Enhance your training by creating a flexible online support! With the concept of Blended Learning, you gain entirely new sales arguments and advantages such as a unique selling proposition. Once created, online content can be reused and reassembled at any time. The list of benefits with Blended Learning goes even further – this article provides you with an overview that will help you decide for or against Blended Learning.

Note: This article was first published in July 2018. We updated it in October with many additions and links to articles on individual benefits and republished it.

Face-to-face learning + E-learning = Blended Learning

Blended Learning is a technical term from education and refers to the combination of different forms of learning. For good reason, Blended Learning has been considered the learning form of the future among experts for many years. More and more trainers in vocational training are therefore expanding their classic face-to-face events with E-Learning. This creates the new learning form Blended Learning, which offers many advantages for all involved.

I want to show you what those advantages are and how they can elevate your training to the next level!

Overview: Benefits of E-Learning and Face-to-Face Learning

E-Learning utilizes the opportunities of modern technologies and communication tools. Our lives are becoming increasingly digital and interconnected, so learning with online tools seems timely. And yes, this learning form actually offers many advantages – for instance, a participant can engage in E-Learning exercises independently of time and location, allowing for much more self-directed learning than in traditional seminars in the form of live meetings.

On the other hand, many trainers rightly know and feel that they cannot and should not simply transfer 100% of their previous trainings into the digital world. The personal connection between trainer and participant, which is only solidified in face-to-face training, is too important.

Self-direction and External Direction

From a didactic perspective, E-Learning offerings tend to be self-directed processes. This means that the participant must show a high level of personal responsibility. They decide when and where to learn. Pure E-Learning often lacks a contact person for questions and difficulties. Such support is present in traditional seminars and speaking events, but the transfer performance in such externally directed processes is lower.

Both externally directed processes and self-directed ones are important for providing support to participants and challenging their own thinking. Especially in large groups, you usually have different learning types that require varying degrees of external direction.

Diagram: Externally directed processes such as speaking events and lectures on one side and self-directed processes such as pure E-learning on the other. Blended Learning combines both forms of learning.

Here, Blended Learning excels on both sides: Why forgo one form of learning when you can combine both? Those who keep the advantages of both learning forms in mind can compensate for the disadvantages of each other. Moreover, various learning types are addressed – everyone gets their share.

7 Advantages of Blended Learning

The most significant advantages of Blended Learning for trainers, consultants, or coaches are presented in the following overview:

The 7 most important advantages of Blended Learning for trainers:

• You gain a unique selling proposition

• You gain a new revenue stream

• You gain new customer groups

• You gain measurability

• You gain reusability

• You gain flexibility

• You gain diversity of media

Important: All mentioned advantages are from the perspective of trainers who have previously relied on traditional face-to-face training and are now expanding this concept with online courses and thus implementing the Blended Learning concept. Consequently, the focus of the benefits is on E-Learning – but only in combination with face-to-face learning does the full potential of Blended Learning unfold.

The main advantages of Blended Learning in trainings and coaching

So far, these have only been individual keywords. How exactly do you achieve all these advantages of Blended Learning for your training or coaching, and who benefits the most from it?

1. Advantage of Blended Learning: Measurability

How often have you stumbled upon the question: How effective was your training in hindsight? Standardized surveys at the end of a traditional seminar are monotonous for your participants and often offer little insight for you. In an online course, you have many more options available: Integrate interactive exercises, quiz questions, and exams into your online support and regularly check your participants' learning progress.

Extra advantage: The topic of measurability also interests your client! If your Blended Learning software includes a corresponding function, you can easily export the results of your training as a table and forward them to your client.

Benefiting from the advantage of measurability: ✓ Trainer ✓ Client

Learn more about the advantage of measurability in this article: Make your success measurable!

2. Advantage of Blended Learning: Reusability

The biggest hurdle every trainer faces at the beginning of their transition to Blended Learning: You must invest various resources (time, money, effort) to start effectively. But those who persist will be richly rewarded: Once created, online content can easily be copied and reused. This saves you a lot of time and effort in the long run!

Benefiting from the advantage of reusability: ✓ Trainer

Learn more about the advantage of reusability in this article: Recycle training content and save a lot of time.

3. Advantage of Blended Learning: New Customer Groups

Regardless of whom you have worked for in the past: With Blended Learning, you expand your portfolio and thus the potential reach of your customer groups. The topic of digitalization is a prevalent issue in many companies, but often no one really knows what steps to take towards modernization. Therefore, training offerings with Blended Learning are an opportunity that many HR developers would like to learn more about.

Learn more about the advantage of measurability in this article: Gain new customer groups for your training!

Benefiting from the advantage of new customer groups: ✓ Trainer

4. Advantage of Blended Learning: A New Revenue Stream

Increase your annual revenue through an online course by convincing your client of the added value of your new learning concept. Because Blended Learning benefits not only your participants but also your client, who is thus more willing to invest more in you. Learn in this article how to generate more revenue sustainably with Blended Learning.

Benefiting from the advantage of a new revenue stream: ✓ Trainer

Learn more about the advantage of a new revenue stream in this article: Once created, generate more revenue sustainably.

5. Advantage of Blended Learning: A Unique Selling Proposition

The trainer market is sometimes highly competitive, and many offers are very similar. With your individual Blended Learning, you differentiate yourself from the crowd. If you also choose a learning software where you can individually brand your online course, you show your unique selling proposition at first glance.

Benefiting from the advantage of a unique selling proposition: ✓ Trainer ✓ Client

Learn more about the advantage of a unique selling proposition in this article: Use your unique selling proposition in sales!

6. Advantage of Blended Learning: Flexibility

Sometimes things just don’t go as planned. If your face-to-face training, for example, runs over schedule due to intense discussions, you won’t sweat as a trainer with Blended Learning. Instead of having to slow down your participants, you can easily and spontaneously offload modules into your online support. This way, you appear professional, your participants can achieve maximum learning success, and your client is happy to recommend you.

Benefiting from the advantage of flexibility: ✓ Trainer ✓ Client ✓ Participant

Learn more about the advantage of flexibility in this article: Design flexible training!

7. Advantage of Blended Learning: Diversity of Media

Of course, you can implement many forms of media in E-Learning much easier and more practically than in face-to-face training. Especially with videos, you score points in your online course: Short films are not only more entertaining, but also engage more senses than pure text. And through selfie videos, you stay close to your participants online.

Extra advantage: Due to the variety of media available to you in E-Learning, you also cover more learning types. For example, participants who may be more reserved in face-to-face training can ask their questions in the online course through comments.

Benefiting from the advantage of diversity of media: ✓ Trainer ✓ Participant

Learn more about the advantage of media diversity in this article: Successful training with digital media.

Advantages of Blended Learning over a single learning form

The fundamental idea of Blended Learning lies in the best possible integration. Both classic face-to-face learning and modern E-Learning have their own advantages. Wherever you hit limits in your face-to-face event due to given framework conditions, you can use E-Learning for compensation – and vice versa.

Advantages of Blended Learning over pure face-to-face learning

Traditional seminars excel with personal connection, but with Blended Learning, this is also present with less loss of work time.

Advantages of Blended Learning over pure E-Learning

In E-Learning, the individual participant learns relatively self-directed, but personal motivation often only arises in combination with Blended Learning.

Checklist: Your Advantages of Blended Learning?

These were the essential advantages of Blended Learning over pure learning forms. Perhaps while reading, you’ve already imagined the benefit for your own training or coaching at one point or another. Because: Not all advantages apply equally to all training.

Take 5 minutes now and imagine starting with Blended Learning in the next 2 weeks. What would change? What would you benefit from the most? I have created a template for you with a list that you can see all the advantages at a glance in the left column.

In the right column, you can spontaneously enter how much you estimate the benefit for your training: From 1 = Doesn't help me much to 4 = Helps my training enormously.

Tip: Don't think too much about it, just decide instinctively!