KNOW YOUR USERS

The best way to engage your users is to understand who they are and what benefit they will get from using your platform. This should form the basis of your communications with them, think to yourself “how does this platform solve a problem for my users?” 

SET CLEAR GOALS

With so many different channels available to promote your platform, it’s easy to lose track of why you’re promoting it in the first place. That’s why it’s important to set some clear goals and define what success looks like to you early on, so you stay on task and focus on driving results. 

Setting SMART Goals 

SMART goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound, in the case of a marketing campaign (and more specifically your platform) this could be anything from user signups, website traffic, course completions or even the frequency and quality of reviews left about your courses. 

Key Performance Indicators 

We’ve set our SMART goals, now we need to attach some key performance indicators (KPIs) to them to measure the success of our marketing efforts.

Is one of your goals to increase sign ups? One of your key performance indicators in this instance would be how many sign ups you get within a given time frame, or off the back of a specific marketing initiative. 

Setting these parameters for success is key to ensuring you stay accountable for the growth of your platform and can even inform decision making around your marketing efforts. 

STAY ON BRAND

Chances are your organisation already has a strong brand identity with a distinct look and feel to your existing website and communications. It’s important that your user experience flows from wherever they navigate to your platform from. 

Be mindful of this when designing your site, make sure you use the same brand colours, imagery and tone of voice as your existing online presence to provide the best experience possible for your users. 

This should also be considered when putting together your promotional materials, making sure your messaging is consistent and aligned with your brand values and goals is key to effective communications. 

DEVELOP A COMMUNICATION STRATEGY

We’ve touched on understanding your users and what, where and how they interact with your brand. Now it’s time to develop a strategy for the content you’re planning to reach them with. 

Decide on your content: There are a number of different formats you could choose from to deliver your content, from email to social media posts through to longer form blog posts, podcasts or videos and infographics. Using the learnings from point one draw up a list of preferred methods you feel will make the maximum impact with your users. 

Once you’ve decided on the content formats you’re going to use, you’ll need to draft up a calendar or timeline for when you’re going to deliver it. Be sure to include when you’re going to produce and edit the content, alongside when you’re going to send it to your users. 

You might also want to include some pre-launch “teaser” content in the run up to your go-live date to generate interest in the build up to launch. 

What days or times are your users more likely to engage with your content? If you’re not sure of this then don’t be afraid to experiment with different options, you may find something out about your target audience that you never knew by testing and learning!

CHOOSE YOUR CHANNELS 

We’ve outlined a set of goals and objectives, identified what our target audience looks like and decided on what type of content we want to use to communicate with them. The next step is to determine what channels we’re going to promote the platform through. 

As when deciding on a content strategy, think about your target audience and where they are likely to go for information on your platform, this is where you should be focussing your attention when it comes to a launch strategy. 

Is your initiative for internal training purposes? Then you might want to promote the launch through your internal intranet, or create a branded message addressed from your head of learning or managing director explaining the benefits of using the platform. 

Are you planning on selling courses via your platform? Then you might want to consider running campaigns on your social media accounts and to your customer mailing list to engage those who have already interacted with you before. You may also want to consider optimizing your landing page for SEO or running PPC campaigns directing traffic to your site. 

It might be worth taking a look at similar organisations to yourself to see how they address their users to drive engagement, what channels do they use, what tone of voice do they employ? They might be using an entire communications channel that you hadn’t even considered. 

LAUNCH

The big day is here, your platform is ready to go and you’re ready to tell the world! 

You’ve already created your launch content and it’s either been delivered or is scheduled to be delivered shortly. 

You now have a small window of opportunity to make the most of the attention being given to your platform, for maximum uptake in the early stages you could consider a couple of initiatives to really get your users behind the platform. 

Hold a launch event 

This could be in person or online depending on the intended use case and audience for your platform. This is a great opportunity for you to introduce the platform to your users, showcase your hard work, and explain the benefits of the platform first hand. 

It’s also a great opportunity to address any queries or concerns your users may have around the platform, as well as getting first-hand feedback on potential improvements you could make in the future. 

Run a special offer 

If you’re intending to sell courses through the platform you could run an early bird discount or free trial scheme to attract early adopters. If this isn’t suitable you could consider offering some exclusive content or an incentive for completing and rating courses to early adopters instead.