I can’t single out one method as the best. To effectively promote your online course, you need a combination of actions. Here are some efforts that are sure to help:

Create your Student Persona

A persona is a set of characteristics that describe your ideal student. Before you undertake any promotion strategies, you need to figure this out. Your student persona will cover the demographics and interests of your target audience. For example, if your online course teaches people how to create Android apps, your student persona can be a young person between ages 18 and 28, college student or a fresh graduate. Of course, your student persona will not be 100% perfect, but it should cover the majority of your target audience. This helps you to focus your promotion efforts on what really matters.

Find out what’s unique about you

Chances are, other people have created courses that teach the same thing you’re trying to teach. You need to let people know why yours is different – because they have options. Are there sections you have taught that your competitors didn’t? Is there a unique method you have used so that they understand better? Have you added any helpful resources that might be otherwise hard to get?

Once you figure this out, add it to your promotional material. Your potential students need to know!

Use Relevant Keywords

Your choice of words is essential when promoting or marketing your online course. People search for some words more than others. If you use highly searched words in your campaign, it’s more likely that people will find your course. Remember they have to see the course first before making a decision. Keywords everywhere is a great extension to add to your chrome browser. It shows you how many times people search the word per month.

Promote Via Your Website

Although there are different platforms where you can put your online course, nothing beats using your own website. If you don’t own a website yet, there are tools that can help you build one. You can also hire a web developer to do the job. When you use your own website, you can direct all your efforts to promote that website. To improve the website’s visibility, create blog posts from different sections of your courses. Also, add other topics that you feel your student persona will need.

Promote the course via YouTube

YouTube is the largest video depository in the world. To promote your course, you need to be a peasant and visible on YouTube. The only way to achieve this is to post relevant and helpful content. There are several topics that your prospective students are searching on YouTube. Every moment there is at least one person searching for “How To” videos on YouTube. From your YouTube videos, you can direct people back to your website. When people gain knowledge from your YouTube videos, they won’t hesitate to sign up for your online course.

Hope this helped.

Obviously, the best advice is to have both eventually. Having said that, which one should you start with, and why? In this answer, I’ll go through the benefits of a website and an app. In the end, it will be an easy decision to make.

ECommerce, like any other business form, is not a one-size-fits-all. The rule of thumb is to tweak existing structures to address your unique situation.

To the crux of the matter; what are the advantages of using a website for your eCommerce business?

It enhances your business visibility

Apps are making a lot of progress in terms of search visibility in recent times. However, websites still have a full advantage. The most popular search engine, Google does not yet give apps the kind of visibility it gives to websites.

So, potential clients are more likely to find you if you have a website than if you only have an app. App visibility in SERPs (Search Engine Results Page) will surely increase in the coming years.

Since you’re just starting out, you may consider having a website first; it’s easier for people to find you there. Thankfully, there are effective eCommerce website building services that help you to build your site easily. You can also hire a web developer if you don’t have the time.

It gives you a good start in the competition

Unless you’re the only one selling a particular product in the entire world, you need to deal with competition. For other forms of businesses, your competition may be limited to businesses in your locality or country.

In eCommerce, competition can come from any part of the globe. So, how does having a website help you here?

When you advertise your products, either on social media or search engines, you’re basically inviting people from the advertising platform to your eCommerce platform.

Now, which one would you prefer – to click an ad that takes you straight to the product page or one that asks you to download an app? It’s much easier to go straight to the website landing page.

Using apps as your eCommerce platform has its own benefits too. In fact, most people prefer to use mobile apps to access eCommerce stores. According to research, about 3 in 4 people prefer using mobile apps over websites. What distinct benefit does an app offer?

While a website will help you to gain new customers, an app will help you retain them. When a customer downloads your app and makes a purchase, the app remains on their phone menu.

Usually, the app is able to push notifications every now and then. It’s a way of keeping your business in the customer’s consciousness until they need to make another purchase.

The most important thing here is that the customer has a smooth experience from the beginning to the end of their purchase. If they made the purchase through an app, they will surely come back when they need you again.

Bottomline

When you’re just starting out, you need a website. It’s easier to acquire customers through your websites because it’s easier to convert from ads. Apps make it easier to retain your customers.

An easy way to do this is adding a call to action on your website that asks the customer to download your app. Make sure you follow up one that happens. Don’t fumble the bag.

The first thing I’ll tell you here is that your personal Instagram account should be different from your business account. Pictures and videos from your night out with friends shouldn’t appear on your business page. It’s one of the things that discourage potential customers. I’ll talk more on this aspect sometime later. Just make sure that your instagram business page is about your business and nothing more.

Having cleared that up, let’s get to the heart of the matter.

How do you make your IG account attract more customers?

Add a Link to Your Website or Landing Page

The way Instagram works, you can’t add a direct link to a website in your posts. If you add the site’s address to a post, it doesn’t allow your followers to click directly. They have to copy the link and paste elsewhere to access the web page. That’s a process no one wants to go through. 

The link in bio option allows you to put a link in your instagram bio. This link is clickable, and takes you straight to the corresponding webpage. If you’re following, this means that you should have a website, bog or at least a landing page that your IG account links. 

Why do you need a website or landing page?

A website gives you the opportunity to showcase your merchandise all in one place. It gives your potential customer a  layout that they can navigate to see what you’re selling. On Instagram, your followers’ attention is divided. 

They only check your posts long enough to either like or swipe up. With a website or sales landing page, you can get their full attention and close your sales more easily. Thankfully, building a website is not as challenging as it used to be. 

You can hire developers to help you out at an affordable price. If you’re selling a single product, say, a course for example, you may not need a whole website. A sales landing page will be enough. With Ducecampaign you’ll have a sales page that makes the selling process smooth.

Stay Consistent with Branding

The appearance of your brand matters a lot. Your logo, mockups, designs and even smaller details like fonts must be consistent. People should recognize your brand everytime they come across it. 

Most times, you showcase your business on platforms other than instagram. When you do, make sure you use the same logos, and appearances. It takes about 5-7 interactions to make your brand stick to people’s minds. Make those interactions count by having brand consistency.

Include a Catchy Bio

Your Instagram Bio is your opportunity to explain what you’re selling to potential customers. Even though you’re trying to get them to buy, make sure you don’t sound too pushy – that can be a little off-putting. Also, you may include current sales campaigns in your bio. For example, if you’re doing Christmas Sales, you can show it on your bio. Lastly, remember to add the link.

Wrap Up

Of course, these 3 tips are just the tip of the iceberg. In subsequent articles, we’ll explore other actions that can draw in more customers for you.

When we talk about a brand, the first thing that comes to mind is the logo. Of course, every brand needs a unique logo, but that’s not all there is to the branding process. Think of one of the most exceptional products in the world – Coca-Cola. 

When you think of Coca-Cola, what comes to mind? Some people might picture the red logo with Coca-Cola written on it in white ink. Others may picture the iconic curved coke bottle. In most cases, our perception of a business or product is formed by many different elements.

What is Branding?

Branding is the deliberate marketing process of creating an image for your business. The goal of branding is to influence the perception of people regarding your business positively. Everyone that comes in contact with your business forms an opinion or perception about it. Rather than leave their perception to chance, it’s better to control the narrative. This is what branding is all about.

So, why is branding essential for your business? Here are a few good reasons:

Why is branding essential for your business?

Better Recognition

This is primarily why the logo is one of the most critical elements of a brand. Your logo makes your business or brand recognizable. If you engage the services of a professional designer, they should come up with something memorable. 

A well-made logo is always recognizable. It appears on everything that has to do with your business. Anyone who has contact with your brand once will recognize the logo elsewhere. A logo gives you more consistency across different platforms. Businesses that are consistent in their representations will increase their revenue by more than 20%.

Branding increases trust

It takes 5-7 interactions before your brand stays in the consumer’s consciousness. It takes more interactions and engagements before the consumer eventually builds trust. This process can only be progressive if these interactions occur with the same brand representation. 

Without consistency, every interaction is new. Hence, instead of having five interactions with one business, the consumer may think it’s five different businesses. This way, the road to trust-building becomes unnecessarily long.

Branding makes advertising more effective.

When you run ads, you’re putting your brand in front of a much wider audience. The goal is usually to turn the audience into paying customers. With a strong brand, your prospective customers know what to expect when they contact your business. 

For many people seeing your ads, it’s the first interaction they’re having with your brand. So, you need to keep a consistent image, such that they don’t get disappointed when they make contact. With such consistency, it’s possible to build trust even before making the sale.

Wrap Up

Whether you’re running a small business or a large corporation, branding is an essential determinant of your success. Without branding, you leave your business image at the mercy of too many external factors. Control the narrative and get a branding service that your business needs today.

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What do your current and prospective customers think of your brand? What do you want them to think? Schedule a free consultation with our branding team and let us help you control the narrative

Quality instagram posts will do very little for your business if people don’t see them. While you’re improving your photos and videos, you need to expand your reach as well. In this article, we’ll explore some techniques to make your posts more popular.

Use Hashtags to Increase your Visibility

The major technique that you can use free of charge is hashtags. Hashtags increase the reach of your post and makes it visible hours after you’ve posted it. Hashtags make your post appear in searches and explore pages. 

You can post the best photos on your account, but it only takes a few seconds before it’s overshadowed by hundreds of others. Hashtags increase the “shelf life” of your posts. 

Having said all these, there is technique to the use of Hashtags. You can’t just slap the # symbol and start adding random tags. 

What’s the best way to use hashtags?

It’s essential to use hashtags that are related to your industry or niche. Of course, there are many words that would fall into that category, so how do you know which ones to use? The answer is simple – Research! You can get the best performing hashtags by using tools like AllHashtag. It has an hashtag analysis tool that helps you to test keywords and choose the best performing ones

It’s best to mix general and specified hashtags. Let’s say you sell fashion products. I can tag my post with words like #fashion and #lifestyle. Those are general words. I can also add words like #heels or #wedges which are more specific. 

Adding a lot of tags in the caption may make the post look disorganized. It takes attention away from the main caption itself. It’s better to add the caption in the comments after posting the pic. 

Tell your customers to tag you in their photos

When someone makes a purchase, persuade them to tag your account in any photos or videos that post while using the product. When they do, make sure you share the post to your own followers. It exposes your business to buyer’s followers. It’s a subtle way of making them recommend your business. Of course, this will only happen if they’re satisfied with the purchase.

Promotions and Giveaways

I know this may sound cliche, but people love free stuff. However, if you want to get more followers and expand your reach, there’s a technique to promos and giveaways. You have to get your current followers involved. One way you can achieve this is to tell them to tag their friends in the comment section, and tell their friends to comment and follow your account. This should be a condition for them to win the competition. Be careful not to make the process too complex, or it may discourage most people. Simply play it cool and watch your account become more popular. 

Also, do not overpromise. See to it that you deliver whatever you promise to give once the winner meets the criteria. This is important so you don’t lose the trust of potential customers.

Remember, beyond any strategies you can use, the most important thing is to have quality product or service. Poor customer experience is the fastest way to destroy trust.

If you’ve implemented my previous advice on expanding your reach, you probably have more followers now. Congrats on that. However, that’s not the end of it. You need to turn these followers into paying customers.

There’s only one way to do this: Engage them! In this article, I give you practical steps that you can take to increase engagement on your IG business account.

Instagram is one of the social platforms that drives engagements the most. For comparison, Twitter drives way less engagement. If you have 5000 followers on Twitter, you can only expect an average of 3 or 4 interactions per post. On the other hand an Instagram account with 5000 followers should get between 100 to 150 interactions on the average. 

When more followers interact with your posts, it becomes a budding relationship. When they eventually need your product or service, your brand will be one of the options that come to mind. It takes an average of 5-7 interactions for people to decide to make a purchase. It’s important that those interactions are not too far inbetween.

Here are 3 tips on increasing engagement:

Write Active, Inviting Captions

Your image is the pièce de résistance of your Instagram posts, but without an effective caption, you might not get the full potential of engagement and response from your followers.

Your content must consist of quality photos, but those are not enough to drive engagement. Your captions are also essential. A lot of your followers 

Many brands include a simple call-to-action or direct question to provide that extra invitation that opens up conversations about your post.

Topman asks a question with the answers available in the photo, and receives loads of comments.

Practice the art of caption writing. Don’t repeat what’s in the image, but accentuate it.

Aim for “The Loop”: your follower sees the photo, reads your caption, and discovers a totally different angle that makes them take a closer look at the photo again.

Don’t make captions too long, or users will scroll on by. Be direct and interesting enough to hook attention, make ‘em think, and get them to participate.

Jumpstart Your Instagram Engagement with Contests

What does your business get out of contests? Well, you earn more followers, increase engagement, and reward your most loyal consumers. With 17 times the engagement of Facebook, Instagram has become a unique and ideal place to run contests.

In fact, 70% of Instagram users have already taken part in a contest, or report that they would.

Here’s your quick guide to running an IG contest :

Decide what you want to give away.

Give away one of your best-selling t-shirt designs, a bundle of popular gadgets from your collection, or a significant gift card for your online store. Make sure it’s something desirable and relevant to your brand.

Post an appealing and eye-catching photo of that prize.

Include details of the contest in the caption.

Since 33% of users think that the easiest way to enter an IG contest is to post on an official hashtag, try something like: “Post your favorite snap wearing our shoes and tag it #CoolSneaks – our winner will be announced next Monday!”

Post a second “reminder” post a few days later.

Flaunt that prize.

Pick your winner.

Post an announcement, and congratulate them!

Here is one additional note about contests:

Do not run a contest until you have a pretty solid level of engagement and a sufficient number of followers. On average, for every 33 likes your content receives, you’ll get one comment. So consider your followers’ engagement, because a contest with no response is more damaging than helpful.

Respond to Notifications and Shout Out to Followers

It may seem obvious, but don’t leave the conversation one-sided. Responding to comments, thanking followers for their tags, and proactively following and liking other users’ content is a sure-fire way to get more engagement in return.

Whenever you want someone to see your message, make sure you include their @IGname so they get that ping.

Use Tools for Instagram “Shopping”

Remember that we said the only clickable link on Instagram is your bio? While Instagram’s app itself doesn’t allow followers to click through to product pages, third-party apps like Like2Buy are increasingly being used by brands. Target and Nordstrom use Like2Buy to bridge the gap between Instagram content and online purchases.

Research has shown that most of the information in our memory is visual. It’s no surprise then, that images are so important. On Instagram, it’s all pictures and videos. However, if you’re trying to grow your customer base, pictures should be more important to you than videos. This is applicable to most businesses. If you’re a videographer, you would need to post videos more, obviously.

Naturally, most of the posts on your business account will be pictures of your products. To keep your followers interested, you need to be creative with your posting techniques. Personally, I’ve had to unfollow some IG business pages because they seem to ruin all the fun. 

You don’t want your followers recalling your brand as the “killjoy” on their feed. Here are some tips that will help you keep your followers interested, and even attract more.

Play it cool

Even though you’re running a business account, you need to post your products in a way that agrees with the Instagram culture. People come to Instagram to see the good stuff. What you need to do with your posts is to convince your followers with a gradual process. 

You want them to see that you’re selling quality stuff only. It should also show in your captions. Although you may need to be direct with your sales pitch sometimes, most of your posts should look natural, and not salesy.

Post Quality Photos Only

I can’t stress this enough. Take your time to learn how to take pictures of your products. With bad photography, an excellent product can look just average. This doesn’t just apply to fashion businesses. The old saying is “Don’t judge a book by it’s cover” but that’s exactly what most people do. A quality photo may not convince a potential customer, but a bad one may put them off. 

Of course, before taking a good photo, the product must be in top condition. For a more convincing picture, take photos of the product when they’re in use. For example, if you sell women’s shoes, it’s good to post the shoes, but it’s better to post a photo of someone wearing the shoes. 

This technique is very useful if you sell goods that don’t “look good” in photos. For example, if you sell raw chicken, you can post pictures of a family dinner with chicken on the menu. Add context to your posts to make them more relatable. The technical term for such posts is Lifestyle Photos.

Make Follower-exclusive announcements occasionally

To keep your followers interested in your content, spice it up with some freebies from time to time. People love freebies!! So if your followers are interested in your product, there’ll be some excitement when you’re offering promotions. 

This form of giveaway can also be a good way to check whether you have the right crowd following you. If you sell makeup products and most of your followers are men, they won’t jump at your freebies the same way women would. If you post promotions or freebies and your followers seem uninterested, maybe you’re performing for the wrong audience.

Finally, don’t ever forget to be yourself; sound natural. Yes, it’s a business account, but it needs a personal touch if you want your followers to engage more.

It’s 2020 –  and the world is fast becoming more reliant on the internet to get things done. An internet connection is no longer a luxury. It’s a necessity. Adding the COVID situation to the mix, we had to turn to the internet to keep most parts of the economy running. What does this mean for your business? If you don’t have a solid online presence, you may be missing out. Here’s why:

Why does your business need an online presence?

Enhances credibility

When you meet a potential customer, they’re usually in doubt whether to buy your product or not. Research has it that when people are in doubt, they are more likely to check the internet to make their decision. 

If they check the internet and find your business in good light, you probably just gained a new customer. Your business gains instant credibility just because most people believe what they see on the internet. Of course, you have to finish the job with impeccable customer service.

Expands your reach

When you have a robust online presence, there’s really no limit to how far your awareness can go. An online presence is a solid foundation to run any marketing campaign. 

Even if you run an offline advertising or marketing campaign, the people who notice your brand will search for you online. You will lose some potential customers if you don’t claim your space on the web before the search.

Much room for product showcase

If you sell your products from a physical location, there’s a limit to what you can display per time. Even if your store is gigantic, you can’t use the whole room as display racks. Your online presence can give you much more room for display. 

For example, there are websites that are designed such that you can display an unlimited number of products for sale. This way your customers already know whether you have what they need before even coming to your store.

Your business can exist online on different platforms. For full effect, I would advise that you explore most of these options. Here are the practical options for putting a business online

A website

Without mincing words, a website is the best option for putting your business online. When you have a business website, it’s like owning property online. You can display your products and even make sales without worrying about platform issues. Other options showcase your business using other websites. 

Social Media

This option includes Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, linkedIn and others. Most of your customers are active on one or more of these platforms. You can use your social media platform to draw potential customers to your website. 

Even without a website, you can gain customers from your social media if you run it well. To gain more customers from your social media account, you need to manage the business account effectively.

There’s no doubt that the population of internet users will keep increasing. Eventually, all of your present and future customers will be online. Why not let them meet you there?

Online education gives you opportunities that are not available in a classroom setting.  As a tutor, if you work for an institution or organisation, it’s likely that you would use whatever platform they provide.

On the other hand, if you work independently, you can chart your own course as an online educator. My advice is that even if you work for an institution, you can also have a personal online education portfolio. It’s a great way to spread your knowledge and get returns for it. 

Earlier, I mentioned that online education gives some unique opportunities. They benefit both the tutor and student in numerous ways. There are 3 popular formats of online courses, it’s likely that your course will look like one of these. In this article. I explain each format to make you understand which suits your course best.

Self-Paced Courses

When your course is self-paced, it simply means that learners can come to your website, start the course and finish it on their own schedule. This format enables you to teach the course just once. After this, all you need to do is attend to their questions in the forums. 

Sometimes, tutors prefer to use their emails to answer students’ questions. While  emails can be effective, I believe forums are better. A forum gives you the opportunity of sharing knowledge with everyone via answers.

Also, you may not have to answer the same questions over and over. Students who have similar questions will simply go through the forum to see the answers they need. Even better, students can rub minds and answer each other in the discussions. 

You need a top notch web hosting platform to make this happen or you. With Ducehost, you get a high quality web developer at an affordable rate.

Live Classes

This method uses a pre-arranged time table to hold the classes. This way, instead of putting up all the lessons like the self-paced method, the classes hold live, with all the students present. To make this happen, you can use a platform that allows multiple people to tune in to the class at the same time, using video. Zoom is one popular app for the purpose. However, if you want to build a reputation over time, it’s best to host such classes on your website. Hire highly skilled web developers to set up such a platform for you.

Hybrid Format

For best results, I suggest a combination of both methods. How you combine depends on your preference. Here’s an example: A college of marketing in Lagos switched to online classes as a result of the COVID situation. They have a catalogue of online classes for self-paced learners. Also, they hold live classes every two weeks. Even though the course is self-paced, there’s a time limit within which students would study some recorded content. This is a good example of a combination that works for the institution in question.

Needless to say, it’s not a simple process. Hence, you’ll need the best hands on such a project.

At Ducehost, we provide a platform for website development, and you can hire our team of creative developers to do the job. Choose a service that suits your needs and let’s help you reach the world.

The rapid spread of COVID-19 caught the world unawares in many ways.Things changed so fast. Every industry is adjusting to these changes as fast as they can. The education industry is not left behind.

One of such changes is the surge in online classrooms in replacement of the offline ones. Teachers and students have to quickly adapt to the online classroom model. If you haven’t made the switch yet, I know how challenging it is to engage with your students in these times.

However, the COVID situation aside, is online teaching better than offline? If you moved your class from classroom to the internet today, what advantages will you enjoy?

What are the benefits of online teaching?

Even if there was no COVID outbreak, you should consider having an online learning platform. The benefits are long-lasting, and you can continue to reap the fruits long after you retire. Here are some essential advantages that online teaching gives you.

Clear Cut Expectations and Objectives

With an online course, you can build your own curriculum based on the knowledge you’re passing across. In a well designed online class, the course objectives and expectations are easily accessible, sometimes it’s right there on the screen beside the main lesson video. This way, the student is always conscious of the objective. In an offline classroom, the teacher typically states the course objectives in the first class only. Of course, you will only enjoy this benefit if your course website is well designed. 

Track your student’s progress

With an online class, it’s easier to monitor your student’s understanding of everything you teach. A good online learning website should have a forum that allows communication between the tutor and students. Of course, this can happen in an offline classroom. However, students are more likely to ask for help on an online forum than in person. Every class has that super shy student that doesn’t want to ask questions. In an online forum, such people will find more motivation to post their needs and get help.

Build a Solid Reputation

These days, when you want to check if a business is legit, the first thing you do is google them, right? So, if you want your expertise to be known beyond your locality, you should set up an online classroom. Which one would you prefer – to set up a tutorial center in your neighbourhood, or to have the whole world come learn of your wisdom?  Your online class makes you visible to learners halfway across the world. This gets even better when you have a personal teaching website. There’s really no limit to how much money you can make teaching these courses.

Wrap Up

The best part of the online learning community is this: All you need is to be highly knowledgeable at what you’re teaching. Millions of people around the world are ready to pay to learn those things you already know. Why not reach out to them?  You can create an online course website with Ducehost or hire a highly experienced developer to help you out.