness industry, you might niche down to something like fitness for remote workers, running for seniors, or healthy vegan recipes to help you hit your fitness goals. Doing so can also help you create SEO-optimized content that gets your website higher up the search engine results pages (SERP).

3. Outline Your Community Rules

When you build an online community, you need to determine what is and isn’t acceptable member behavior. Outline these rules carefully, and consider requiring members to agree to them before they have access to your community platform.

Consider:

Make sure the rules are easy for members to follow, and be transparent about the consequences of not following them.

4. Create Content

After you have defined your audience and picked your niche, you can start to create the content for your site. Use the information you gathered to help you brainstorm content topics and formats that will resonate with your audience, like:

Knowing the content you want to offer will help you choose a platform for your site that has the features and capabilities you need.

Choose the Right Platform

Choosing one of the best online community platforms is essential to building your community website. Different platforms have different features, perks, and potential downsides.

In this section, we’ve listed four community website platforms and compared their features to help you choose the best platform.

LearnWorlds – (Our Top Pick!)

Image credit: LearnWorlds. LearnWorlds has a beginner-friendly, no-code website builder.

LearnWorlds is primarily designed as an all-in-one course creation platform, and its strong community-building capabilities are perfect for creating educational communities. Anyone looking for a community website designed with member engagement and collaboration in mind might find that LearnWorlds is exactly what they’ve been looking for.

Building a community website on LearnWorlds is easy with its no-code website builder, and its built-in community features like discussion forums, social networking tools, and member role assignments make community engagement easy to facilitate and manage.

Some expert site creators may dislike the inability to use custom code. Still, LearnWorlds offers extensive customization options and a low learning curve, meaning you can build a site easily and quickly without compromising your unique needs.

Best suited for:

Key features:

Image credit: LearnWorlds. LearnWorlds offers built-in community features like course discussions, challenges, and more.

Stand-out features: Built-in community features and highly interactive, easy-to-set-up content creation capabilities – think courses, live webinars and video conferencing, clickable links, surveys, and more.

Potential downside: The platform has limited gamification options and doesn’t support TinCan. Also, there might be a steep learning curve for beginners.

WordPress

Image credit: WordPress. WordPress’s own community forums demonstrate what yours could look like.

WordPress is a site-building platform popular for its extensive customization abilities, which can help you scale and build an online community. If you can think of it, it’s probably possible with WordPress. Whether or not that’s a good thing depends on you.

Most of WordPress’s features for community building are possible through the use of plugins. While you have literally thousands of plugins to choose from, the actual selecting and creating process might feel a bit complicated if you’re unfamiliar with the platform.

WordPress does offer great support and resources to help you learn, so if you’re willing to put in the time and effort, you can create a community website with almost any feature you can think of. If the site-building itself isn’t for you, there are many WordPress experts you could hire for help.

Best for:

Key features:

Stand-out feature: Boundless customization with thousands of themes and plugins.

Potential downside: Users unfamiliar with code and plugins might be overwhelmed by WordPress’s complexity and its many options. Although tutorials are available to help new site creators, some might find the learning curve too steep.

Wix

Image credit: Wix. Wix offers templates specifically for creating community websites.

Wix makes community website building easy with its many templates and drag-and-drop capabilities. If you’re looking for simplicity, Wix has all the basics for building a community website.

Wix offers community-building features like forums, member profiles, surveys, messaging features, and event calendars to help you lay the foundation for your community website. While all of these features are essential, they are a bit surface-level with Wix.

For example, their forums are designed to facilitate community discussion but lack advanced moderation tools and customizable formatting options. While Wix does offer basic membership management, it cannot track member activity or create versatile membership tiers.

If you want depth and customization in your community features, Wix might not be the best platform for you. However, if ease of use and simplicity are what you aim for, Wix could be a great platform to get you started.

Best for:

Key features:

Stand-out feature: Outstanding, user-friendly visual design capabilities.

Potential downside: Not very customizable outside of the templates and drag-and-drop capabilities, although users who know how can use code to make simple modifications.

Mighty Networks

Image credit: Mighty Networks. Mighty Networks is great for paid communities.

Mighty Networks was created with community engagement in mind, and its key features reflect that. Ultimately, it delivers on its promise of offering an intuitive platform that makes it possible to build a streamlined, quickly functional community website.

Through Mighty Networks, you can use built-in community features like discussion boards, member profiles, and event hosting to encourage member engagement. While it supports content sharing and community interaction, it has limited course creation capabilities, gamification or quizzes, and integration with other platforms.

While LearnWorlds remains our top choice, Mighty Networks offers many of the same features—they are just a little less fully-fledged. If you want to quickly set up a basic community website, Mighty Networks could be a good choice. However, consider whether the ease of use is worth sacrificing the depth of features that other platforms offer.

Best for:

Key features:

Stand-out feature: Flexible pricing and membership options allow you to offer exclusive paid content to different tiers easily.

Potential downside: It is not very customizable compared to other platforms, which could limit how you can scale and what you can offer community members. Also, although it has some analytics, you won’t be able to see advanced sales analytics.

Each of these four platforms could be an excellent choice for your community website, but double-check that it has the features you need before choosing one.

Key Features of Community Website Platforms

To ensure you will get what you need from your chosen community website platform, go over the following features and check them off your list:

User-friendly interface: You want your community members to engage, so make sure it’s as easy as possible for them to access and use your site.

Community engagement tools: Having a diverse set of engagement tools at your disposal can encourage members to stay active and participate.

Community management: Being able to manage your members, track their activity or progress, award privileged access, and offer tiered subscriptions can help you create a motivated community.

Content sharing: Look for the ability to create and share a variety of content formats like courses, webinars, audio and video content, quizzes, polls, surveys, and events.

Customization options: How much you customize your site is up to you, but we recommend finding a balance between ease of creation and customization. Consider how you want your community to be able to grow in the future (scalability).

Mobile compatibility: Let your community members access your site on the go. Look for a platform that offers a mobile-optimized site and community apps (a mobile) to improve your community’s user experience. Also, ensure it supports push notifications.

Analytics: Basic analytics let you see what’s going on; great analytics help you discover how you can improve. Essentially, pick a platform with excellent analytics.

Integration: Consider how well the platform integrates with other platforms to both make your job easier and give your members access to more features.

Customer support: When you need help, you want to be able to get it fast. When choosing a platform, ask yourself if you can get the support you need when you need it.

With the right platform, you can build a community site and establish a membership model that not only enhances engagement but also attracts more potential customers and generates recurring revenue.

Learn how you can create a membership site here.

Design Your Community Website

After you have chosen your community goals, guidelines, and platform, the next step is to create your site. When you do, think carefully about its design.

People want sites that are visually attractive and easy to use. According to SWEOR, site visitors decide whether to stay in about 0.05 seconds, and 38% will stop engaging if the content or layout is unattractive.

Meaning? Your site design matters. A lot. To help you design the best community website possible, we’ve listed some of our top tips.

Following these design tips will help you create a finished site that is easy for your community members to use, aesthetically pleasing, and encourages active, enthusiastic participation from members.

Implement Community Features

The community features you offer your members go a long way in supporting ongoing engagement and growth. With the right features, your members can build connections with each other and have a better collaborative experience.

Essential community features for your site include:

Let’s break down each feature and its potential benefits.

Forums

Forums are essential to community websites. Without one, there is no central hub where community members can gather to discuss, ask questions, challenge each other, or share ideas. Consider having multiple customized forums organized by groups or topics.

Chat rooms

Chat rooms offer a dedicated space for real-time communication and a way for members to bond through private messaging. Members can use chatrooms for immediate interaction during courses, webinars, or other live events to be in the moment together.

User profiles

Offer your members the chance to craft unique user profiles. Make it interactive and personal. For instance, provide them with profile templates encouraging them to share and award badges for reaching certain achievements, which they can feature on their profiles.

Image credit: LearnWorlds. LearnWorlds offers a built-in feature where users can create unique profiles.

Content-sharing tools

Members will want to exchange more than ideas, so use content-sharing tools to help them upload and share videos, gifs, or resources. Content sharing promotes collaboration between community members and helps them feel welcome and seen.

A highly engaged community is key to a successful community website, and each feature contributes to overall engagement.

Forums and chat rooms give members a place to feel seen and supported. Being able to connect over similar interests and bond through discussions and collaboration will help members feel like they belong.

User profiles give members a sense of identity within the community, while content-sharing tools make it super simple for them to connect over fun things they can upload and share.

Strong community features give your members what they need to interact and collaborate, making it more likely that they will stay engaged in your community long-term.

Launch and Manage Your Community Website

The final two steps in creating your community website are to launch it and then manage it well. Each of these steps has different phases, so let’s take a closer look at what they entail.

Launch: Promote, Test, and Go Live

A good promotion strategy can result in new members lined up when you go live. Social media, newsletters, and podcasts are excellent ways to promote your brand and start building connections.

With a bunch of excited members ready to sign up, you’ll want to double- and triple-check that everything works. Testing your site for any issues ahead of time will ensure that you can make any necessary tweaks or adjustments before going live.

Before launch, test your site’s:

When you’ve made any necessary changes after the testing process, you’re ready to go live. Choose a date and time when your target audience is most active, and promote the launch ahead of time to help make it a success.

Manage: Moderate, Update, and Engage

Congrats! At this point, you’ve successfully created and launched your site. From this point on, your focus will be on moderating and managing the community, keeping your content fresh, and encouraging engagement.

Moderate: Remember those community guidelines you created? They help your new community members feel safe and welcome, so enforce them.

Eventually, you may want to designate highly engaged community members as moderators to help. Seeing that other members actively care about the community’s environment can encourage new members to join.

Update: Providing fresh, new content is a must for keeping members happy and engaged. Make sure old course offerings are up-to-date, and provide new quizzes, surveys, polls, and discussion topics regularly.

Engage: Engagement is everything. A community website with no engagement is just another website, and that’s not what you’re going for.

So, start discussions, respond to member inquiries, host live webinars, and organize events on your community platform. Listen to feedback from community members and observe what people get excited about so you know what to do more of and what to improve.

Tips for keeping your community active:

How can you keep engagement high? Here are a few ideas:

Online Course Evaluation Surveys: 3 Smart Ways to Get Course Feedback

Get Started With Your Community Website Today

A successful community website can positively impact your brand in a big way. When members have a place to collaborate, engage, and build valuable relationships, they strengthen their bonds with each other and with your brand.

Start today creating your site with a free trial from LearnWorlds!

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Frequently Asked Questions:

Do I need to build a community website for my course if I already use social media?

Social media is a great tool for promoting your course and building your audience, but it doesn’t offer community features or let you add permissions and control content like a dedicated site can. With a community website, you provide a gathering place for your members to interact, learn, and grow together.

Can I just use Facebook, LinkedIn, or Slack to host my community site?

The short answer? Yes, social media platforms like Facebook (Facebook Groups), LinkedIn, and Slack all have community hosting capabilities through groups, pages, or channels.

However, these platforms limit what you can offer community members, and you may not be able to control privacy or community guidelines as you can with your own site.

If you want to promote higher engagement and create the best experience possible for your members, you may benefit from the tailored community features you’ll find using a dedicated community platform like LearnWorlds.

How do I encourage engagement in my online community?

Creating engagement in your community involves more than just setting up the platform. To keep your members coming back:

Responding to questions, offering feedback, and recognizing contributions will also help build a strong sense of belonging.

The post How to Create a Community Website: 5 Easy Steps appeared first on LearnWorlds.

What is Employee Evaluation & How to Get It Right

Anthea Papadopoulou — Fri, 20 Sep 2024 09:45:32 +0000

Employee evaluations are vital to running a successful business. They help retain top talent and identify and nurture competencies that can lead to greater success. For entrepreneurs and growing companies, evaluations offer an opportunity to assess and develop employee skills, ensuring their strengths align with business needs.

However, to make these evaluations truly effective, it’s essential to focus on the competencies that matter most and provide feedback that drives meaningful growth.

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Let’s explore employee evaluation in more detail by determining precisely what it refers to and then looking into some strategies for doing it correctly.

What is Employee Evaluation?

An employee evaluation, also commonly known as a ‘performance review,’ is a formal review process run by human resource departments in which a manager or supervisor assesses an employee’s work performance, skills, behaviors, and potential for growth within the organization.

It typically involves reviewing various aspects of the employee’s work, such as job performance, work ethic, productivity, key competencies (e.g., communication, problem-solving skills, time management, ability to meet deadlines, etc.), and alignment with company goals.

“The evaluation aims to provide constructive feedback, highlight strengths, identify areas for improvement, and create actionable steps for personal and professional development while also considering employee goals.”

Employee Evaluation vs. Performance Appraisal

Employee evaluations and performance appraisals are often used interchangeably, but they have distinct focuses and purposes:

Here are the key differences:

Purpose: Evaluations focus on development and growth, while appraisals focus on past performance and rewards.

Content: Evaluations assess a broad range of competencies, while appraisals zero in on job-specific metrics and outcomes.

Outcome: Evaluations provide feedback for future development, whereas appraisals often lead to immediate decisions like raises or promotions.

Performance appraisals occur once a year, and employee evaluations occur every three to six months. Some businesses, however, choose to conduct these quarterly, monthly, or even weekly and in certain circumstances, prefer to carry out more frequent check-ins or one-to-one sessions with employees.

OPM data confirms that frequent feedback has greater results in improving employee performance and achieving performance management goals company-wide.

Key Elements of Employee Evaluation

An employee evaluation is not just a routine assessment but rather a tool for guiding employee development and aligning their efforts with organizational goals. To be effective, an evaluation should encompass several key elements that provide a well-rounded view of an employee’s performance.

Boost Your Business: The Critical Role of Employee Training and Development

Below are the essential components that contribute to an impactful and effective employee evaluation:

Performance Review: An assessment of how well employees have fulfilled their job responsibilities and met performance goals.

Competency Assessment: Evaluation of core skills and competencies, such as teamwork, leadership, and technical abilities.

Goal Setting: Discussions over short- and long-term career objectives, setting new goals for continued improvement and alignment with the company’s strategy.

Feedback and Communication: Constructive, two-way feedback that helps employees understand their strengths and areas for improvement.

Development Plan: A roadmap for the employee’s future growth, which may include training opportunities, mentoring, or career development.

These elements ensure that the evaluation process is comprehensive, fair, and geared towards fostering growth and improvement.

How Are Employee Evaluations Structured?

Employee evaluations are typically offered in a structured, formal setting, and the process can vary depending on the company’s size, culture, and goals.

Most companies have an engrained employee evaluation system where employees are on a regular schedule – sometimes once a year (annual review), sometimes twice.

These assessments are often used in conjunction with raises and renewals or some sort of corrective action. Sometimes, they will happen after a big project or because of a specific event in the workplace. Most often, however, they are time-based. This helps to spread out employee evaluations so you aren’t doing them all simultaneously.

For example, someone hired in January will have another employee evaluation in January next year. This helps to get a complete picture of how someone works and makes the process manageable.

Conducting Successful Employee Evaluations

Employee evaluations are challenging, but you can use them to your advantage if you know how to do so. Knowing how to conduct an employee evaluation is your first step.

Here are a few tips:

1Stay Prepared All Year

The first step is to be prepared for your evaluation. Keep notes all year long and stay organized. If you walk into the meeting with nothing prepared, you are just wasting time. Fill out your documents and keep detailed notes, so you won’t miss anything.

One way you can stay on top of your employee evaluations is to have your employees fill out text surveys and tests online to gauge their interests, performance, and knowledge on specific subjects. You can use this information to fill out your report before entering the meeting.

Additionally, you can leverage employee survey tools to collect meaningful information from employees. These tools allow you to get surveys on specific topics like- company-wide, leadership-only, or team-specific surveys. It’ll allow you to track changes in employee engagement levels over time and get the employee Net Promoter Score.

2Always Start with The Positives

You want to start the session out with the positives. Tell your employees what they’ve done right and what has impressed you. Keep your remarks clear and concise, but don’t be afraid of praise.

Give solid examples of your employees’ good work and even provide tools for how they can continue doing it.

3Use Online Tests & Employee Evaluations

Just as it is important to understand your customers, it’s equally critical to understand your employees. One of the best things you can do is use online tests and self-evaluations to help gauge where your employees are and how much they understand their jobs. If possible, use these to fill out and broaden the scope of your evaluations.

You can even sign them up for tests and courses (using an online course platform such as Learnworlds) that will help them perform better at work.

Use these as enrichment activities for times when work is slow or when employees need additional training. If you just take the time to look for them, there are plenty of opportunities for your employees to improve and provide you with some insight.

Check these 16 best employee training methods you can use.

For example, if you figure out that a new member of your marketing team isn’t experienced in using your product, enable him to use your product by providing a tutorial and instructions to remove this roadblock.

4Talk About Areas that Need Improvement

Next, discuss where your employee has gone wrong. If you are going to give negative feedback, make sure that you have legitimate examples. Then, outline a plan for how the employee can improve. You must do some of the heavy lifting to help your employees improve.

For example, you can provide tools to improve their communication skills, suggestions for getting to work on time, or additional guidelines for improving their quality of work.

5Ask Your Employee About What They Want to Do

Keeping your employee morale up is important – so make sure you know what they want to learn. Even if you can’t teach your employees something or move them into a role right away, you can always keep that information in the back of your mind.

It’s essential to consider each employee’s strengths and wants to determine which position in the company will make them happy and then motivate them to succeed and achieve high performance.

6Ask for Feedback

Before your session ends, ask for feedback on how you are doing as well. It can be humbling to get that feedback, but you need it.

This will help your employees to tell you what they need to be successful.

For example, your employees may convey they’re overworked and under-rested, or you could figure out that being productive is challenging for them. In this case, you could provide him with suitable productivity tips and apps.

7Request Employee Self-Evaluations

Incorporating employee self-evaluations into the evaluation process enhances performance reviews by promoting self-reflection and accountability.

When employees assess their own contributions, they gain greater self-awareness, recognizing both strengths and areas for growth.

This practice encourages:

(a) An open dialogue between employees and managers

(b) More meaningful discussions

(d) Greater engagement and commitment to the organization

Did you know? LearnWorlds Assessment Builder allows you to create self-assessments, empowering your employees to reflect on their own understanding and performance, fostering independent learning and growth.

To implement self-evaluations effectively, provide clear guidelines and structured formats to focus employees on relevant aspects of their performance. Foster a work environment that encourages honesty and openness, assuring employees that self-assessments are tools for growth rather than punitive measures.

Employee self-evaluations are a valuable tool for gathering 360-degree feedback as well.

8Provide Your Employee with a Copy of Their Evaluation Form

Once you’ve completed everything from the employee evaluation and performance review process, give employees a copy. This will help them see what needs to be done in the upcoming quarter or year.

Of course, it will also help you if there is ever a time when you need to talk to them about their performance – they cannot say that they didn’t know about something in particular when you have provided documentation.

Ensure that you both agree with the decisions taken and enforce your commitment to offer your support in improving the employee’s job performance.

Be specific and mention where the employee exceeds or doesn’t meet expectations. Here are a few examples.

When the employee exceeds expectations:

(a) ‘Shows strong judgment and relies on data-driven decision-making.’

(b) ‘Demonstrates a keen attention to detail and produces excellent work.’

(c) ‘Consistently sees projects through to completion and meets deadlines.’

When the employee doesn’t meet the expectations:

(a) ‘Tends to make impulsive decisions grounded in false assumptions.’

(b) ‘Delivers work with an unacceptable number of errors.’

(c) ‘Needs improvement of planning skills to ensure timely completion of tasks.’

To better understand how employee evaluations work, let’s go one step further, exploring different case scenarios.

So, let’s break down your employees into three different groups:

The Good

The good worker is someone who goes above and beyond at work. He or she spends extra time to ensure that their work is correct, on time and done to the standards you’ve set. This is a person who, when they make mistakes, learns from them and doesn’t make those same mistakes again.

Your employee evaluation process of this person should focus on what they do right – don’t nitpick and look for what they do wrong. Tell them you appreciate them and love the work they are doing. During this time, focus on what they say about your work involvement, too.

For example, maybe they want to take over the social media posting, and you do it but don’t like it – so you can shift it to them.

The Bad

Let’s say you have a mediocre employee but nothing outstanding. This person does the work they are supposed to but doesn’t go above and beyond the call of duty. Maybe they make mistakes a few times until they learn from them—or perhaps they try to work too quickly and produce sloppy work.

During this evaluation, you should focus on potential areas for improvement and provide constructive criticism. Tell them you think they have potential and ask them to work to achieve it—for example, they can work on their decision-making skills.

The Ugly

Not all employees are right for your company. Maybe you have some lazy employees, but you still see some positives in them. Say someone is really great in a specific area but doesn’t show up on time and has a bad attitude. The core skills are what is important.

Try to focus your employee evaluation on what can be improved and what value this person brings – but make sure they understand what mistakes they are making and that you do notice those mistakes.

If you still aren’t sure about your employee and you want to learn more, there are some great questions you can ask to dig a bit deeper and find out more. If you aren’t a good communicator, this can be a problem.

Here are some excellent question examples you can employ to unearth an employee’s potential:

Aside from questions, there are a few practices you can try out to boost the effectiveness of your employee evaluation process. Read on to learn how to apply these to remote work settings.

When you are doing an employee evaluation for remote work, it can feel a bit distanced or disconnected. However, there are some things you can do to help make it work:

1Use video

While there is a temptation to use a phone call for your employee evaluation, it helps when you can read body language. There are plenty of video interviewing tools from which you can choose. However, I highly recommend testing any tool before setting up calls with employees to ensure everything goes smoothly.

2Send copies of the evaluation

Since you cannot hand a copy of the employee review over to the person, send over the evaluation. You may even want to create a document that you can share.

3Ask to record the meeting.

If you want to be present in your evaluation, ask to record it. This will help you to get more value out of your time without taking you out of the moment.

4Don’t plan a meeting right after

Your employee evaluation may take 10 minutes or an hour. You do not want to cut off your employees. Try not to have a hard stopping time so they don’t feel slighted. Try to prioritize their needs during this time without worrying about how long the meeting lasts.

5Set clear goals and KPIs

With remote work, in particular, you want to set goals (preferably SMART goals) for your evaluation. This will allow you to reason through them much better than you can in email.

You can learn more about goal setting and its benefits here.

Still unsure what you want to do for your employee evaluation? Don’t worry—we’ve got you covered. Many employee evaluation templates are currently available online, and you can also get them for free.

Simply select your preferred type, style, and format, such as numerical rating scales or behavioral or competency-based assessments, and you’re good to go.

Here are a few examples from TemplateLab to help you get started.

Example 1: Employee Competency Evaluation Form

This is a detailed, competency-based evaluation with a five-point competence scale. It focuses on knowledge, skills, and quality of work and includes notes and goal-setting sections.

Why it works: It differentiates between levels of competence in specific areas, providing granular insights into development needs and strengths.

Best for: Ideal for roles requiring skill-based assessments, such as sales or technical positions, where competency in specific areas directly impacts performance.

Example 2: 30-Day Employee Evaluation Form

This form can be used for monthly evaluations. It has a five-point rating scale for specific competencies like job knowledge, work quality, and innovation. It also allows the addition of comments and goals.

Why it works: It is quick to fill out and ideal for assessing 30-day-long progress. Comments allow for qualitative feedback in addition to numerical ratings.

Best for: Designed for probationary or early-stage evaluations, such as new hires or employees transitioning to new roles, to assess immediate impact and progress.

Example 3: 360 Degree Employee Evaluation Form

Here’s a competency-based form that evaluates a wide range of skills, from problem-solving to communication, with checkboxes for different areas of responsibility and skill levels.

Why it works: It’s broad in scope, covering various dimensions of an employee’s role from different perspectives, making it suitable for gathering feedback from peers, subordinates, and managers.

Best for: Ideal for managers or senior employees where holistic feedback from multiple sources is valuable. It can also be used for leadership roles or roles with high collaboration demands.

Example 4: Annual Employee Evaluation Form

This is a detailed, structured form with numerical ratings for various competencies (e.g., honesty, productivity, work quality). It includes sections for strengths, opportunities, and goals.

Why it works: It’s comprehensive, giving a well-rounded view of the employee’s performance, strengths, and areas of improvement. The use of weighted scores makes it easy to quantify overall performance.

Best for: It is well-suited for annual reviews where long-term performance needs to be measured, and developmental goals should be set for the upcoming year.

Employee evaluations present unique opportunities to enhance your company culture and drive progress. By focusing on detailed, real-time feedback, you can streamline the evaluation process and create a more positive work environment, all by ensuring employee satisfaction and boosting retention.

These evaluations support individual growth and can help you pave the way for your organization’s overall success. Embrace this chance to foster development and innovation, ensuring a brighter future for both your employees and your company.

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Are you looking for a solution to offer remote employee training? LearnWorlds is a cloud-based learning platform that enables companies to provide training from their own website. Try LearnWorlds with a 30-day free trial today.

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The post What is Employee Evaluation & How to Get It Right appeared first on LearnWorlds.

Key Customer Education Statistics You Need to Know

Anthea Papadopoulou — Thu, 19 Sep 2024 13:00:46 +0000

As a business owner and marketer, I can’t thrive without putting customer education first.

Customer education is the process of equipping potential buyers with the necessary knowledge and information to make informed decisions about our products or services.

With everything moving so fast, consumers need to be educated on how to choose the best product and service options out there, as well as how to use them.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve skimmed through customer support queries only to realize our customers weren’t using the tool correctly or to its full potential.

But it’s not their responsibility to know that. It’s yours.

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By prioritizing customer education, you can demonstrate your commitment to their needs and well-being, earning their trust and loyalty.

In 2023 alone, successful customer education programs have shown a significant business impact. Companies with structured customer education strategies experienced an average revenue increase of 7.6%, a 2024 Forrester study finds. This growth is primarily due to enhanced product adoption rates, increased customer lifetime value, and customer satisfaction.

Customer satisfaction scores (Csat), upsells, cross-sells, and completion rates in customer education programs are only some of the most crucial KPIs you need to monitor.

Here is a list of 12 customer training KPIs to measure success.

Before I explore some of the fundamental customer education statistics and trends, let’s see why this matters in the first place.

Why Customer Education Matters

Educating customers on how to effectively use your products or services significantly boosts adoption rates and usage. Informed customers are more likely to take full advantage of your offerings’ features and capabilities, getting more value from what they receive.

Companies like Adobe have shown that 79% of businesses with customer education programs have increased product adoption.

This boost is linked to customer education efforts that make it easier for users to explore the software’s functionality fully rather than relying solely on basic or self-taught features. Through comprehensive training, tutorials, and ongoing support, companies like Adobe can ensure their customers are well-equipped to maximize investments, leading to higher retention and growth opportunities.

Adding customer training to your marketing strategy is also an excellent way to build strong relationships with your target audience. You can empower your customer base to become more knowledgeable about your products or services through various educational initiatives, such as informative blog posts, tutorials, webinars, or personalized support.

Customer Training Best Practices: 7 Practical Tips for Optimal Results

This, in turn, fosters customer loyalty and encourages word-of-mouth marketing.

Businesses employing customer education report a significant reduction in customer attrition rates by 63%, indicating enhanced loyalty.

Furthermore, I’ve noticed that solid customer education has helped brands differentiate themselves from competitors. By effectively communicating the value and advantages of an offer, you can position your brands (and teams) as industry experts and trusted advisors.

Hence, companies are increasingly adopting digital educational platforms, making learning more accessible and flexible. The global eLearning market is expected to hit $400 billion by 2026, highlighting the growing demand for online education and training solutions.

Key Customer Education Statistics

Next are some of the up-and-coming trends and benefits of customer education that will shed light on how well-implemented learning management systems (LMSs) can significantly impact customer satisfaction and reduce churn rates.

Influence on Retention and Engagement

Organizations that are highly focused on customers experience 51% better customer retention than those that are less customer-centric. According to Salesforce, nearly 90% of buyers say that a company’s experience is just as important as its products or services.

Part of that experience? Customer education. Every step of the way.

Engaged customers bring a 23% higher share of wallet growth than the average buyer.

According to the Technology & Services Industry Association, 68% of respondents say they use products more frequently after training, and 56% use more product features than without training. Improvements in customer experience strategies resulted in 84% of companies seeing a rise in revenue and 79% achieving cost savings.

And there are diverse factors contributing to these results:

Impact of Customer Education on Business Growth

Help resources significantly reduce support tickets by enabling customers to solve issues independently, saving costs, and improving productivity.

Lokalise’s launch of its online academy on LearnWorlds underscores this impact. Initially facing a gap in localization education resources, Lokalise created 32 courses and attracted over 2,000 active learners.

The platform’s user-friendly features and strong community-building capabilities helped establish Lokalise as a leader in the localization field. This investment in educational resources boosted the company’s visibility and positioned it as a go-to expert, advancing its market presence and business growth.

Expanding reach and enhancing market authority is another key effect you can expect.

Codefresh’s GitOps certification program exemplifies this. Initially aiming for 1,000 learners, Codefresh quickly exceeded expectations, enrolling over 20,000 students. The platform’s ease of use and robust analytics capabilities allowed Codefresh to create 9 courses and integrate seamlessly with existing tools efficiently.

This enrollment growth established Codefresh as a leading authority in GitOps and converted learners into potential customers for their enterprise products, significantly boosting their market presence and sales opportunities.

Customer Education Strategies & Results

Now that you have a better grasp of what you can achieve through improved customer education efforts, let me walk you through three simple strategies you can implement straight away:

Build Online courses

Two-thirds of businesses use a learning management system to provide customer training. Develop comprehensive online courses to create structured learning paths that cover all aspects of your product or service.

Use platforms like LearnWorlds to design interactive, engaging content that captures learners’ interest. Offering certification programs can further validate customers’ skills and knowledge, enhancing their commitment and fostering advocacy for your brand.

Ensure your courses are mobile-friendly and accessible to accommodate diverse learning styles and schedules. Emphasize ongoing education by incorporating interactive elements like gamification—such as quizzes, badges, and leaderboards—to make learning more engaging and rewarding.

This approach helps maintain learners’ motivation and keeps them updated with the latest information.

Example:
Rajvir Singh, Founder of Code and Compile, shares highly interactive courses with resources and assessments. Using LearnWorlds’ robust features, Rajvir has achieved a monthly revenue of $2,000. With over 8,000 learners enrolled in Code and Compile courses, he is on a promising trajectory for success.

Specialized courses on the Code and Compile website

Conduct webinars and live events

Host live webinars to facilitate real-time interactions and address questions, creating an opportunity for dynamic discussions and immediate feedback. This format fosters engagement and allows for spontaneous exchanges that enhance the learning experience.

Record and archive these webinars to make them available on-demand, broadening their reach and serving as a valuable resource for those who couldn’t attend the live sessions.

Additionally, featuring industry experts or product specialists can provide valuable insights and bolster the credibility of your training content.

Example:
Unblinded Mastery achieved a 150% YoY growth with the help of live events and online courses. Of 1,800 people who registered for a live event, 1,500 attended and immediately enrolled in the mastery program.

Within just seven days, Unblinded Mastery developed its course content, filmed all the videos, and launched its core training program using LearnWorlds. Remarkably, the team attracted major clients and achieved high growth without advertising.

Create customer support content

Build a comprehensive knowledge base that includes detailed articles, FAQs, and how-to guides, allowing customers to access self-service support whenever needed. This resource provides a centralized place for users to find answers and resolve issues independently, enhancing their overall experience.

85% of consumers are more confident in their purchasing decisions after watching a video, which enhances their decision-making and boosts satisfaction. I always recommend producing video tutorials visually demonstrating features, troubleshooting steps, and best practices.

Such videos make complex information easier to understand and follow. To further support users, build community forums where they can ask questions, share experiences, and assist one another, promoting peer-to-peer learning and reducing the overall support workload.

Example:
Here are a couple of videos we produced during my time at Paymo, a project management SaaS:

Support video examples tackling diverse product use cases

It’s important to remember these were never stand-alone videos since we wanted to use them at different stages of the customer lifecycle. They were part of our help center articles and we promoted them on your social media channels as well as through in-app pop-ups targeting new customers.

All three strategies are effective and can easily be integrated into your business goals should you choose to invest in customer education. That said, it’s essential to stay up-to-date with current trends and industry demands at every step of the way.

Customer Education Research Findings

The 2022 Customer Education Council Report that CustomerEducation.org led presented several interesting insights into customer education.

Over 200 customer education professionals participated in the study, which revealed valuable data on many fronts, including organizational structure, CEd partner teams, CEd program audiences, program objectives, budgets, and challenges.

Here is the valuable information in a nutshell:

This report highlights the growing importance of customer education across organizations. While many teams face challenges like securing resources and proving ROI, they remain focused on driving key objectives such as product onboarding, reducing churn, and improving business outcomes.

Product Training for Customers: A Complete Guide

With considerable investment in these programs and a mix of monetization approaches, the findings suggest that customer education will continue to play a pivotal role in enhancing the overall customer experience in the long term.

Next Steps: Ready to Invest in Customer Education?

Understanding these educating customers statistics will help you drive business success. By equipping customers with the knowledge they need to make informed decisions and fully utilize your products or services, you boost adoption rates, enhance loyalty, and reduce customer support costs.

Investing in comprehensive educational initiatives—such as online courses, webinars, and detailed customer support content—can lead to significant long-term benefits, including increased revenue and market authority enablement.

Companies like Lokalise and Codefresh have already demonstrated the impact of well-executed education strategies on business growth and customer engagement. To harness even greater benefits for your business, LearnWorlds offers powerful tools for course creation, analytics, and interactive learning that help customer education teams build and scale customer training programs.

Ready to speed up your customer education game? Start your free trial with LearnWorlds and see how it can help you engage and retain customers.

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55 Black Friday Marketing Ideas to Skyrocket Sales in 2024

Anthea Papadopoulou — Mon, 16 Sep 2024 07:00:53 +0000

Βlack Friday is the biggest shopping event of the year!

Whether you’re talking to online retailers, brick-and-mortar stores, or businesses big and small, they’ll all tell you the same thing: Black Friday sends their sales soaring.

And the best part? It can do the same for your business!

“According to WiserNotify, Americans spent over $9.5 billion during Black Friday sales in 2023. This figure is expected to rise to $10 billion this year, and by 2028, it is projected to reach $12.3 billion.”

Picture this: Stores buzzing with excitement, shoppers racing to grab deals, and e-commerce platforms lighting up with a massive surge in traffic and sales. It’s the prime moment to slash prices, put up those irresistible “SALE” signs, and watch customers flood in, eager to spend.

With holiday shopping in full swing, buyers are not just purchasing for themselves – they’re stocking up on gifts for friends and family. Now’s your moment to seize the excitement and transform Black Friday into a record-breaking success for your business!

In this resource, we have collected a list of 55 Black Friday marketing ideas for every kind of business, from physical stores to e-commerce, creators selling online courses to software businesses, and everyone in between.

You can skip directly to the section that interests you:

When is Black Friday?

Black Friday is on November 29th, 2024.

However, most companies start offering discounts by mid-November or the end of October to get ahead of the competition.

For online sales, this window period is much bigger, giving potential customers time to explore products and experience the feeling of holiday sales.

This means that from Thanksgiving until Cyber Monday (2nd of December), you can go wild and offer special discounts to kick off the holiday shopping season sooner!

Black Friday Marketing Ideas for All Businesses

So, how can you get ready for Black Friday and get the most out of it by the end of the Cyber Monday sales?

That’s easy.

All you need is an effective Black Friday marketing campaign and get on your special deals to allow online shopping to begin officially!

Here are marketing ideas for every kind of business to rock Black Friday. Whether you run a small local store or an international business, these ideas will skyrocket your holiday sales!

Massive Discounts for Black Friday

The most proven Black Friday marketing strategy? Slashing prices—and doing it generously!

Start with 50% and then go all the way down to 70% off the original price.

Don’t be afraid to reduce your prices. This is what your customers expect from Black Friday promotions

You can reduce prices to eliminate old stock, bring more foot traffic, attract new customers, or boost sales. In the case of digital products like courses, where it is free to develop a product, you can get up to 90% discounts without hurting your bottom line!

Customers expect massive discounts. Besides, you can always upsell your other products to compensate for this.

Flash sales: A limited-time offer

Black Friday shopping is largely impulsive.

Flash sales are perfect for increasing impulse buying, and you can incentivize people to buy your courses on the spot.

Create scarcity and a sense of urgency while reinforcing FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) through a limited-time offer and last-minute deals available for a specific period (less than 24 hours) and for a limited number of new sign-ups.

Deal hunters always look for discount codes and thrive on discount seasons.

Promote early

Many businesses expand their Black Friday into a full week or month.

Whichever you choose, you need to remember that consumers’ budgets are limited. You need to be fast so they anticipate spending their budgets for your business.

The best way to do this is to start your marketing efforts and promote your discounts early on.

Some businesses start as early as October to “warm up” customers.

Use countdowns

Countdown timers are a powerful way to trigger FOMO.

As your target audience sees the hours or days dwindling before a discount disappears, the urgency influences their purchase decisions, driving faster action and increasing conversion rates.

This can be a timer or a clock on top of the website:

Black Friday Timer Example by OptinMonster

Make Offer Adjustments

Encourage customers to return for more purchases by offering different discounts every day. There are two ways to do this:

Discount different products: Offer a different category of products or lines of products every day. Let your customers know which products are going into discount every day.

Reduce discounts every day: Start with a high discount and reduce it as you go — 70%, 60%, 50% — this way, the customers will be forced to make their purchases early on and come back for more later.

Showcase your Refund/Return & Exchange policy

Impulse purchase decisions are accompanied by some fear. Countering each fear gets your shoppers closer to a purchase.

That’s where the refund, return, or exchange policy comes in.

By prominently showcasing your policies on refunds, returns, or exchanges, shoppers are more likely to give in to impulse purchases.

Very few customers end up coming back and asking for a refund (especially for digital products).

You can go one step further and offer longer refund policies for holiday shoppers. For example, increasing the refund policy of products from 30 to 60 days for Black Friday may help reluctant shoppers become impulse buyers.

One-time offers to Upsell and Cross-sell

The purpose of Black Friday is to get customers to buy in volume. Upselling (making them buy more) is the best way to increase income while making a discount.

Use the checkout to upsell to a more expensive product, relevant bundle, or other not-discounted products.

Image Source: OneCommerce

For example, the e-commerce store example above offers higher-end models at a discount. If discounted, it’s easy to choose a larger screen or a better model.

Gamify Purchases: Offer Additional Discounts for More

Offer higher discounts if they buy more. Incentivize more purchases by offering incremental discounts for more products:

Plan your discounts accordingly and allow your customers to add more to their baskets for higher discounts.

Be careful to offer discounts that will still allow you to make a profit.

This is easier done in digital businesses that offer seats instead of products like user access or course licenses for businesses.

But your physical store can also offer package discounts to eliminate unsold merchandise that is out-of-season.

Offer a Mystery Free Gift

Everyone loves surprises. So why not offer a gift to your customers?

Here are a few ideas to try:

Offer a Big Gift with a Lottery

You may not be giving away a car, but you can offer anything from a relaxing spa day to a gourmet wine basket. Lotteries are an effective marketing tactic year-round, drawing attention and boosting engagement.

Add a lottery to your Black Friday campaign and let your audience know that anyone who gets $X amount of products on Black Friday will go into a lottery to win a bigger gift. For example:

There are countless options for any small business. If you sell digital products, consider surprising your audience with a physical gift. It’s a great way to add a personal touch and enhance the overall customer experience.

Allow Customers to Pay in Installments

For bigger purchases, payment flexibility is essential.

If your products are $500 or more, consider offering payment installments or a buy-now-pay-later option like Klarna and Afterpay.

Enable Loyalty Deals

Do you offer loyalty programs, or are you worried that existing customers who paid a premium for the same products will be annoyed by Black Friday?

All businesses need to keep their loyal customers happy. They support the business long-term and bring revenue every month.

Consider offering a loyalty-only deal:

Physical stores: Can offer additional discounts to loyalty card holders (and increase their sign-ups to loyalty programs).

Software companies (SaaS): Can offer upgrade offers to yearly plans or additional services that are not publicly available.

Digital stores: Can offer exclusive discounts to old customers on products that might not be discounted on Black Friday, e.g., new releases.

Double Loyalty Points

Another way to add value without discount is to offer double loyalty points. If you run a loyalty program, consider giving additional points to loyalty card holders.

You can also combine discounts and loyalties.

Offer loyalty points to old stock or products, and offer double points on purchasing non-discounted products.

This way, you offer value without discounting your important products.

Work with a Charity

Giving for a good cause can loosen the tightest of purses.

Add a charity giveaway and make your Black Friday be for a good cause. This will help you with more visibility cross-promotion with the charity and feel better about it.

Offer $1 per sale or per $X spent on your store to a charity.

You can also have a discount, and offer a product at full price so that you give the discount amount to charity (e.g., 30%).

Collaborate With Other Companies

Software companies and big brands do this all the time.

Don’t go into this alone. Rather, make it work with another company.

Use your email lists, SMS, or other channels to promote your business partner, and your partner will promote you.

Go the extra mile by offering a discount for both of your products simultaneously. This method works incredibly well if you are offering complimentary products!

Create a Gift Guide

Remember, Black Friday is not just for personal shopping.

Many people use it as an opportunity for their holiday shopping. Releasing a gift guide early in November can help your customers prepare for shopping.

Start with crafting a highly relevant gift guide, taking into account your audience’s demographics and the latest shopping trends. This will ensure that it resonates with your customers and aligns with their current preferences.

Then, distribute your gift guide via direct mail, email, your website, and social media.

Use Product Bundles

Why buy one item when you can buy more?

Prepare bundles of complimentary items at a discounted price, or allow your clients to make their own bundles by choosing the products they want to add to their cart.

Offer bigger discounts for bundles than individual products and services, and upsell them.

Category-Specific Discounts

Make your sale more strategic by discounting specific categories rather than applying a blanket discount across all products.

Category-specific discounts can help you manage costs more effectively and maintain healthier profit margins while keeping your profits healthy!

Checkout Discounts

We are not over with upsells!

The best way to sell more is when someone has already purchased.

You can suggest a bundle or additional discount for buying more items at the discount or after the checkout.

This way, your customers have already bought something, their credit card is in the system, and your next sale is just a couple of clicks away.

Utilise Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) Sales

Black Friday might be over, but the savings continue with Cyber Monday.

Retailers launch Cyber Monday deals to entice shoppers to explore online and focus on electronics.

Use this opportunity to revamp your offers and attract customers with fresh discounts. Make the most of Cyber Monday to capture additional sales and keep the momentum going!

Usually, Cyber Monday discounts are smaller and different categories of products. Offer something new over the weekend or Cyber Monday to get a few more sales in the door!

After-Black Friday sales

And the sales continue!

The best customers are the ones who make repeat purchases. After a customer has bought your products, wait a few days and offer some upsells or suggest other products that complement them.

Think of combining:

Another option is to finish Black Friday and have a plan to launch your holiday season sales one week later

Go Against the Flow: Anti-Black Friday

Going against the flow and above the clutter of Black Friday.

Whether you don’t like consumerism or want to make an impactful campaign when everyone will be focused on sales, there are great ways to offer alternatives:

Here are some great anti-Black Friday ideas here and here.

Social Media Marketing Ideas for Black Friday

Never underestimate the power of social media marketing.

Social media can create anticipation by publishing posts announcing upcoming special offers on your accounts (Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn) well in advance. You can also promote your offers as they happen.

Run a Social Media Contest

Run a social media contest to inform your audience about your offers.

A pre-Black Friday giveaway will increase your profile’s engagement and bring new followers to show your offers.

Be sure to use nicely designed banners and instill the “spirit” of Black Friday so they know you will announce your offers soon.

You can also share gift cards with every participant in the contest.

# Don’t forget to use the right hashtags!

Use influencers

Search for and find influencers with whom to collaborate. Ask them to share your offers through a sponsorship or affiliate deal.

Influencers can create stories and posts, pose with your products, or share your marketing material and gift guides with your products.

Work with micro-influencers

Big influencers are expensive and probably not the best choice for your niche audience. Instead, find and work with micro-influencers who are local or already talk about your products.

For example, if you sell sports equipment, talk with popular local athletes, football players, gymnasts, or even school teams.

Sponsor their posts or work with them to create videos around your products.

Use Design & Video

Visuals matter a lot, especially when it comes to social media.

A few weeks before the offers, you can ask your creative team or agency to change the design of your posts, profile pictures, and banners to reflect the Black Friday colors.

This is a strong signal to your followers to expect the offers.

Then, match those designs with your offer banners.

Unique, eye-catching creatives will also attract more people. Do not just use black banners. Use contrast and try video content on stories & posts to attract more attention.

Sell Directly on Social Media

Some social media platforms allow you to sell directly to your followers.

Instagram shopping and TikTok shopping might be the most popular platforms for social selling.

While social shopping works better for Asian audiences, there are opportunities to sell to Western audiences.

Try to launch your social shop on Black Friday to boost your sales

Email Marketing Ideas for Black Friday

As research shows, email marketing is a very powerful strategy. It has a huge positive impact on the revenue of eCommerce business owners who use a multi-vendor eCommerce platform, especially during the holiday season.

The fact that 50% of people buy from marketing emails at least once a month shows that email marketing is an excellent choice to increase your online school profits.

Start working on your Black Friday email marketing campaign at least two weeks before the big day.

Decide what you want to focus on:

Before you hit the send button, personalize your emails and subject lines. Use popular keywords and phrases that will catch the attention, such as ‘Black Friday,’ ‘Cyber Monday,’ ‘Holiday,’ ‘Free,’ ‘Don’t Miss Out, ‘Save,’ and ‘Now.’

This should help attract more people to your website and increase your conversion rate.

Grow Your Email List Early

Encourage site visitors to opt-in to your email list to keep up with your course launches and updates.

If you don’t have one yet, make sure you create your own email list of useful contacts.

Don’t wait until the last minute. Create website banners or opt-in forms in-store to collect emails.

Let your customers know about upcoming offers and email-specific offers.

Abandoned Cart Emails

Before you launch any campaign, be sure you have set up cart abandonment emails. Abandon cart rates can reach up to 70%, and if you can re-engage a percentage of those, you can increase revenues significantly.

Abandon carts remind your customers to finalize the order or give an extra incentive.

That might be an additional discount, a reminder that the discount is expiring, or another reason to return.

Set Up Email Marketing Funnel for Black Friday

Another marketing idea for Black Friday is creating an email funnel specific to warm your audience.

Start at least a week earlier, even up to a month in advance, warming up your audience, preparing them for the offer, and increasing the email cadence on the week of the offers.

Download our email templates for Black Friday here.

Email Exclusive Offers

An exclusive offer to your email audience can help grow your email list and increase the open rates of your emails.

Encourage your visitors to sign up to your email list for an additional 10% discount for Black Friday.

Sneak Peeks at Discounts

This is one of my favorite warm-up email marketing ideas. Show a small sneak peek into your offers.

Here’s what you can do:

A little mystery can intrigue your customers and create anticipation, but the trick here is to give out a tiny bit of information, enough to excite but not enough to show the full picture.

Black Friday Marketing Ideas for Online Stores

Some marketing ideas work much better for online stores than brick-and-mortar stores. We have collected the best Black Friday marketing ideas for selling online, especially if you are selling digital products.

Send Digital or Tangible Gifts

We all love to feel special and have access to staff that other people don’t.

For your most frequent buyers, give something extra to keep them happy:

Some ideas for promo gifts are merchandise with your branding, a book you have written, or an activity book. It’s a great way to express gratitude and boost your relationship with loyal customers, and it will also surprise them!

As a digital-first business, sending a physical gift is a big surprise and a great way to connect with customers.

Send Out Digital Coupons

Coupons are one of the best promotional tools you can use to increase your course sales. And they are great at creating a sense of urgency because they have an expiration date.

Share digital coupons through your social media, affiliates, influencers, or email list to get people back to your store for Black Friday.

Optimize Your Homepage/Product Page

It is essential to instill the spirit of Black Friday during the offer period. Many businesses even redesign or change their websites for the occasion.

Focus on your brand colors, add powerful CTAs, and use pop-ups wherever appropriate. Don’t overdo it, or your website will look tacky and salesy.

Your product pages should clearly show the discount and its value to the customer, e.g., “Save up to $500.”

If you want to sell online courses, LearnWorlds comes with the Site Flavors functionality to change your entire online school into a Black Friday theme for a short-term period.

You can turn back to your original theme instantly.

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Use Referral Marketing

If you are already selling, why not sell some more? This is one of the best days to launch a referral program and get even more people to discover your online courses.

Referral or affiliate programs work best for online stores.

Introduce New Products or Pre-Sell

Black Friday offers the best opportunity to introduce a product.

Whether it’s a new product line, feature, service, or an online course, a brand-new product will get more visibility on the year’s busiest day.

You don’t need to offer a big discount, but you can pre-sell it (if it’s launching soon) or showcase it alongside your offers.

Gather Reviews

Use Black Friday to get reviews from current and past learners while boosting sales. Email and announce on social media that people who leave a review will get an additional discount on their purchase.

Put it smartly to make it enticing by saying something like “spend 5’ to get a 50% discount.”

Your customers will be happier than ever for getting a product at a discount, it’s an excellent chance to improve your ratings by asking for reviews from happy customers

Optimize Your Page for SEO

Many people look for Black Friday offers through Google. Add your offer as text on your home page or create new pages showcasing your offers.

A dedicated landing page for Black Friday with all the offers (with category filters) will help you appear on Google Searches.

You can also write a blog post announcing your offer a few weeks before. This will get your article indexed.

Remember to update the article with the complete details when your offer starts.

This way, your pages will rank for Black Friday search terms, and you will receive additional traffic that day.

Use a ChatBot

Black Friday is all about impulse purchases, and you need to reduce the uncertainty as much as possible.

Having a ChatBot available at online stores is one of the best ways to address last-minute customer questions and worries.

It also signals excellent customer support and gives more confidence to customers about return or refund policies.

Here at LearnWorlds, we suggest Tawk.to as the best option for a ChatBot. It’s free and integrates well with our LMS software!

Use Retargeting

Another advantage of online businesses is the capability to directly target their core audiences in a measurable way directly.

You can create remarketing campaigns targeting previous visitors and announcing your offers if you have enough traffic.

This could be combined with abandoned cart audiences or simply showing the discounts on specific products.

Offer Free Shipping

Shipping tends to be a big cost for both consumers and businesses alike. Adding free shipping to orders over a specific amount of products can be a great addition to any offer.

Think of messages like this: “30% off all products plus Free Shipping for purchases above $200. Only for Black Friday orders.”.

Prepare for High-Traffic

One major problem of e-commerce stores is website crashes on days with high traffic.

If you expect higher traffic than usual, ensure your e-shop can handle it.

If you use e-commerce software like Shopify or Wix or a cloud platform like LearnWorlds for online courses, you won’t have any issues.

However, if you have a cheap server package, self-hosted solutions like WordPress might run into issues.

Multiple Payment Options

Credit or debit cards are one of many options in the market.

Offering different payment options is essential for a worldwide audience. Consider addressing your audience by adding more options like:

Lucky Draw or Random Discounts

Sometimes, gamifying payments is an excellent way to keep your audience engaged.

Spin-to-win example by Privy.com

Spin-to-win pop-ups, for example, are a great way to engage your audience and get them coming back for more. Have different levels of discounts and allow them to re-spin every day.

This way, your visitors will return daily and increase your purchases.

Add FAQs

Reduce the uncertainty and support costs by pre-answering the most common questions.

Whether it’s costs, returns, refunds, shipping, or any other common question.

Add the most frequently asked questions (FAQs) on your products’ landing pages to reduce the questions to your support team.

This will also reduce the time your customers need for an answer and get them one step closer to purchasing!

Black Friday Marketing Ideas for Online Courses

Digital products like online courses are great for discount seasons like Black Friday as the marginal cost of producing and delivering them is nearly zero.

Of course, it’s a good idea to discount your older courses and keep your new ones as premium offerings.

Sell Course Bundles

Prepare a bundle offer with three courses sold at the price of two, e.g., “2+1 free” or “3+2 free,” etc. depending on how many courses you have available and can promote.

Offering course bundles is a win-win: you get to upsell, and customers buy at a better price. This trick will increase the average order value and is a good alternative to huge price drops.

Group similar products together so that your students will get a complete bundle. For example, if you are offering cooking courses, think of a “Complete Baking Course Bundle” where you group all your recipes on baking together.

Offer a Free Course

Another promotional idea is offering a free mini-course during the sales period. This can be either a complete mini-course or a course teaser. Use SEO and paid ads to get as much visibility as possible to make the most of this offer.

Free courses are a great way to introduce your work to your audience without asking for any commitment, capture leads, build excitement for upcoming courses, and upsell later on!

Don’t forget that Christmas and Hanukkah are just on the way

Friends & Family Offers

Create a “plus one” offer, where your customers can buy a course and get a license to share with a friend or a family member.

That could be a couple’s course, a parent-child license, or a gift to their best friend.

You will be offering them a way to connect with their loved ones, and it’s a way for you to increase the visibility of your offering.

Add Value Instead of a Discount

You can avoid discounts by adding more value to your offering.

Consider offering a one-to-one coaching or private workshop to your online courses. Adding premium value allows you to avoid discounting and giving an extra incentive to your customers.

Offer a Physical Gift

Surprise your customers by offering a physical gift related to your course. Paid it correctly, and you can get a loyal customer for a lifetime:

The options are plenty, and the choice is yours.

Black Friday Marketing Ideas for Software Companies

When you think of Black Friday, you imagine the huge queues in the malls and e-commerce discounts on consumer products.

But big and small software companies have joined the Black Friday craze over the past few years.

Consider these marketing ideas for your SaaS Black Friday offer:

Extra Licenses/Users/Credits

Consider offering additional licenses, users, or credits for Black Friday.

It’s cheaper for a software company to give more usage-based offers than discounts on price.

This way, you get more product usage and avoid impacting your bottom line with huge discounts.

Bundle Up With Other Software

Many software companies collaborate to offer a co-offer, where your product is being bundled up with another.

Decide a collaborative marketing campaign and a common price for both products.

Gift Another Software

For premium software, consider offering a cheaper complimentary product for free.

Consider which one of your integrations your customers are mostly using, and offer a license to that software in collaboration with them.

Introduce New Features

Are you launching a new feature before Black Friday?

Delaying the launch and offering the feature as an added value to your audience might be a good idea.

If the feature was intended to be sold as an add-on, it’s an excellent opportunity to get new users to upgrade from a free to a premium version with a free add-on.

Ready to Get Started With Your Black Friday Planning?

Take time to check out your inventory of products, pick the ones that need a boost or already sell well, and get them out to the public.

Whether you create a new course or offer one as a giveaway, there are many Black Friday marketing strategies to try out, and the choice is yours.

Besides, you know your customers better than anyone else.

Deep dive into your shop’s analytics to make data-driven decisions. Choose the marketing strategy that best serves your learners’ needs while increasing their chances of responding to your offers.

Start working on your Black Friday deals today, and don’t forget about Cyber Monday, either!

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Further reading you might find interesting:

The post 55 Black Friday Marketing Ideas to Skyrocket Sales in 2024 appeared first on LearnWorlds.

Introducing LearnWorlds’ New Inline Sign-in/Sign-up Form Feature

Anthea Papadopoulou — Thu, 12 Sep 2024 06:32:43 +0000

Gone are the days when visitors had to navigate to the top bar to sign in or sign up. Now, you can place the sign-in/sign-up form anywhere on your website, maximizing convenience and engagement.

We’re thrilled to announce a powerful new feature on LearnWorlds: the Inline Sign-in/Sign-up Form. This new feature revolutionizes how your visitors engage with your website, offering a seamless user experience.

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What is a Sign-in/Sign-up Form, and Why Use it as a Website Section?

The Inline Sign-in/Sign-up Form is a dynamic new section available under the LearnWorlds’ Website Builder.

Traditionally, users could only sign in or sign up through a button on the top bar, taking an extra step to open a popup form. While functional, this method added unnecessary friction to the user experience.

Previously: Visitors had to detour to the top bar, click the sign-in or sign-up button, and wait for a popup form to appear. This extra step could discourage potential users from completing the sign-in or sign-up process, resulting in lower conversion rates and a less efficient user experience.

Now: You can place the form directly within any section of your website. This means users can sign in or sign up immediately upon landing on a page without navigating away or opening a separate form.

This new streamlined process:

Implementing the Inline Sign-in/Sign-up Form is simple.

Access the feature through your LearnWorlds Website Builder and choose where you want to add the new section to place the form on your website. Customize the form to match your brand and start reaping the benefits of a streamlined user experience.

Offer Your Visitors What They Need, at the Right Time and Place

When building your website, it’s important to consider the visitor’s journey and ask questions like “What are my visitors trying to achieve on this page?”, “When is the right timing to display this information” or even “Is this page distracting them from signing in?”.

Integrating the sign-in/sign-up form as a website section allows you to answer all of these questions according to your business goals and create a smoother user experience on your website.

Let’s check some use cases that might help you apply these improvements

Selling courses: optimize the conversion of your landing pages

If you’re selling courses, subscriptions, or digital products, building dedicated sign-up funnel landing pages will help you capture leads and convert them into paying customers.

Now you can include a sign-up section to direct visitors from valuable information about your offerings straight to the sign-up form, taking advantage of the momentum and creating a compelling and efficient conversion path.

Training Employees: go straight to the point and save your learners’ time

Internal training schools often serve employees who need quick and direct access to training materials. Having a dedicated page with just the sign-in form streamlines this process, ensuring that employees can log in and start their training without unnecessary distractions or steps.

Segmenting your users: based on where they came from

LearnWorlds’ tagging functionalities allow you to segment your users and create personalized learning experiences. If you have the sign-up form displayed now on different pages, among different contexts, simply choose to apply tags on the section settings. That way, every time a visitor converts through the form, they will get tagged, and you will have full visibility of where they came from.

Tagging users based on the page they signed up from offers several benefits:

Streamlining user access with LearnWorlds’ Inline Sign-Up Forms & SSO: tailored login for different user groups

If you provide training courses to different companies, you can activate SSO on the sign-in settings of your website.

Let’s imagine you run an online school offering a specialized course and have several clients enrolled from different organizations. Previously, users would have to choose their organization from a generic sign-up pop-up, selecting from options like “SSO with Organization A,” “SSO with Organization B,” and so on.

With LearnWorlds’ new Inline Sign-Up Forms, you can take personalization to the next level. Now, you can create individual, branded login pages for each client:

Each page features an embedded inline sign-up form, giving users direct access tailored to their organization. This eliminates the need to sift through multiple login options, creating a smoother and more personalized experience. Your clients’ users will have their own exclusive login gateway for your courses, making access simple and intuitive.

Ideal for businesses, universities, or any organization with distinct user groups, this feature streamlines the process for both you and your clients, enhancing the user experience while keeping operations organized and efficient.

Note

Don’t forget to enable the SSO option on your website settings, otherwise it will not be offered as an option on the Inline Sign-up Form.

Take the Next Step to Make Your Website Efficient

The new Inline Sign-in/Sign-up Form feature is a significant enhancement to LearnWorlds’ website capabilities, offering more flexibility, improved user experience, and enhanced conversion opportunities.

Whether you’re an internal training school, a course seller, or a school with complex SSO requirements, this feature is designed to meet your needs and help you achieve your goals.

For more information on how to use this tool, visit our support article.

Not a LearnWorlds customer yet? Experience the power of LearnWorlds and start your 30-day free trial to discover all the amazing things you can achieve with your online academy.

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11 Successful Black Friday Landing Page Examples To Inspire You

Anthea Papadopoulou — Thu, 12 Sep 2024 00:55:52 +0000

Black Friday is fast approaching and is one of the year’s most significant shopping events for physical and online stores! This year, it falls on November 29th, and many businesses are already gearing up. They’re updating their websites, doing SEO optimizations, and running A/B tests to maximize attention on their exclusive deals and discounts.

Since Black Friday is just one breath away from the holiday season—it’s high time you put those discounted price tags out and start promoting and selling online courses to new customers.

Never done it before?

Don’t worry; Black Friday marketing isn’t substantially different from what you usually do. You just need to spice things up a bit. We’re here to help you update your sales page to make it eye-catching, super-attractive, and irresistible!

In this blog post, we have collected 11 great Black Friday landing page examples to inspire you and help you promote your online courses by revamping your landing page design (and messaging).

11 Successful Black Friday Landing Page Examples To Inspire You

Let’s see some examples that will inspire you to build an irresistible landing page for an unstoppable Black Friday weekend and beyond!

#1 Tony Robbins

Industry: Life Coaching
Style: Inspirational/Motivational

Through his 2022 holiday marketing campaign, Tony Robbins celebrates the beginning of the holiday season with a simple, elegant, yet powerful image on the hero section of his landing page. For those who need that extra push, Tony helps them figure out how to start by offering a quiz. Instead of letting visitors leave the site right away, he gives them a reason to stay a little longer, increasing their odds of buying.

Tony focuses a lot on the messaging of his offering, through which it’s clear that he wants to empower people. He encourages site visitors to explore the solutions he offers to help them “master every area of their lives.”

The product pages are also super easy to navigate. Each offering leads to a dedicated landing page with more information, bold messaging, and attractive visuals.

#2 Passion for Savings

Industry: Money Management
Style: Product Listing/Blog

Passion for Savings is a website that features coupons and online deals and shares money-saving tips. For its Black Friday campaign, the company featured a hero image showing that the sales season is officially here. A CTA button takes people directly to the main page of interest, intending to lead them to check out the Black Friday deals.

Below the main hero section, you can see a section divider and a clear headline directing site visitors to two other pages—Best Black Friday Deals and Black Friday Alerts. This does so without disturbing the flow of the copy or impeding other critical elements on the page.

The Black Friday Alerts are a great lead magnet for those who want to opt-in to stay up to date with upcoming deals. It’s also practical because it doesn’t ask people for many details – just their first name and email address.

Overall, this landing page is clean and has lots of white space, giving it a proper structure.

#3 EngageBay

Industry: Email Marketing Software
Style: Playful

EngageBay has created a dedicated landing page to promote its big holiday sale, including all significant upcoming holidays (e.g., Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Christmas). The company decided to combine these holidays in the same campaign. To spice things up, it created its version of holiday sales, giving a unified headline, “Holidays SaaS Deals 2024.”

The main section of the landing page immediately presents the upcoming offering, ‘40% OFF Lifetime’, using bold letters. Visitors are then prompted to provide only their email address to be notified as soon as the offer goes live. This is an excellent and direct example of creating anticipation for potential customers.

An effective marketing strategy always involves talking directly to the target audience and highlighting the benefits without much fanfare (Market better. Sell faster. Support smarter).

#4 RafflePress

Industry: Website Design, WordPress plugins
Style: Informative

RafflePress, a WordPress plugin for building contests and giveaways, offers an excellent example of a giveaway that can be used in any promotional campaign.

The company creates a special offer banner with a countdown timer and quickly describes the sale. At this point, it is important to make it as easy as possible for the site visitor to access the sale and learn how to claim their coupon, and RafflePress does it well.

Apart from that, RafflePress’s Black Friday 2022 deal offered 50 percent off all its plans, which is more visible through its pricing page. From there, you can tell that prices have dropped, offering potential customers the limited LIFETIME opportunity to join.

#5 HandleTheHeat

Industry: Cooking/Baking
Style: Bold, Enticing

Chef and baking master Tessa Arias is behind HandleTheHeat, a successful baking business specializing in desserts and cookie making. In 2021, to take full advantage of the Black Friday season, Tessa built a landing page and promoted her course as part of a discounted bundle.

The course bundle included a hard copy handbook with her baking recipes, a baking class, and a Christmas cookies ebook—all three in one. This discount saved over 50% off the regular price and presented itself as a winning opportunity. To create a sense of urgency, it’s mentioned that this is a limited-time offer.

On the homepage, Tessa encouraged people to sign up for her email list by offering a guide as a free product. This free cookie customization chart is a great incentive to sign up.

Apart from the Black Friday deal, Tessa knew she had more chances to increase those conversion rates by encouraging people to become subscribers first.

After all, email marketing works! You can learn more about it here.

#6 I Create Art

Industry: Online art school
Style: Playful, Educational

I Create Art is an online art school for kids and adults who like to celebrate the Christmas holidays. This becomes obvious as you visit their landing page. For their Black Friday marketing campaign in 2020, they featured their course art boxes and promoted them as holiday gifts.

They also offered theme and bundle boxes, single-box courses, holiday theme boxes, and a special discount on their subscription plans.

The countdown timer to Christmas is the first thing you notice when you land on the page. The Black Friday and Cyber Month deal appears further down the page, but it still stands out compared to other elements, and it’s highlighted with bright colors.

The color combination of red, green, yellow, and black creates playful Christmas-y vibes that get the site visitors in the mood for holidays. It prepares them to step back, unwind, and start investing their money in the best possible way. Besides, art education is all about unleashing your creativity and having fun, which go well with the holiday spirit.

To purchase the courses, site visitors need to enroll in the school and then place their order. This explains why the main call-to-action button remains the “Create Account” button at the top right corner of the homepage.

#7 The School of Calisthenics

Industry: Online fitness coaching
Style: Bold, Inspirational

The School of Calisthenics has built a spot-on landing page that provides the information its target audience needs.

Their web page is clean, with all the page elements arranged to make the copy easy to read. Each section has its own purpose, giving the page a balanced structure and improving the overall user experience.

In 2021, The School of Calisthenics nailed the page design and effectively communicated the Black Friday special offer.

The clear and bold CTA led prospective customers to a dedicated Black Friday page with a countdown timer and an exclusive 50% off sale.

In addition to training programs, potential customers could enroll in the school and get a membership at half the original price.

The School of Calisthenics focused on FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) with phrases like “Don’t Miss Out” and listed all the subscription benefits, encouraging people to sign up for their courses.

They also explained straightforwardly how people could claim the discount using the Black Friday code at the checkout.

#8 Canine Principles

Industry: Online school for dog training
Style: Informational

Canine Principles is another excellent landing page example that shows how you can entice your site visitors to buy during the holiday season.

For their Black Friday sale, they offered coupons with 50% and 30% discounts, depending on the type of course. They have smartly named the coupons “Blackdog”—an apparent reference to Black Friday that works well with the topic of the courses.

Apart from the discount, the school also offered a free course (3 to choose from), incentivizing more people to sign up.

What we loved about Canine Principles is that the site also includes customer testimonials and features their social media channels and online community. This is an excellent addition to the kind of services they offer.

#9 ThemeForest

Industry: Web design, CMS
Style: Bold, attention-grabbing

ThemeForest performed a … triple attack, announcing what they call “their biggest cyber week sale ever,” with discounts reaching 60%. The sales are communicated in three sections on the page: the upper right, middle, and bottom.

The main banner in the middle of the page certainly manages to catch the reader’s eye. It is colorful and modern, eluding a sense of excitement without being one bit tacky. To bring the percentage of the sales to our attention, ThemeForest uses a hue of peach that hovers between bold and pastel.

#10 Christie’s Education

Industry: Online learning, Art
Style: Sophisticated, discreet

Christie’s Education offers accredited on-site and online courses in Art history and the Art market. Last year, their Black Friday offer was a $800 discount on self-directed online certificate courses.

The offer is communicated through an elegant, deep-blue banner with a minimalistic design. Instead of being the prominent message, it is discreetly mentioned on the bottom.

What we love about this offer is how it creates anticipation since it was communicated about two weeks before Black Friday. We can’t help but love its simplicity, which conveys that the quality of the courses, rather than the reduced price, remains their biggest selling point.

#11 Target

Industry: Retailer
Style: Bold, simple

Target announced its 2022 Black Friday sale with a bold black banner. The banner initially announces that the deals are here but does not provide specific information.

Scrolling down, we see that different categories offer different discounts, either as a percentage of the original price or an amount taken off. We like this approach of offering different discount options as it reinforces the feeling that “there’re plenty of options here.”

We also can’t help but love the simple, elegant design that Target has chosen.

Key Elements of a Black Friday Landing Page

The eCommerce market is on fire every year on Black Friday, warming up consumers for the upcoming holiday sales!

You’ve got to grab this opportunity and create an effective Black Friday landing page that stands out and encourages people to interact with you. The page copy and website design should lead people to action that aligns with your goals—opting into your newsletter, reaching out to you directly, or buying your course (the ultimate goal).

Here’s How to Sell Your Courses on Your Shopify Store

These are the key elements you need to focus on when building your own landing page to optimize conversions:

These elements should help you create a landing page that stands out and clearly explains to potential customers what they can get from this year’s online Black Friday sales. Play around to create a landing page template you can tweak and resume yearly.

With LearnWorlds, you don’t need a separate landing page builder to create fantastic landing pages.

LearnWorlds Online School Site Builder enables you to build a landing page, sales page, or product page within a few minutes and with zero coding. Choose from a variety of ready-made templates and customize your landing page with countdown timers, pop-ups, special offers, testimonials, animations, fonts, and more!

Ready to Build a High-Converting Black Friday Landing Page?

The key to an effective digital marketing strategy for Black Friday is to build a landing page that will present your courses smartly while offering a pleasant user experience.

Paying attention to all the elements outlined above will help you showcase your special course bundle or offer and create a high-quality, amazing landing page that converts.

So, have you prepared your Black Friday deals yet?

Get your free 30-day trial with LearnWorlds today and create your Black Friday deals on online courses with our state-of-the-art platform!

P.S.: Don’t forget to prepare for the other important dates between Black Friday & Cyber Monday. Small Business Saturday is the equivalent of a “Small Business Black Friday Sales” and then get ready for the holiday season for a post-Black Friday sales period:

Dec. 25 – Jan. 2: Hanukkah
Dec. 21: Super Saturday
Dec. 24: Christmas Eve
Dec. 25: Christmas Day
Dec. 26: Boxing Day
Dec. 31: New Year’s Eve

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Why do we have black Friday sales?

Thanksgiving in the U.S. is considered the first day of the Holiday shopping season. Many employees take a long weekend off starting on Thanksgiving and take the opportunity to do their holiday shopping. Retailers started competing on opening hours and discounts over the Friday after Thanksgiving, which was eventually named Black Friday.

When will Black Friday sales start?

Black Friday for 2024 is on the 29th of November.

How long do black Friday sales last?

Some offer discounts throughout November, while others offer them only on Black Friday and the follow-up weekend, sometimes including Cyber Monday.

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Further reading you might find interesting:

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What Is Self-Paced Learning: Benefits and Ways to Address Its Challenges

Anthea Papadopoulou — Mon, 09 Sep 2024 14:30:32 +0000

I’ve always created courses for self-paced learners. For me, it was mostly because students demanded it. Otherwise, 58% of employees prefer to study or train at their own pace.

But who exactly will find self-paced online courses helpful? And, how can you overcome its most pressing issues?

Whether you’re an experienced educator, a lifelong learner, or just curious about how self-paced education can evolve, in this article, we’ll be exploring the benefits and best practices for avoiding common challenges with this teaching and learning method.

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Definition of Self-Paced Learning

Self-paced learning is a form of education where learners have the autonomy to progress through the course material at their own speed, without the constraints of a fixed schedule or deadlines set by an instructor. This learning method allows individuals to start and finish courses according to their schedules, making it a flexible and customizable learning approach.

Self-paced learning provides flexible timing as learners can access and complete the course material at any time. This makes it ideal for those with varying schedules or other commitments. Students can spend more time on challenging topics and less time on concepts they find easier, catering to their unique learning needs and pace. They’re also responsible for their progress and must be self-motivated to complete the course.

Blended Learning: What it is: Why it Matters & How to Apply It

Compared to cohort-based learning strategies where students progress through the course together on a predetermined schedule, self-paced courses are available online, making them accessible from anywhere with an internet connection.

Self-paced learning also differs from traditional learning as classes aren’t held at specific time frames and don’t have an in-person instructor to set the pace.

The Benefits of Self-Paced Learning

The advantages of self-paced learning are numerous, such as providing access to custom learning paths and the flexibility to control pacing and scheduling.

It’s also better suited for diverse learning styles and people who need the ability to fit education into their busy schedules.

Some of the key advantages I’ve noticed with self-paced education include:

How Self-Paced Learning Works: 4 Formats to Consider

Self-paced learning comes in different formats that will better match certain learning objectives or styles. I chose the best types of content that will help you engage your learners and allow them to retain information in the long term.

Video Lessons

Interactive video lessons should vary in length and complexity, offering flexibility to learners of all kinds. They combine visual and audio elements to enhance understanding and are best for demonstrating procedures or processes, explaining complex concepts with visual aids, and supplementing reading materials with engaging content.

Example:

Matt Pocock is a master at using video tutorials to guide learners through complex TypeScript errors, offering step-by-step explanations and live coding examples. The instructor shows how to diagnose and resolve specific TypeScript errors, making the learning process dynamic and visually engaging.

This approach is used for both the instruction and exercise parts to help learners see the code in action and understand the practical application of the concepts. In addition to video content, the course also provides written explanations and transcripts of the video lessons.

Video used for explaining an exercise

Interactive Assessments

Assessments as part of coursework, can include quizzes, tests, and assignments designed to evaluate a learner’s understanding and retention of the material. The instant results help learners identify areas of improvement and can keep them on track and motivated to achieve learning goals.

Assessment can happen as a course progresses or at the end of a chapter/course if you want to offer certificates. Testing learner’s knowledge is needed to measure comprehension of key concepts and identify knowledge gaps. I’ve always used the later feedback to update the course in time or create new learning materials.

Example:

HubSpot’s certification process within its Academy is structured to ensure that students thoroughly understand the material before earning their certificate. To reinforce learning, HubSpot integrates quizzes at the end of each module. These quizzes test students on key concepts, helping them retain information and identify areas that need further review.

At the end of the course, HubSpot requires students to complete a final assessment, which often includes a comprehensive exam covering all the material from the course. You can create your own engaging and interactive assessments with LearnWorlds’ Assessment Builder.

Exam question example for a HubSpot Academy course

Downloadable Resources

Downloadable resources include PDFs, worksheets, case studies, slides, podcasts, and other materials learners can download and even use offline (this is a big request you might get from a lot of students). This type of content is convenient and can provide a lasting resource for future reference—in case your website experiences technical problems or you take the course off for the time being. Use extra content to offer practice materials worksheets and exercises or supply templates and guides for practical application of the concepts in your videos/text content.

Example:

Learning Liaisons uses PDF files as a central resource in their training courses, providing learners with a range of supportive materials like blueprints, prompts, walkthroughs, and other essential resources. These PDFs provide detailed guides, blueprints, prompts, and walkthroughs that complement the video lessons and other interactive elements within the courses.

The GK course comes with practice materials such as downloadable PDFs

Webinars

Webinars are live or recorded online sessions that give you the chance to feature experts or interactive components such as Q&A sessions. They excel thanks to the real-time interaction they create with instructors as well as because of how the live sessions can be recorded for future reference. I recommend using webinars if you want to get into more detail about a topic, introduce new ideas and trends, or just provide a platform for discussion and interaction.

Example:

Daniel Shiffman at The Coding Train often conducts live coding sessions and interactive streams that function similarly to webinars. These live sessions allow viewers to watch real-time coding demonstrations, ask questions, and engage with the content dynamically. Shiffman’s live streams often include problem-solving exercises, coding challenges, and discussions, providing an interactive learning environment akin to webinars.

Live stream and coding challenge examples

Who Can Benefit from Self-Paced Learning

Self-paced learning offers a flexible and personalized approach to education that can benefit a wide array of learners. This method allows individuals to progress through material at their own speed, accommodating their own schedules and different learning styles.

Below, I explore how various types of learners can benefit from self-paced learning.

Professionals

For those juggling career and personal commitments, self-paced learning provides the flexibility to study without disrupting their busy schedules. Professionals can take courses to enhance their skills, earn certifications, or pivot to new career paths, all while managing their existing job responsibilities.

Tip: Companies can implement self-paced learning programs to facilitate employee training and continuous employee development. This method is particularly effective for training in new technologies, compliance requirements, and soft skills. Employees will be able to learn at their own pace, ensuring better comprehension and retention.

Students

Self-paced learning can support students who need to balance academic work with extracurricular activities or part-time jobs. It allows them to catch up on subjects they find challenging or to accelerate in areas of strength. This flexibility can lead to a more personalized and effective educational experience.

Tip: Advanced learners often need to engage with complex material at a deeper level. Set up self-paced learning to enable them to allocate time according to the difficulty of the content and their research needs. This can foster a more thorough understanding of a topic.

Lifelong learners

Individuals pursuing education for personal enrichment rather than professional reasons can benefit greatly from self-paced learning. Whether learning a new language, exploring historical events, or mastering a musical instrument, these learners can enjoy the journey of education without the pressure of deadlines.

Tip: Focus on engagement and interaction. For course creators targeting lifelong learning, it’s essential to create content that actively involves learners. Use LMS tools like LearnWorlds that allow you to easily incorporate multimedia elements, interactive exercises, and opportunities for discussion or collaboration.

Common Challenges and How to Overcome Them (as Course Creator)

While self-paced learning offers numerous benefits, it also comes with its own set of challenges. These include issues like procrastination and lack of motivation that can, however, be mitigated for better knowledge retention.

Let’s explore how some of the key challenges of self-paced learning can be prevented or fixed.

Increased procrastination

One of the key challenges is the potential for procrastination, which can lead to incomplete or delayed assignments. To mitigate this, techniques such as the Pomodoro Technique or a rewards system can be implemented to enhance productivity and maintain momentum. These methods encourage focused work periods followed by breaks, helping students stay on track.

Social isolation

Another significant challenge is the limitation of social interaction and opportunities for networking, peer collaboration, and immediate feedback. To overcome this, arranging regular video calls or virtual study groups can foster collaboration, facilitate the exchange of ideas, and help students connect. This approach ensures that students don’t feel isolated and can benefit from collective learning experiences.

Tech issues

Technical problems, such as internet connectivity issues, software malfunctions, or hardware failures, are also common in online learning environments. To prevent these disruptions, students should regularly check and update their hardware and software. Additionally, having a backup plan integrated into the learning process is crucial to ensure continuity in case of technical difficulties.

Lack of Self-discipline

The self-discipline required for online learning can be daunting, as students must maintain strong motivation and time management skills. To support this, it’s important to establish short-term and long-term goals for learning objectives. Breaking these goals into manageable tasks and tracking progress regularly can help maintain motivation and ensure steady advancement.

Microlearning can help. Find out what it involves here.

Lack of support

Lack of immediate support is another challenge that can hinder progress, especially for learners who need prompt clarification or assistance. Setting up periodic meetings where instructors can discuss students’ progress, along with providing online resources such as FAQs, tutorials, or community forums, can offer the necessary support and guidance.

Distractions

Distractions pose a significant risk to engagement in online courses, especially for learners who struggle with self-regulation. To counteract this, course design should include a mix of videos, readings, interactive exercises, and quizzes to keep the learning experience engaging and dynamic. Additionally, breaking larger tasks into smaller, achievable goals can maintain interest and provide a sense of accomplishment, keeping students motivated.

Inconsistent progress

Lastly, inconsistent progress can create difficulties in keeping up with course expectations or group assignments. To address this, students should be supported with tracking tools or journals, as well as periodic evaluations, to ensure they are meeting course requirements and can make necessary adjustments as needed.

Empower Your Learners With Self-Paced Learning

Platforms with advanced features, such as LearnWorlds, provide exceptional opportunities for instructors and learners alike. They enable instructors to interact with learners and facilitate peer-to-peer communication through online discussion boards, private or public groups, and a broader online learning community.

Move beyond the constraints of typical LMS platforms with LearnWorlds, which delivers a superior experience to scale your training program. Give LearnWorlds a spin and explore its awesome capabilities to help you address the challenges of self-paced learning.

Get your free trial today!

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Further reading you might find interesting:

FAQs

What is the difference between self-paced and self-directed learning?

Self-paced learning allows students to progress through pre-structured course material at their own speed, following a set sequence designed by an instructor or platform. In contrast, self-directed learning involves learners taking full responsibility for their educational journey, including setting their own goals, finding resources, and determining the structure and pace of their learning. While self-paced learning provides flexibility, self-directed learning requires autonomy and self-motivation as learners create and manage their learning.

What is an example of self-paced instruction?

Self-paced instruction comes in various forms, including ebooks, webinars, online learning platforms, video tutorials, mobile learning apps, and digital resource hubs. Learning management systems like LearnWorlds allow educators to create and distribute courses that students can complete on their own time. Instructors can upload videos, quizzes, assessments, and interactive content. Students can then access these resources whenever it’s convenient for them.

How to do self-paced learning?

Self-paced learning is based on a structured approach that relies on pre-set clear, achievable goals that define what students need to learn and by when. A variety of resources such as videos, articles, and interactive exercises are used to keep your learning engaging and dynamic. Extra tools like journals, checklists, or apps help learners track progress and instructors adjust their courses.

The post What Is Self-Paced Learning: Benefits and Ways to Address Its Challenges appeared first on LearnWorlds.

7 Effective Customer Education Examples & Best Practices for 2024

Anthea Papadopoulou — Mon, 02 Sep 2024 11:26:52 +0000

Customer education helps your customers better understand how to use your product or service, and it can be remarkably effective.

A study commissioned by Adobe showed that of businesses with customer education programs, more than 75% saw an increase in product adoption. Additionally, 63% saw lower support costs and 58% had a reduction in customer turnover during a set period.

While these are exciting numbers, the study had a small caveat: customer education can boost your business…when it is done properly. This means you need a good strategy to see the numbers you hope for. Luckily, setting up a strong customer education initiative is well within your reach.

In this article, we guide you through what customer education is and detail its many benefits. We also offer some real examples from successful businesses and top tips for creating the best customer education program for your business goals.

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What is Customer Education?

Customer education can take many forms, but they all share a common purpose: to educate, onboard, engage, and retain new and existing customers. Businesses (mostly SaaS companies) use customer education to equip customers with the information and skills they may need to use their product or service to its full potential.

Customer education content can range from comprehensive how-to guides and video tutorials to interactive webinars, detailed FAQs, product walkthroughs, and community forums or in-person training.

While customer education often overlaps with customer training, it differs in purpose.

A customer education program offers resources to help users understand a product or upskill in an industry. A customer training program focuses on structured teaching of a specific skill for a specific product. Both, however, are focused on customer success.

Having a strong customer education strategy can lead to improved customer success overall, especially if you have:

According to McKinsey & Company, creating an excellent customer experience can boost your profitability, which is one of the many benefits of using customer education for your business.

The Benefits of Customer Education

Effective customer education can enhance your overall customer experience. But what does that translate into for your business? What are some other benefits of building a customer education program?

Businesses that use effective customer education programs may see:

To see what these benefits look like in practice, it can help to see some real examples of customer education programs. Below we’ve listed several customer education examples from prominent companies.

Effective Customer Education Examples

Grab your pen and take some notes, these examples of successful customer education programs will help you get inspired to create or improve your customer education program.

HubSpot Academy

American company HubSpot develops and markets software products focused on inbound marketing, sales, and customer service. To help onboard new customers and give them the support they need, it offers HubSpot Academy.

HubSpot Academy has 100% free educational content on topics like email marketing software, social media marketing, and more using training content like webinars, blogs, and guides.

Several of their courses offer industry-recognized certification upon completion, which boosts their learners’ credibility. Some globally recognized certifications they offer include:

One great feature of HubSpot Academy is that users have instant access to the chatbot, which I was able to quickly use to narrow down the best course options for me.

A snapshot of HubSpot Academy’s course offerings and chatbot. Source: HubSpot Academy

Salesforce Trailhead

Salesforce is famous in the customer relationship management (CRM) software space and offers its Trailhead as a way to “Skill up for the future.”

Salesforce positions Trailhead as a fun way (think gamification, badges, and points) for users to learn in-demand skills, resume-worthy credentials, and certifications.

Their training materials include interactive modules that have quizzes and challenges to encourage learners to use their new-found knowledge in the real world. The platform also uses badges and points to motivate continuous online learning in a fun and engaging way.

Salesforce Trailhead’s course offerings, featuring points offered per module. Source: Salesforce Trailhead

LearnWorlds Academy

As a premium all-in-one online learning platform, LearnWorlds specializes in creating, selling, and marketing online courses centered around the learner’s experience. As a way to support educators, coaches, trainers, and businesses, LearnWorlds offers LearnWorlds Academy.

The online academy is “The one-stop source for all things LearnWorlds.” Membership is free, and with it, learners have access to a wide range of free courses and resources.

LearnWorlds creates a comprehensive customer education experience by offering a multitude of learning formats including video lessons, articles, case studies, and interactive quizzes.

Some popular courses it offers include:

To help support customers even further, LearnWorlds also provides:

One of LearnWorlds Academy’s many free courses. Source: LearnWorlds Academy

LinkedIn Learning

Professional networking platform LinkedIn offers LinkedIn Learning to help its users increase their knowledge base and get the most out of the platform. To do so, it offers personalized and guided learning tailored to fit learners’ careers.

It has a vast library of courses (around 23,300) from nearly four thousand industry experts and thought leaders on topics ranging from business to tech to the creative fields.

To motivate and engage learners, LinkedIn Learning features:

Learners can even customize their search for relevant courses by inputting their job title and industry when using the search function.

Unfortunately, LinkedIn Learning isn’t free. Learners do have access to ten free courses per month with a LinkedIn premium subscription or they can opt to buy a Learning subscription. Either way, learners get a free month-long trial to sample the educational content before they commit.

The LinkedIn Learning dashboard, where learners can sign up and search for courses. Source: LinkedIn Learning

Canva Design School

Canva is famous for its mission of making graphic design approachable and user-friendly for everyone. Canva Design School takes this one step further by offering free courses that walk users through how to use the platform to its fullest potential.

Canva’s courses are interactive, using hands-on tutorials to walk learners through topics and techniques step-by-step. Popular tutorials include Create Videos with Canva, Managing Content in Canva, and Create Websites with Canva.

Canva uses a combination of video learning and interactive lesson activities to maintain customer engagement. And like other customer education programs, Canva also offers its learners official certificates. At the time of writing, learners can take tests to earn certifications in:

Canva’s Design School is completely free, and learners can take advantage of its offerings without creating an account. The only exception to this is the certification program which requires users to be logged in with a free account.

A snapshot of Canva Design School’s “Canva Essentials” course. Source: Canva Design School

Slack Success Hub

Slack is a messaging app mostly used by businesses and online communities to communicate and collaborate. It boasts a host of features for connecting teams no matter their location and to maximize its benefits for its users, it offers the Slack Success Hub.

The Success Hub has resources for beginner Slack users all the way to their advanced Slack Champions, meaning there are plenty of opportunities for its users to upskill on its platform.

Courses range from User Onboarding to Slack for HR, Recruiting, and DEI training and learners can earn badges and certifications for specific courses. In addition to courses, the Success Hub supports user learning through:

To take advantage of the Slack Success Hub, users need to have an account with the platform.

New user onboarding with Slack Success Hub. Source: Slack Success Hub

Zendesk Training

Zendesk positions itself as “The complete customer service solution” and provides software-as-a-service (SAAS) companies products designed to improve the customer experience. Its Zendesk Training is designed to ease users into leveraging its products to their fullest potential.

Zendesk Training offers both free and paid options, with the paid options leading to the possibility of becoming Zendesk Certified. For free options, learners can browse and choose courses and resources according to their company positions, such as admins, agents, or developers. Zendesk Training offers a wide range of certification options, including:

Despite having a vast course catalog, Zendesk Training makes it easy for learners to filter for and bundle courses to suit their specific needs.

A sample learning journey for Zendesk Training users. Source: Zendesk Training

Tips for Creating an Effective Customer Education Program

A customer education program can be a strategic investment that helps you reach your business goals. With a solid program, you stand to increase overall customer satisfaction, reduce your support team costs, and make it easier for customers to use and enjoy your offerings.

Check out our article on Customer Enablement: Why It Matters & Best Practices

Here are some top tips for implementing your customer education program:

Establish clear objectives

Define clear goals for your program and outline the outcomes you wish to see. These could be to increase sales, improve learner retention, or improve your customer onboarding process.

Ask yourself: What are my primary goals for the program, and how can achieving these goals impact my business success?

Analyze your audience

Take an in-depth look at your users and put them into groups. These groups could be based on things like their knowledge level, job role, industry type, or use case (how they use your products). Clearly defining these groups can help you develop content to address their needs.

Ask yourself: Who uses my product and what are their specific needs and pain points?

Choose an LMS

You need a reliable LMS (learning management system) for your program, so look for one that meets your customer needs and your program objectives. The best LMSs offer analytics and integrations and are highly customizable.

Ask yourself: Does the LMS offer analytics and can I customize it to offer various content formats like videos, tutorials, assessments, and gamification options?

Start developing content

Using your goals and audience analysis as the backbone, start developing the content for your course. Try to offer a wide range of learning formats like videos and tutorials, group learning, mini-lessons and webinars, and assessments.

Ask yourself: How can I make maintain customer engagement through my educational content?

Incorporate certifications and badges

Using some sort of reward system for learning is an excellent way to motivate learners and keep them involved. Badges and certifications are both great ways for learners to feel acknowledged for their efforts and to measure their progress.

Ask yourself: What certifications/badges would my users find most valuable?

Don’t forget accessibility

Make your program accessible and inclusive to all users. Use a variety of learning formats, offer subtitles and transcripts for videos, and if you can, offer translations to expand your reach to speakers of other languages.

Ask yourself: How is the learning experience for my customers? Is it accessible to all learners?

Promote your program

Consider how you can promote your program to first-time users and return users. For instance, using social media and testimonials can be a way to attract new learners, and using email lists to inform current users about new courses can encourage continuous learning.

Ask yourself: How can leverage the tools I already have in place to attract and retain learners?

Analyze and iterate

This is where having an LMS with analytics is so important. You need to measure the success of your program to know how you can improve it. Use the metrics from your LMS to see what is working and what isn’t, and adjust accordingly.

Ask yourself: What will be my key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics for measuring success?

These tips will help you build a customer education program that is both valuable to your learners and helps you grow your business. Throughout the process, don’t forget to circle back to the very beginning and stay connected to your goals.

Ready to Use Customer Education to Scale Your Business?

An effective customer education program can be a game changer for your brand. As we’ve seen through the examples in this resource, educating customers can do wonders in many areas of your business.

Use it to improve customer satisfaction, reduce support tickets, and ease product adoption for your users. By educating and empowering your customers, you increase loyalty for your products and growth for your business.

Get your free trial with LearnWorlds today and start educating your customers!

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What is Community-based Marketing? Key Benefits & Examples

Anthea Papadopoulou — Mon, 02 Sep 2024 09:28:39 +0000

Looking for a marketing strategy that creates deep connections with your target audience? You might consider community-based marketing (CBM), a strategy that centers around building genuine connections with your community.

Author and marketing expert Mark Schaefer calls community “the last great marketing strategy”, and according to community marketing platform Tint, 74% of consumers say being a part of a community increases their trust in a brand. This goes for online education too.

In this article, you’ll see how to make community-based marketing work for your online course by understanding what it is, learning the benefits of community-based marketing, and taking a close look at some effective community-based marketing strategies.

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What is Community-based Marketing?

Community-based marketing centers around a community of like-minded, similarly-driven customers. For online education, this could be a group of people interested in learning, for example, a new language, fitness and lifestyle tips, or coding.

A community-based marketing strategy focuses on authentic communication and engagement with that group of people to create trust and a sense of belonging for its members.

To be clear: the purpose of CBM isn’t to curate a community so you have an easy customer base to sell to—that’s a great way to lose their trust. The focus should be to create a place where members feel safe, seen, heard, and supported.

At its core, community-based marketing has genuine, authentic connections between its members and the brand or product the community is centered around.

This connection is supported by three key principles:

Authenticity

People want authentic interactions; they want to feel like a person and not just a number. For a brand, this means being transparent, consistent, and true to your brand values.

Being authentic builds trust and credibility, making it more likely that community members will advocate for and engage with your brand.

Two-way communication

Hand-in-hand with authenticity is two-way communication. Your audience doesn’t want generic messaging (“That’s great!”, “Love it!”) when they reach out or comment on social media.

They want thoughtful responses that add value. As a brand, this means actively listening, addressing concerns, and facilitating discussions. By showing you care for the input and ideas of community members, you encourage deeper engagement.

Community building

And of course, for community-based marketing to work, you need to build a community. This could look like organizing events or creating exclusive online spaces where your community members can meet and interact.

A community transforms your audience from simply buyers to a supportive network and may result in members advocating for your brand via word of mouth.

These three principles come together to create a powerful collective where members of a brand community support and interact with each other and the brand it’s centered around.

Traditional Marketing vs. Community-based Marketing

Community-based marketing differs from traditional marketing by hyper-focusing on connecting authentically with and creating space for a community of people rather than a broad audience.

And that’s a good thing — according to Forbes, 82% of Gen-Z skip or block traditional ads when they can, preferring instead to learn about products from real people (like influencers) or those who are part of a like-minded group.

Check out this example to see how community-based marketing can compare to traditional marketing for an online course:

Traditional marketing:

A coding course provider, we’ll call them Blake, uses a banner ad campaign on social media and education platforms to promote a 50% discount on their entire catalog of coding courses.

Community-based marketing:

A different coding course provider, we’ll call them Sam, partners with a well-known TikToker who specializes in Python. They create a series of exclusive, free, Python workshops and interactive coding challenges.

Together, Sam and the TikToker promote the workshops and challenges through the TikTok channel to target and engage aspiring Python coders.

Some key differences in the strategies above are that the community-based marketing plan focuses on collaboration, engagement, and a bit of exclusivity to provide meaningful, informative (and yes, free) content to followers.

This type of community-based focus has real benefits, let’s take a look.

Benefits of Community-based Marketing

To help you understand how community-based marketing can work for you, you might want to look at how it can positively impact the success of your brand.

Community-based marketing offers:

Other benefits can include:

When it comes to benefits for your online education brand, using community-based marketing can give your learners the chance to connect and collaborate through a shared course. This can lead to:

→ Increased learner engagement: Through your community, learners can enjoy a sense of fellowship or camaraderie, which can make the learning process more enjoyable. They also have better access to you, the course creator, making them feel connected and seen.

→ Improved learning outcomes: Learners in your community can bounce ideas off of each other, ask questions, debate, and actively participate in discussions that can lead to better overall learning.

→ Enhanced course value: A community gives learners more to work with. Not only are they guided through your course content, but they also have opportunities to enhance what they learn by talking with other community members.

→ Better visibility and reach for your course: Happy learners talk to other people. If you give them a place where they feel supported and encouraged, they may share that with others through testimonials and reviews or on their social media accounts.

Using a community-based marketing strategy for your course doesn’t have to be complicated.

Having a strong understanding of how community marketing strategies work can help you use CBM effectively. Let’s look at the basics.

Successful Examples of Community-based Marketing

Below are some examples of big brands and how they effectively (and successfully!) use community-based marketing to boost their marketing efforts.

Patagonia’s Action Works

Patagonia is a renowned outdoor recreation retailer. The company is famous not only for its products but also for its efforts to improve communities worldwide through its Patagonia Action Works program.

Action Works connects Patagonia customers with environmental organizations to help them find opportunities for volunteering and activism that align with their values. In doing so, it creates a sense of community and shared purpose.

Patagonia encourages Action Works community members to share their experiences on social media and through their community platform. This works to create a collective of individuals inspired to get involved in environmental activism.

Action Works is a powerful example of connecting like-minded customers with a united purpose, which reinforces Patagonia’s mission and values and encourages brand loyalty.

Red Bull’s Athlete Community, Clubs, and More

Energy drink company Red Bull’s community-based marketing efforts are vast and varied.

For starters, it has its Athlete Community, which works as an exclusive hub for athletes to connect with sponsors, receive support, and collaborate with other athletes. It also has clubs such as the Red Bull Music Academy or Red Bull Air Race that serve as centers for individuals to form tight-knit communities around a shared interest.

Red Bull’s communities aren’t just for athletes and enthusiasts either. Red Bull hosts the Red Bull Basement, a global successful community program that empowers students to work toward positive change through innovation and technology.

To spread the word and strengthen these communities, Red Bull uses social media, sporting events, festivals, and more to advertise either commercially or through user-generated content. All in all, Red Bull’s community-based marketing efforts are massively successful and contribute in a big way to the success of the brand.

How Community-based Marketing Works

Here’s how community-based marketing works—and how you can make it work for you—in 10 simple steps. To help you visualize it in practice, we’ll use our fictional course provider, Sam, as an example.

Step 1: Identify and Refine Your Target Community

Remember that you want to build a community of people who share and identify with your brand values. So make sure you have defined your brand’s greater purpose and have clearly outlined its values before you start.

Check out already existing groups and community platforms online to get a sense of your target demographics and what they may be looking for. Discover what your audience values and ask yourself what may be missing from these groups that you can offer through your community.

Example: Sam checks out online communities for professional coders on Reddit and LinkedIn to see what questions people are asking. Sam uses this information to create pillars for their own coding community.

Step 2: Choose a Space and Create Your Community

There are many places you can choose to host and manage your community, like Discord, Slack, Facebook, or even your brand’s official website (if you have one). Invite people to join your community using social media, email lists, blogs, or any other way you connect with your audience.

Example: Sam chooses an online course platform like LearnWorlds to host their community using its powerful built-in community features.

Step 3: Create Engaging Content and Resources

To help your community feel valued and engaged, create freebie content they can use and discuss. The key here is to make the content valuable and exclusive to your community. Advertise the content using your social media channels and email marketing.

Example: For their coding course, Sam creates and shares checklists with common coding terms that can be easily referenced by their community members. These resources are only available for download through Sam’s community platform.

Step 4: Encourage Community Engagement

This can be done by hosting online live events or even local meetups. Encourage your community members to attend and make them part of the planning process by asking them what they would like to discuss or learn at these events.

Example: Sam hosts a live webinar using LearnWorld’s Live Sessions to encourage student interaction with polls, chats, and breakout sessions.

Use LearnWorlds’ live community features to actively engage your learners.

Step 5: Gather and Implement Feedback

Conduct polls, use surveys, or read chats and threads to better understand what your members are looking for. Use this information to update your offerings and communicate to your members that you heard what they want and are adjusting to match.

Example: Using LearnWorld’s survey builder, Sam creates a survey to see what learners thought about a recent course offering.

LearnWorlds’ survey builder can be used to check the satisfaction of your learners.

Step 6: Reward Brand Loyalty and Advocacy

Take time to reach out and acknowledge top contributors to your community. This could look like allowing them to organize or co-host an event or simply awarding a “Top Member” badge to highly active members and brand advocates.

Example: Sam enables LearnWorld’s gamification features to help members stand out for their contributions by awarding badges like, “Golden Community Member” or “Mentor.”

LearnWorlds has many gamification features, such as badges, to motivate learners.

Step 7: Measure and Analyze

Tracking metrics is an important part of any marketing strategy. Assess your participation rates, content interaction, conversion rates, new sign-ups, and more to get an idea of where your community-based marketing efforts have been successful and where they need work.

You can do this directly through your community hosting platform and by looking at metrics available on your social media channels or website.

Example: Sam uses LearnWorld’s in-depth analytics reports to analyze user progress and engagement and assess their financial metrics.

With LearnWorlds’ analytics, you can test and assess numerous aspects of your community and course offerings.

Step 8: Adapt, Evolve, and Be Transparent

After reviewing your analytics, you will likely have a clear idea of what can be improved. Couple this with the feedback you gained in Step 5 to clearly outline the steps you can take to level up your community.

Be transparent with your members and let them know how you plan to make improvements based on their feedback.

Example: Sam sees that learners often quit a particular lesson module without finishing, and they understand from community interactions that the course material is too difficult. So, Sam revises the content and announces in a community forum when the new updated course material is available. To field any questions before re-launch, Sam hosts a live webinar.

Community-based Marketing Challenges and Solutions

Although often successful, a community-based marketing strategy is not immune to challenges. You may find it difficult to maintain engagement or struggle with moderating diverse opinions and potential conflicts within community forums.

Here are two common community-based marketing challenges and how to tackle them:

Maintaining engagement

Long-term engagement is a pillar of community-based marketing. And while members may be excited and active when they initially join, what do you do when their engagement flags?

Moderating conflicts

It makes sense that community members may occasionally clash over differing opinions and ideas. When this happens, it is your responsibility to resolve conflicts respectfully.

Strengthen Your Brand with Community-based Marketing

In our fast-paced, post-pandemic world, the growth of both online and in-person local communities signals the rising importance of community-based marketing as a key strategy.
Using this type of marketing as part of your marketing initiatives can transform how you connect with your potential customers and deepen trust between you and your learning community.

For a more hands-on approach to building a thriving community, check out how a platform like LearnWorlds can give you the tools and resources you need for success.

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How to Create Awesome Training Videos (+8 Great Examples)

Anthea Papadopoulou — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 06:30:28 +0000

Employee turnover costs businesses billions each year. By offering effective training opportunities, you can boost employee loyalty, engagement, and productivity, reducing the likelihood of your staff looking elsewhere.

But how do you make training truly engaging and productive? One of the top e-learning strategies is microlearning—delivering bite-sized, easily digestible content that suits today’s busy learners. Videos are an ideal format for micro-learning, capable of breaking down complex concepts into simple, engaging learning experiences.

As a powerful medium in e-learning, videos enhance understanding and retention. With the rise of interactive videos, employee training has become even more effective. In this guide, we’ll explore why video should be a cornerstone of your training strategy and provide a few real-life examples showing how to implement it.

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Training videos offer significant advantages in employee training, making them a valuable tool for organizations across various industries.

Scalability and Reusability: Once created, training videos can be used repeatedly across different departments or training sessions, saving time and resources.

On-Demand Access: Employees can revisit videos at their convenience, ensuring they can review and reinforce learning whenever needed.

Cost-Effective: Compared to on-site training, videos are more affordable, especially when split into short, digestible modules that cater to different learning paces.

Higher Retention Rates: Training videos increase information retention by providing visual and auditory reinforcement, making it easier for employees to remember key concepts.

Clarity for Complex Products: Videos can effectively demonstrate how to use products or systems that are too large or complex to train on in person, ensuring clear and consistent instruction.

Incorporating training videos into your employee onboarding process enhances learning and provides a flexible, scalable, and cost-efficient solution for your ongoing training needs.

Training videos are a powerful tool for delivering knowledge and skills in an engaging and efficient manner. They come in various styles as well to meet different training requirements.

Here are some key types of training videos that are used often:

Choosing the right type of training video is crucial for delivering effective training.

Of course, each style has its strengths, making it easier to match the video format to your training objectives, business goals, and audience needs.

Now let’s explore some examples of effective training videos that can inspire and guide your own video creation efforts.

Example 1: Simple slide presentation training

Slide presentations (usually made in PowerPoint) are one of the most popular and easy-to-create lecture styles. The presenter is either absent or present with their voice. Slide presentations can become very engaging if you put a lot of work into designing each of the slides carefully.

Slide presentations can also be overlapped by the instructor’s presence (here’s an example) or be split into a screen that also shows the instructor:

Example 2: Screencasts

Screen-casts, also known as video screen captures, are the most suitable means to teach computer software. They consist of “the capture all of the action on a computer screen” format and often contain audio narration.

Creating a screencast helps technical instructors show off their work. Instructors can also create this type of video to demonstrate the proper procedure to solve a problem. Here is an excellent article with tips and techniques for creating winning screencasts.

How to make screencasts the right way.

The screen movement can either be static or dynamic (follow the cursor). A screencast is essentially a movie of the changes over time that a user sees on a computer screen, enhanced with audio narration, so the agency is quite strong.

Example 3: Teaching masterful techniques

Wondering what’s the best way to use video to train employees?

If you own a coffee shop, teaching new hires how to create the best coffee is essential. This video clocks in at less than three minutes, but it gives you a close-up look at the technique of making the perfect latte. With such videos, you don’t have to look for a high-level pro who offers in-person training only.

Example 4: Interactive video training

Interactive videos offer immersive training experiences. The viewer is put into the role of an active participant. This is easily achieved through various interactive buttons and labels.

The viewer interacts with several objects, inside the video and reads information about them, and selects the right objects in the scene when asked. Also, the viewer has the choice to navigate several parts of the video content with navigation buttons and answer questionnaires inside the video. In the latter case, the video stops, and the user interacts with a question. Then, the video gives feedback according to the user’s choice.

Very popular are also videos where you have to decide what you are going to do. In this case, we are talking about branched videos, where the viewer sees a different version of it according to their path choices. You can see an example here.

Example 5: Animation training Videos

Animated video lectures are becoming more popular, allowing learners to learn in a fun and relaxing way. Animations are very similar to the cartoons we used to watch in our youngest age and maybe that is what makes them so engaging:

Giving glimpses of such situations helps people first to understand the issue, and then how to deal with it.

In this type of lecture, the main protagonist is the media presented while the instructor plays an assistive role with a voice-over (most of the time). The most popular tools for creating animations are Animaker and Vyond.

Example 6: Live action with animation

Videos that combine animation with real video are fascinating.

Animated heroes in videos make a huge impact. Rather than narrated videos, it is better to create animations that make the viewer feel an expert is preaching them. An authoritative tone isn’t always the most persuasive.

Also, handwriting boards are very popular:

In this type of lecture, the viewer sees the words being written at the moment of speech. Here, you can also include whiteboard animations (which are available on most video animation platforms). The instructor can choose if a hand will be visible or not.

Example 7: Selfie videos

Selfie videos are much more lively and engaging, and they make the background much more interesting for the viewer. They can serve numerous purposes from traditional lectures with the presence in full screen to extended field trips.

Selfie videos are speaker-centric, and the presenter may be interspersed with slides, animations, other videos, images, etc.

Example 8: Conversation-style videos

Creating videos where two or more people discuss a topic and present valuable conclusions is a very engaging and authentic way to convey essential messages. At the same time, it is the most effective way to emphasize the people in a lecture video.

Just make sure the conversation is substantial and has something great to offer. The footage may sometimes be adorned with slides, annotations, and keywords.

Example 9: Short videos focusing on one skill

An employee training video doesn’t have to be super long to be effective. With short videos, you can give a few tips with close-up shots to show your students how to learn a new skill.

For example, an explainer video about how to deal with angry customers does the job in less than 90 seconds. Here’s another one that is under 5 minutes:

Generally, in terms of video length, the sweet spot is no more than 2 minutes. Longer than that and you risk losing your viewers’ attention.

Whether you are onboarding new employees or upskilling your current team, following a structured process of creating your own training videos is essential.

Doing so will also help you ensure they are impactful and deliver the desired results.

Step 1: Define Your Objectives

Before you start recording, you need to clearly define what you want to achieve with your training video. Are you looking to teach a specific skill, communicate a policy, or provide an overview of a new system? Knowing your objectives will guide your content creation, ensuring that every part of the video aligns with your end goals.

Step 2: Understand Your Audience

Your training video should be tailored to the needs and preferences of your employees. Consider their current knowledge level, learning styles, and any potential challenges they might face. This understanding will help you decide on the video’s tone and the complexity of the content.

Step 3: Script and Storyboard

Once you have your objectives and audience in mind, start scripting your video. A well-written script keeps your message clear and focused. Along with the video script, create a storyboard to visualize the flow of the video. This helps in planning visuals, transitions, and any on-screen text or graphics that will support the narrative.

If you need video templates there are plenty of tools that offer them. Try Canva or Envato Elements.

Step 4: Production and Editing

Now, it’s time to bring your script to life. Use quality equipment when recording videos, to ensure good lighting and sound. Look for a video editor as well and during editing keep your video concise and engaging by cutting out any fluff and using visuals that complement the content.

You can add overlays and additional interactive elements like quizzes or prompts to keep viewers engaged with the training materials and reinforce learning.

Need a video editing tool? Check this list of best training video tools to find the video editing software that matches your needs.

To create interactive videos from scratch and add all the elements you need, make sure you check out our very own Interactive Video Editor. Add pop-ups, questions, CTA buttons, watermarks, subtitles, transcripts, embedded content, and more!

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Step 5: Review and Revise

Before finalizing your video, review it with a test audience or subject matter experts to ensure accuracy and effectiveness. Gather feedback and make any necessary revisions. This step is crucial in refining your video to ensure it meets its objectives and resonates with your audience.

Step 6: Share and Distribute Your Video

Once your training video is polished and ready to go, the next step is to ensure it reaches your employees effectively. Choose the right platforms and channels based on your employees’ or team members’ preferences—whether it’s through an internal Learning Management System (LMS), email, or a company intranet.

Simply download your video files from the training video software you are using, then share them via a link or embed them directly into your communication channels.

You can choose to upload them on Vimeo, YouTube, or other social media platforms directly. Just make sure the videos are easily accessible while providing options for different formats and are compatible with various devices.

Creating impactful training videos requires more than just pressing the record button. To ensure your videos are effective and successful, it’s essential to follow best practices in video production.

Below are some practical tips to help you produce high-quality training videos.

Ensure your videos are highly engaging

Your video needs to be as appealing as possible. There are numerous ways to do this. You might want to try to add aural features to highlight and reinforce important points. But, you should also learn how to draw attention to video lectures.

The critical problem of learning with video lectures is the learners’ sense of distance between you and them. Emotion can shorten the distance. The emotion expressed by the instructor’s facial expressions creates the perception of closeness. Namely, it could overcome learners’ feelings of isolation.

Keep them short and to the point

Most people don’t watch videos for longer than 6 minutes. So, it is better to keep the idea of a short attention stream in mind the next time you create a training video.

Instead of long droning videos, use short videos.

Break them down into small chunks

By using small chunks of video content, trainees can see what information will be covered in each video segment. Your learners will understand what each video covers and won’t be forced to scan through an hour-long video to return to the information.

Edit the videos thoroughly

The real work continues after the video has been recorded, thus at the post-production stage. Usually, for high-quality corporate training videos, it takes between 30-60 minutes to edit each minute.

Luckily, nowadays, video production is not just a privilege for professionals. Impressive techniques that are popular amongst experienced moviemakers have become available to beginners too. You can find affordable software and easy-to-use apps to unleash your creativity.

Compress the videos

Using high-definition videos might not be great when someone is watching from a mobile device or a non-high-speed internet connection. It’s better to compress videos before uploading them to your chosen LMS.

Compressed videos take less time to load and are more accessible even when employees choose to attend the training program on the go.

Monitor the video performance

By tracking key engagement metrics, such as views, completion rates, and user feedback, you can gain valuable insights into how well your videos are resonating with your employees. Such data is crucial for refining your training approach and making adjustments to future videos.

When it comes to training videos, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. Different types of videos serve different purposes, from onboarding new employees to explaining complex concepts or reinforcing company policies.

Before you even begin creating your videos, you will need to consider your lecture style. Are you going to use a slide presentation, create an animation, or a selfie-style video?

Choosing your instructional video style is essential, as this will inform your lesson plan, dialogue, and video editing process. If you want to learn more about training videos, read our Video-Based Learning ebook or visit our unique online course in our Academy!

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The post How to Create Awesome Training Videos (+8 Great Examples) appeared first on LearnWorlds.

Anthea Papadopoulou, Author at LearnWorlds

How to Create a Community Website: 5 Easy Steps

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Plan Your Online Community Website

1. Define your purpose and goals

2. Define your audience and choose a niche

3. Outline Your Community Rules

4. Create Content

Choose the Right Platform

LearnWorlds – (Our Top Pick!)

WordPress

Wix

Mighty Networks

Key Features of Community Website Platforms

Design Your Community Website

Implement Community Features

Forums

Chat rooms

User profiles

Content-sharing tools

Launch and Manage Your Community Website

Launch: Promote, Test, and Go Live

Manage: Moderate, Update, and Engage

Get Started With Your Community Website Today

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Frequently Asked Questions:

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What is Employee Evaluation & How to Get It Right

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What is Employee Evaluation?

Employee Evaluation vs. Performance Appraisal

Key Elements of Employee Evaluation

How Are Employee Evaluations Structured?

Conducting Successful Employee Evaluations

1Stay Prepared All Year

2Always Start with The Positives

3Use Online Tests & Employee Evaluations

4Talk About Areas that Need Improvement

5Ask Your Employee About What They Want to Do

6Ask for Feedback

7Request Employee Self-Evaluations

8Provide Your Employee with a Copy of Their Evaluation Form

Employee Evaluation Examples: How it Should Work

The Good

The Bad

The Ugly

17 Suitable Employee Evaluation Questions to Discover Potential

Employee Evaluation & Remote Work: Best Practices

1Use video

2Send copies of the evaluation

3Ask to record the meeting.

4Don’t plan a meeting right after

5Set clear goals and KPIs

Employee Evaluation Templates You Can Use

Example 1: Employee Competency Evaluation Form

Example 2: 30-Day Employee Evaluation Form

Example 3: 360 Degree Employee Evaluation Form

Example 4: Annual Employee Evaluation Form

Ready to Streamline Your Employee Evaluation Process?

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Key Customer Education Statistics You Need to Know

Why Customer Education Matters

Key Customer Education Statistics

Influence on Retention and Engagement

Impact of Customer Education on Business Growth

Customer Education Strategies & Results

Build Online courses

Conduct webinars and live events

Create customer support content

Customer Education Research Findings

Next Steps: Ready to Invest in Customer Education?

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Further reading

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