Fall is the peak time for course registrations, and what better way to kick off the season than to take an extra look at the course marketing trends you should follow to gain participants in 2020?

Technology does not stop evolving, so several of this year’s trends are based on digitalization and automatization.

Do you feel like you can’t keep up? Don’t worry. In this blog post I will give you an introduction to the most trending topics in digital marketing in 2020.

Search Engine Optimization , also known as SEO, refers to the method of preparing content that results in your website gaining better visibility or higher raking in the search engine result pages.

Such sites include Google, Yahoo, Bing and so on. The goal is to be the page listed as the first result when searching for your course, or topics related to the course. This is usually one of the first search results the user will click on during a search.

SEO involves analyzing data to get to know the target audience and find out what exactly they are looking for. This way you can tailor your content to the results of the analysis, and you will then climb higher up in the search engine results This is a great way to make sure you are showing up in relevant searches and follow one of the top course marketing trends!

ALSO READ: 5 tips on how to get full courses in 2020

Voice search

If you are going to follow the trends of voice search, SEO is particularly important. A search often involves more methods than just typing in the search fields of the various search engines. We see that voice searches have been steadily increasing in popularity in recent years, a trend that is likely to continue on. Google estimates that over 50% of all searches in the world will be voice searches by 2020.

But what exactly is a voice search? A voice search refers to asking questions orally instead of manually entering your search in text format. When you do such a search, you will only get one result, as opposed to a written search, where you get a list of multiple options. The result you get is called “Rank 0” in Google. This location is key.

In order to achieve “Rank 0” in Google, you need to understand your customers’ needs. Feel free to customize your content according to what a Google searcher answers for something related to your services, as well as to adapt it to oral jargon. Instead of searching for “Dance course in Oslo”, you would be more likely to say something like “Where can I find dance course in Oslo?”. This is important to consider when creating content for your website, in addition to staying with the course marketing trends!

ALSO READ: 4 Tips for Effective Marketing of Your Training

Gather information about participants through AI

If you haven’t already noticed, Artificial Intelligence (AI), has begun to dominate most markets. The same applies for the course and training market.

But what is artificial intelligence? Artificial intelligence is in essence technology and machines that are able to solve tasks, often to a better, faster and more safely than humans.

Machine learning is an AI tool and refers to technology that learns from past processes that improve the capability and ability to perform similar processes in the future. This creates the potential to work more purposefully with, among other things, marketing. With the help of AI, companies can conduct more in-depth and automated analytics, as technology can deliver greater amounts of data, identify patterns with higher performance and precision than humans are capable of. In other words, AI can analyze participants’ behavior and search history and use data from various platforms to help you as a course provider understand how your potential participants find their products and services.

ALSO READ: Is VR training more efficient than other learning methods?

Get registrations through chatbots

It can be tricky to understand artificial intelligence. Chatbots are an example of a type of machine learning that dominates digital marketing in several companies. Such bots are artificial intelligence programs capable of conducting real conversations with people, primarily to answer questions or inquiries. A chatbot is able to recognize questions and words so that it replies with predefined phrases or actions.

Simply with the help of artificial intelligence, it learns continuously, and thus, becomes more compatible to carry on conversations than it originally was.

But what does this really have to do with marketing your courses? The essence of marketing is just that: To help the customer through their purchasing journey, by creating content that appeals to the customer’s questions and needs. By using chatbots, this collects valuable information that you can use in the preparation of communication with your participants. The remedy also responds immediately, saving you time while the participants don’t have to wait. You can also use bots in messenger, among other things, to spread a course offer quickly and easily, and you can thus get enrollments for your courses through chatbots!

ALSO READ: Do you know your course participants well enough?

Programmatic announcements

Programmatic advertising is a growing trend in online advertising and marketing. Digital advertisements are ads that are tailored to an area of ​​an online platform, hence a website or social media. If you purchase such ad slots programmatically, you can choose which audience you want your ads to appear in, as well as limiting when and how many times the person will see it. But what exactly are advertising through programmatic buying?

When everything matches your criteria, your purchase will occur automatically and your ad will be shown in real time.

This helps you pay only for highly effective ads delivered to the right people at the right time.

ALSO READ: How to create a competitive course business

Video Marketing

According to Hubspot, most people prefer to use videos to learn about new products and services. Marketing through video is one of, if not the hottest, point of digital marketing today, and most likely will be in the years to come.

Imagine the things you spend your time observing when using social media. You drown in short video clips that don’t really make much sense, and suddenly you’ve been scrolling through them for half an hour.

85% of businesses use video as a marketing tool, and this is not without reason. 88% of video marketers report that using video gives them a positive Return on Investment (ROI), according to Hubspot .

Not only that. Google LOVES videos. If you have videos embedded on your website, you are 53 times more likely to appear first in Google. Since Google now owns YouTube, this will have a major impact on search results. Therefore, be sure to update your youtube videos according to the SEO.

 ALSO READ: 5 Tips for Growing Your Course Business

Omnichannel marketing

One of the most important course marketing trends for 2020, is the use of omnichannel marketing. You may have heard of the term “omnichannel” related to your company’s marketing strategy in the past? Those who talk about this aim for a holistic communication and user experience for their customers by using several different channels at the same time.

There are a huge number of platforms one can be active on today. It is therefore important to use the channels your potential participants are present on. Customize communication according to the customer journey on the different platforms. This will create an integrated customer experience across multiple platforms by following customers throughout their journey.

Studies show that the result of omnichannel in marketing is a 250% higher purchase rate:

ALSO READ: 6 Reasons to Use Podcast as a Marketing Tool for Your Course

Get ready for 2020s peak season!

These course marketing trends and even more will be worth the effort this year if you are eager to win the battle for the course participants. If you want to be present where your potential participants are looking for courses, you can take a look at marketing opportunities at Kursguiden.no . Here you can reach potential course participants within your category, in your area, through Norway’s leading marketplace for courses.

Did you like this article? Don't forget to share it: