You’ve worked hard to establish your training company’s well-deserved reputation. You love delivering face-to-face sessions, inspiring learners and giving them personalised feedback and advice. Perhaps the COVID-19 pandemic caused you to move to online video sessions or you dabbled in creating online courses – and although these can be very effective, you really missed the buzz and personal connection you got from in-person training. But you’re aware that there’s an opportunity out there to build on your well-crafted workshops, giving attendees the chance to revisit learning in their own time, or perhaps build their understanding before a face-to-face session. So, if you’re considering adding an elearning offering as another string to your bow (or if you could do with revitalising your current online provision) read on!
Reach new audiences
Not everyone enjoys classroom learning. Maybe it reminds them of bad experiences in their own schooldays, or they struggle to carve out the time to attend a long workshop, especially when including the commute. Perhaps they find it more comfortable to learn at their own pace, rather than keeping time with an instructor. Regardless of the reason, there are plenty of people who would love the opportunity to develop themselves professionally or personally but would prefer to do so at their own speed. Elearning is perfect for this; you can incorporate so many of the elements that make your training exceptional, but present it in a different way. Find out how Beam Development & Training Ltd pivoted to elearning from face-to-face and captured a new market segment.
Cater to all budgets
It takes a bit of capital to invest in organising a classroom learning session, and that may place your services out of reach for some small businesses. Individuals looking to increase their professional skills, develop on a personal level, or potentially even work towards a qualification are almost certainly priced out of the face-to-face market (and even if they have the money and willingness to attend an in-person course, availability at a convenient time in their local area is usually a challenge). Consider providing a lower-cost elearning alternative that’s accessible to small organisations and individuals. You could even create a bundle of online courses (or a subscription-type model, as Beam mentioned) to ensure they have everything they need to develop those key skills and competencies without breaking the bank.
Embed learning over time
Providing elearning courses that can be accessed at any time and on any device can open up a whole new range of approaches to learning. You’ve probably heard of blended learning, but perhaps you thought that, as a standalone training provider, it was irrelevant or out of reach for you. Or maybe you’ve experimented with giving course participants pre-reading to do, videos to watch, or slides to review after their session – but found it cumbersome to administer for little reward. With elearning, you can create simple online courses that fulfil many purposes. You might want to consider building a short, straightforward course for training attendees to complete before a face-to-face session; this could set the scene for the learning that’s to come, and make sure everyone’s on the same page. Nimble Awards Finalist Project Plan Services have had great success with this approach, giving all their software training attendees an in-depth elearning course with videos and documentation to make sure they’re familiar with the basics before the face-to-face session. This frees up the skilled trainers at Project Plan Services to focus on real-life application of the software in the live workshop, personalising their approach for each group of learners.
Alternatively, you might want to provide a longer, more structured elearning experience that pulls together multiple strands from your in-person workshop and offers the opportunity for learners to dive deeper into topics of interest. With a simple elearning authoring tool like Nimble Author 2, you can easily incorporate videos, infographics, documents or links for participants to refer back to when they need them.
Differentiate your offering
You may have one of the only options for continuing professional development in your specific sector – but it’s likely that you’re competing against many other training companies for a slice of the pie. How can you stand out from the crowd? By offering a supporting range of carefully crafted elearning courses to accompany your traditional sessions, as Beam Development & Training have done, you can increase your value proposition. You may also be able to give leaders the opportunity to empower their staff; they can begin to support employees to access the training they need, exactly when they need it, choosing from a curated selection of online learning resources.
Build recurring revenue streams
The holy grail: repeat business. In the world of face-to-face training, this can be challenging to secure – and is likely to be infrequent, unless you have some large clients with many new employees who require your services. By providing a suite of high-quality, specialist elearning courses that are unique to your business, you can build a recurring source of revenue with minimal upfront costs. Depending on your sector, you may even be able to create an accredited series of courses like KMF Training have done with Nimble, adding greater prestige to your offering and potentially filling a market niche. Integrated authoring and Learning Management System (LMS) platforms like Nimble Author 2 and Nimble LMS give you the flexibility to create and sell collections of courses in the best way for your business, opening up the potential for annual subscriptions or one-off payments from clients.
What are you waiting for?
Using your existing skills, knowledge and experience to create elearning courses to offer alongside your existing face-to-face offering can have many advantages; from new audiences to improved opportunities for blended learning, and of course the chance to increase recurring revenue. Moving into a whole new space can be daunting, particularly if you wouldn’t consider yourself to be technically minded, but elearning could be just the boost your training business needs.
If you’d like to explore the possibilities of elearning with an easy to use course creation tool, sign up for a free, no obligation trial of Nimble Author 2 today. You might be surprised at just how quickly you can build a beautiful course that complements your training programmes, regardless of your technical expertise – and should you choose to work with Nimble, rest assured that our experienced customer success team will be there for you every step of the way.
