I am looking for valuable ideas on promoting/Advertising I.T Training. What is the best way to attract people onto a course?
What turns people on to I.T Training?
Does anyone know of any surveys that suggest best practices?
I have come up with a few ideas for advertising, for example
1) Information Points
2) Brochures
3) Intranet
4) Pens/Mouse mats/Post-it pads/Logo Bugs
5) Launching events with demonstrations
6) Email advertising
7) Training videos/Multimedia
8) Leaflets/Flyers
Can anyone add to this list, or suggest whats worked best for them?
I find that with paper products people often through them away and dont look at them.
I want ideas that are going to be in peoples faces all the time and get our point across
Ginnette Baker
3 Responses
stimulate interest in learning & CPD
Ginnette I’m not sure if you’re referring to IT people needing training or general staff. Either way, though, I suggest you step back and ask why you’re having to promote training. If it is necessary to the business (the training in question) perhaps it should be more compulsory/menu driven via curricula programmes for example. If not, why are you promoting it at all? (From the point of view that training should always relate to key business needs).However, another way to look at this is to develop people’s interest in self development and learning. Contact me if you’d like some help on how to do this. You’ll then discover that people seek out learning opportunities themselves which tend to relate to their current issues – ‘just in time learning’, so to speak!The result can be much more cost effective and focussed and being self driven – achieves much more for all parties.
Rick
Sell Yourself!
Ginnette – the only thing that I do that you don’t have is Posters – colourful, interesting, changed regularly (every 6 months) and also – make yourself visible! Someone asked a similar question and I suggested listening in to your Helpdesk (if you have one) and work out what needs training, devise a short workshop on that topic (and related ones) and then ring all those people who were asking the question!
Liaising with secretarial support sometimes helps and then be visible, offer to help and then lead into – how about attending training so you can do more on this….!
Good luck!
Knowledge is a product!
…and as such should be marketed as effectively as a fizzy drink. We’ve found that using a range of communication methods works best- printed, electronic and face to face. The most important thing is to know your audience. E-movies can be a great way of getting your message across to a specific audience as you can email them direct, demo the training and even give them a link direct to the site. Of course, this only works if you have a detailed technical spec for your target audience. A lot of organisations have ‘firewalls’ which prevent you from sending executable files, for example. So you’d need to find that out first.
There are other technological solutions too – screen savers and log-in boxes, for example.
The best tip is to research your audience and to think creatively (or get someone to do the thinking for you!) For example, if you’re competing on an overcrowded company notice board, why not do a mobile to suspend from the ceiling to (quite literally!)get in people’s faces, and then follow up with an exciting direct mail piece, with a screen saver and a banner ad on their intranet site for that ongoing reminder…
I’d be happy to send you some examples. Just let me know.
Good luck!