How to promote your training course online

Have you recently created your training course and are now ready to promote it? Perhaps you’re simply looking for ways to improve your current marketing efforts so you can capture attention, stand out from your competition and boost enrolments?

With so many opportunities out there, it can be hard to know how to start, where to focus your efforts and how to get optimal ROI (return on investment).

But it can be simple. Read this article and you’ll discover how you can promote your training course online and how to do it for optimal success.

What is a training course?

A training course helps to boost the skills and knowledge of your workforce, making them more effective, creative and motivated to push for success. They also benefit driven and ambitious people, providing them with the opportunity for further education and career growth.

With various levels and categories of training for all learners including school leavers, apprentices, further or higher education graduates or members of management, training courses offer benefits to all. This can include:

• Better employee engagement
• Improved sense of company loyalty and belonging
• Enhanced productivity and adherence to industry standards
• Better confidence and the ability to take the initiative
• Improved skillset
• Greater flexibility, adaptability and an ability to deal with change
• Improved customer satisfaction
• Reduced staff turnover and absenteeism
• Fewer workplace accidents
• Reduced costs for company

How can you promote your training course?

Email marketing

Sending promotional emails to your previous clients or people who have expressed an interest in your course can be a highly effective marketing technique. By doing so, you’ll remind them of the potential benefits that studying could bring to their lives, boost engagement and encourage them to sign up. Keep a close eye on open rates, click-throughs and replies to ensure you’re creating the right email messages for your audience.

Facebook

Create a company page on Facebook, add your branding information and start creating excellent content. This will help you share information about your course to a wider audience, get people talking and boost interest in the courses themselves.

If you can make your content share your brand message and get people engaged, you’re also likely to get more shares and trigger curiosity. Again, this can translate to more training course enrolments!

Twitter

Whilst Twitter isn’t used as frequently as in the past, it remains an effective training course marketing platform.

As Hootsuite says, “…the Twitter population is younger, wealthier, and more educated.” This makes them an ideal target audience for your social media marketing as they are more likely to sign up for your course.

Create a compelling bio, be as concise as you can and mention your courses USP (unique selling point.) Then start posting useful content and get followed. If it works for Donald Trump, it can work for you!

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a huge professional social media site that provides excellent networking and job opportunities and is excellent for career development.

To promote your training course, start by creating a business page, enter detailed information then start posting. If you can get likes and comments, the algorithm will share your content with other engaged users without you needing to pay extra for advertising.

YouTube

Whilst YouTube is often considered to be the place to go when you need light entertainment, it can also be a powerful marketing tool when used correctly. You don’t even have to become a ‘YouTuber’ and shoot vlogs or information videos unless you want to.

Simply create a channel trailer that promotes your course, add the right hashtags then start sharing it with your community. To take it to the next level, you can also convert your blog posts to YouTube content, repurposing them to get maximum results for less.

Freebies

Growing your email marketing list is one of the most effective ways you can promote your course as you can hit your subscribers’ inboxes directly, without having to do battle with social media algorithms. Focus on growing this list via the use of opt-ins that answer some of your audience’s questions (but not all!), spark curiosity and demonstrate your course’s value.

Start by considering whether you want to offer free downloads, access to recent webinars, eBooks or even discount codes for training courses then create the opt-in on your website and see your mailing list grow!

RSS feeds

RSS feeds allow your audience to access your website updates quickly, easily and automatically. This could include new content or information, blog entries, news or video content. Subscribers can read your content in their RSS reader app or browser at their leisure, helping you generate interest, nurture your leads and boost the success of your online course.

Images

If you can use effective images to promote your online training course, you’ll instantly connect with your audience and make it more likely they’ll sign up for your course. It also boosts your SEO efforts and provides you with extra shareable content for social media. You don’t even need to add fancy graphics unless you want to. As they say, ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’.

Social

We’ve already mentioned three social media sites in this blog: Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. But these are just the tip of the iceberg- you can effectively promote your training course using any of the platforms out there, including Instagram, Pinterest and even TikTok.

Consider your audience demographics, select your platforms carefully then start creating content!

SEO keywords

If you want to bring more organic traffic to your website and attract new students, make sure you focus on your website’s SEO (search engine optimisation) efforts. By getting it right, you’ll rank more highly on the Google search results and make it more likely you’ll be discovered.

Start by researching which keywords you need to include in your content, optimise your website accordingly then see interest grow. Consider SEO an investment- it doesn’t necessarily provide instant results but will pay off significantly in the long-term, especially if you start early.

Guest blogging

What better way to attract new customers than to collaborate with another established company and show their audience that you could add value to their lives?

The best way you can do this is by finding an authoritative website in your niche, contacting them to offer your guest blogging skills, providing useful information, then seeing how much your traffic increases!

Get in touch with Bud today to discuss how our apprentice management platform can help you manage your training delivery.

Learn more with Bud

Bud is an end to end training management platform that can optimise the success of your training courses. Whether delivering apprenticeships or vocational training, Bud can help. Find out more here.