How organizations can properly adapt e-learning
The adoption of e-learning requires a new approach to properly nurture leads in today's world of limited data.
30-second summary:
- To some, marketing and e-learning are put into two separate buckets. But an integrated marketing and communications approach is useful for organizations that are interested in adopting e-learning that utilizes AI.
- The reason why you must look at marketing as part of your e-learning solution is because digital has directly impacted the sales funnel when the revolution first hit organizations.
- With the ability to collect data, analyze it, apply it and then learn from it, organizations can really transform their digital marketing and communications efforts.
- Most platforms are putting AI first, as it helps understand all the data points from multi-channel marketing and communications.
- AI hyper personalizes e-learning experiences by removing redundancies and engaging your audience. With AI-centered e-learning, organizations can personalize their approach to nurturing customers and teaching their students.
- The hard and soft skills needed for the 21st century marketer are becoming more at the forefront as organizations are forced to look at their operations holistically.
With everything going on in the world, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) is just increasing. Classroom education and business operations are moving online, and they are looking into AI for providing student and customer engagement. To some, marketing and e-learning are put into two separate buckets. But an integrated marketing and communications approach is useful for organizations that are interested in adopting e-learning that utilizes AI.
There are many ways to use e-learning, and there are a lot of products to support it. The investment in understanding the complexity will help you to see what is and is not worth the effort.
Integrated marketing and communications
The reason why you must look at marketing as part of your e-learning solution is because digital has directly impacted the sales funnel when the revolution first hit organizations.
The sales funnel is no longer owned by the sales team. Since your audience can find answers to their problems by doing a simple online search, you must use marketing and communications to gather their attention and nurture the relationship.
Now, with the coronavirus pandemic, we are looking at other pieces of the funnel that were originally used for nurturing a lead, such solution-oriented content.
Companies are looking at these pieces to provide engagement while people are working at home. However, there is more that goes into this than creating a white paper or free how-to document.
This is going to show you who really knows marketing and communications at its roots. Your team must understand how the pieces fit together to provide true integration.
There is a balance between providing free, gated and priced content. At the end of the day, it comes down to evaluating the buyer’s online journey.
Therefore, you really need to understand the following:
- Personas and demographics
- Appropriate communication channels
- Supportive initiatives
- Global and key messaging
- Planning (strategy versus tactic)
- A/B testing and data analytics
With the ability to collect data, analyze it, apply it and then learn from it, organizations can really transform their digital marketing and communications efforts.
Most platforms are putting AI first, as it helps understand all the data points from multi-channel marketing and communications.
The rise of AI in e-learning
This is important today as more and more organizations are implementing e-learning solutions.
In 2003, Asian countries turned to virtual instruction when SARS hit, according to Education Week. And New Orleans used virtual instruction in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina.
While e-learning programs are not new, not everyone is ready to embrace the technology. This is becoming more evident as the world faces the coronavirus pandemic.
AI hyper personalizes e-learning experiences by removing redundancies and engaging your audience. With AI-centered e-learning, organizations can personalize their approach to nurturing customers and teaching their students.
Most e-learning tools carry AI to process queries and respond in real time. This is important for today’s audience, as they have an expectation for instant gratification.
The only issue with AI today is the use of historical data. The coronavirus pandemic is changing your audience’s online behavior, and there are not enough data points to understand the meaning behind the action.
As time goes on, AI will learn from these new behaviors. Therefore, the sooner your organization adopts e-learning, the better.
E-learning is everywhere
Both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) organizations are seeing impacts in their production. And as a result, there have been many B2C companies who have not seen the value in e-learning for nurturing their leads. Rather, it has been more of a B2B approach.
Now, with everyone online, B2C companies are forced to look at these tactics. So, they are creating engagement pieces that are not looking at that entire buyer’s journey.
It either does not fit where the audience is at in the journey, or there is not a next step. Therefore, your team really needs to understand the difference between strategy and tactic.
The hard and soft skills needed for the 21st century marketer are becoming more at the forefront as organizations are forced to look at their operations holistically.
Therefore, an integrated marketing and communications approach is necessary. Your team must understand how all the pieces work together and how the data helps to make smart business decisions. With what is going on today, marketing is at the center of operations now more than ever before.
Ashley Schweigert is the owner of Marcom Content by Ashley, LLC.
