Do you want to provide your course participants with added value that goes beyond the actual training? Then share new impulses on your topic with them every month! It’s best to package these into an online course and notify your participants via email – for us, this is the monthly newsletter.
Online courses do not always have to consist solely of data protection policies or guidelines. The different media formats and settings of the individual learning contents and chapters give you the opportunity to tailor your course to any topic, target group, and course goal. Therefore, we present you with extraordinary ideas in this series that you can implement in your online courses! Today’s topic: The monthly newsletter
This is how the monthly newsletter works
You surely know the principle of the newsletter: Recipients receive an email with information at regular intervals to stay up to date. However, this method is often exploited, resulting in an ever-increasing number of emails in the inbox that eventually land in the spam folder. As a result, the newsletter has a negative connotation, making it harder to attract new subscribers. But here comes the monthly newsletter into play:
With the monthly newsletter, you create new content in the online course once a month and make it available to all course participants. This way, the recipients can “experience” new information in the form of texts, images, videos, or audio files on the blink.it platform.
Similar to the traditional newsletter, the focus here is on customer acquisition and retention:
Customer retention: With the monthly newsletter, you establish contact with your course participants every month by sending them an invitation to the new content. Through the online course format, you encourage interaction, as the course can also contain interactive chapters (e.g., quizzes, comments, and surveys).
Customer acquisition: You send your target group impulses with relevant information on specific topics every month. These impulses can include: news from the industry, personal stories, customer stories, or interviews.
Online course vs. newsletter
While the newsletter resembles a personalized letter, the monthly newsletter invites interaction. We have compared both variants for you:
Monthly newsletter (online course) | Newsletter |
Diverse media formats: In the online course, you have the option to easily incorporate different media formats such as text, images, videos, audio, or links. This makes your monthly newsletter exciting and varied. | Focus on a core topic: Are your contents text-based and do you have only one core message? Then the newsletter is the perfect format for you! Because the classic email consolidates all your information into one message. |
Interaction is encouraged: On the blink.it learning platform, you can integrate various interactions into your online course. For example, you can create a chapter with a quiz or a survey. This way, you make your monthly newsletter interactive. With the comment function, you can foster exchange among participants if you wish. | Interaction only limited: The classic newsletter is more text and image oriented. This means recipients can only interact with the content to a limited extent. To get in touch with you through the newsletter, they can only send an email. |
Participants have access to all content: If you make the online course available to new course participants, they will also see the contents of the previous monthly newsletters. | Recipients only receive new content: The recipients of the newsletter only receive emails that have been sent after registration. Therefore, they have no access to previous content. |
Outsourced content on a learning platform: Due to the online course format, your content is stored on an external learning platform. This can be a barrier for your course participants to actually access the external content. | Direct access to content: Your recipients can directly access the new content in their email inbox and do not need any additional access. This shows that the newsletter is an uncomplicated medium. |
You see: Both the online course and the newsletter have advantages and disadvantages. Which of the two variants you choose is entirely up to you and your use cases. Nevertheless, the monthly newsletter offers you the opportunity to provide diverse content. Additionally, you can engage in discourse with your course participants. Ultimately, what you choose depends on your offerings, your course goals, and your preferences.
Info: By the way, we have already written about the extraordinary ideas of our customers. The “Reach The Top” challenge from the company "Kunde 21" shows how successful the implementation of an extraordinary idea in the online course can be. Learn more about the blink.it course on the challenge: Gamification in Online Courses: The success story of “Reach The Top”.
