Are you looking for ways to capture and engage your learners’ attention for your continuing education program? It might be time to consider investing in your CE program’s webinar strategy.
Webinars can help you reach more learners and boost learner comprehension. Read on for helpful tips to leverage webinars in your CE program.
Why your continuing education program should incorporate webinars
Webinars are a powerful tool to deliver high-quality CE content. If planned correctly, your webinars can help you attract individuals both inside and outside your CE program. By leveraging webinars, more learners can participate in your CE courses and events (regardless of geographic location), broadening your program’s reach.
Webinars also allow you to repurpose pre-recorded content, helping you stretch your CE events and courses, and because learners can return to a webinar and rewatch it on-demand for increased access and convenience, you’ll notice an increase in learner retention.
Strategies to create a successful continuing education webinar
Here are six best practices to create a successful webinar experience for your CE learners:
1. Diversify content. Create a steady stream of just-in-time webinar programming that could include industry insights, trending topics, and content learners need to know. You’ll also want to offer just-in-case webinar programming that could include content learners must complete for a certification or credential.
Having a solid mix of webinars and high-quality CE content is key to ensuring learners come back to your program.
TECH TIP: Freestone LMS makes it simple to leverage webinars at your CE program. Easily manage, schedule, and deliver webinars to your learners and build a scalable content strategy to attract more learners to your program.
2. Set learner expectations. As you build your webinar content, you’ll want to ensure that learners can find courses and programming that are relevant to their current skill level. Make sure that your course descriptions are accurate so learners will fully understand what the webinar covers. Also, include a skill level so learners can easily confirm if a webinar is relevant to their learning path.
TECH TIP: With Freestone, your CE program staff can easily add a course description and include a skill level to boost learner value and establish accurate learning expectations.
3. Educate speakers on your LMS. Ensure everyone who works with your learning management system (LMS) knows how to comfortably use the platform. After recruiting a speaker, host a prep session so all speakers know the ins and outs of your LMS.
TECH TIP: Freestone LMS is user-friendly and intuitive. Easily host a training session within the platform for new speakers or learners. If a speaker or learner requires assistance, our support team is always ready to help!
4. Boost learner engagement. Incorporate interactive elements in your webinars to drive learner engagement. Your LMS should include live polls, Q&A, chat options, and credit requirements (Ex. checkpoints, quizzes, or surveys). During your webinars, have staff members leverage your chat feature by starting conversations and driving discussion to engage learners.
TECH TIP: Leverage Freestone to boost learner engagement by including interactive elements (like Q&A, live polls, chat options, and more) in your webinars. Freestone lets you send out checkpoints to ensure learners complete the requirements for CE credits. This feature prompts learners to join a chat, complete a checkpoint quiz, or submit a polling response.
5. Customize the learning experience. Take your webinars to the next level by personalizing the viewer layout and including your CE program’s branding. During webinars, highlight sponsors to thank them for supporting your event and encourage future sponsorship opportunities.
TECH TIP: With Freestone, your CE program staff can easily personalize webinars by including your organization’s logo and branding details.
6. Archive all learning content. Build up your content library by archiving your live events and repurposing them as webinars to ensure that your CE content goes further and you appeal to more learners. Repurposing your material as webinars helps your CE program stretch content and reach more learners.
To attract even more learners, (especially individuals who might not yet have purchased a CE course from your organization,) consider offering member and non-member course prices. Highlighting a CE course price difference demonstrates the value of joining your organization, encouraging more individuals to become members.
TECH TIP: Make your CE content go further with Freestone’s professional production services team. The Freestone team can capture any event, helping your program utilize the recording as a webinar to build out your content library.
Learn more tips to leverage webinars
For more tips on how Freestone can help you produce successful webinars, connect with our team today!