Okay, so you read our blog on How to Leverage Marketing Content for Online CE and you’re ready to get started in the wonderful world of on-demand CE. Hey, we get it! After all, getting your online resources approved for on-demand continuing education is a great way to increase traffic to your website, grow your brand and generate new leads. But there’s one problem. This rarely happens without a thorough and well-executed strategy. To help your firm see immediate results, we’ve rounded up five tips from clients who have, over the years, grown tremendously successful on-demand CE programs!
- Familiarize Yourself with the Online User Experience
- Before advisers start actively visiting your website to earn on-demand CE, a crucial step is having your sales team walk through the online user experience to make sure they understand the process FAs will go through to earn free CE credits. Have them interact with different type of materials you offer, click through the exam, and even bookmark certain pages/URLs they find useful. This is a great way for them to get first-hand exposure to the type of educational content you offer should your advisers have any questions in the future!
- BONUS: If your wholesalers hold a designation, they can gain CE credit(s) at the same time!
- Create More Targeted Messaging with Micro Sites
- Beyond having the main content hub designed for general exploration, consider creating micro-sites that are more targeted to the larger firms you work with. That way, you can tailor the type of messaging and materials they see, so they are more in line with the type of business or products they offer. Having a more focused micro-site also shows visitors that you respect their time and attention by giving them exactly what they want. Which adds up to a far more compelling experience overall.
- Make Sure you Have a Successful Launch
- Alright, it’s finally time to launch your new content hub! It’s important that this be a coordinated effort to bring this new resource to the market. The goal? To build excitement and awareness. Get your sales team bought in and make sure they are acting as your company’s personal cheerleaders. Hype up new content when it’s added and don’t forget to remind sales to involve this as a talking point in the quarterly client calls! This is a crucial step to getting your content hub out there. Remember, this is a huge benefit to your audience, so make sure you’re taking the time to introduce it to the market!
- Use Different Mediums to get the Word Out!
- Utilize different strategies and mediums to promote your CE. This is your time to be creative! Having this content on your website is a great starting place, but what else are you doing to promote it? Can you create a monthly newsletter? Or target specific clients with more account-based marketing efforts? Are you posting about it on social media? Also, be sure that sales or marketing are reaching back out to current clients when new materials become available! Think about your plan to market your on-demand CE offerings in terms of a marathon dotted with sprints.
- Don’t Skip the Follow Up!
- Ask your client how they like the content and for any feedback. You can use these insights to author future content! Additionally, make sure you’re using “exam completions” as a Key Performance Indicator that your team tracks and measures over time. This is a great way to gauge the impact of your investment and this data can even be utilized in future drip campaigns. Put simply, drip marketing is all about giving people the right information at the right time. If someone just completed an exam on a certain topic, a drip campaign could send an email on that same topic right away or even days later to show off some of your most-read content.