Building a great product or service is only part of the process of positioning your organization as a top competitor in your industry— the rest relies on brand awareness, audience engagement, and community building.
But that’s a lot easier said than done. How does one get the word out? Apple, one of the world’s largest companies, took 40 years to get where it is today, in spite of having creative and unique marketing campaigns and brand awareness campaigns. However, in the 21st century, and with the advent of the digital world, engaging with your audience, running marketing campaigns, and building your brand is much easier. One of the best ways to do exactly that is with the help of digital credentials.
Digital credentials are becoming an innovative marketing tool across a variety of professional fields, including organizations that offer educational and training courses, and even institutions that offer graduate and doctorate-level programs. They can also be a great tool for employers who are trying to increase employee engagement in learning and development programs and raise brand awareness.
Digital credentials are often chosen by organizations looking to increase brand awareness, as they offer learners and employees an easy way to share their achievements. Let’s take a closer look at how digital credentials transform them into brand advocates on social media and the internet, over email, and during events.
Social Media Engagement
With over half the world on the many social media platforms available, not using the power that social networks have is setting up your organization’s brand for failure. Introducing digital credentials into your social media marketing strategy and campaigns can drive your target audience of learners and working professionals to your brand, and will increase engagement with those who earn your credentials
Incorporating digital credentials with your social media strategy can be anything from simply liking or resharing an individual’s post of a digital credential that they were issued from your organization to congratulating them on their achievement by either commenting or reaching out to them via direct messages. Doing this simple task makes them feel proud and acknowledged, and they subconsciously become unofficial ambassadors for your brand, speaking highly of your organization wherever they go and to whomever, they talk to.
Another great way to raise brand awareness through social media is to encourage learners and employees to share their achievements as digital credentials allow ease of shareability. When a customer or learner shares the digital credential they earned from your organization to their social networks, they give people that they know (like-minded people) insight into their technical know-how, skills, and abilities––and promote your program, too. Each time one of your learners shares their accomplishments, they become advocates of your organization to the people that they know, or work with, who in turn may be interested to take part in your program, or those who may also need the same skills, and hence increase reach every time.
Email Marketing
If used right, email marketing can be an incredible tool for connecting with clients, and potential customers and building lasting relationships, and can be done more subtly than you think.
One of those ways to raise brand awareness through email marketing is by adding digital credentials to employee email signatures. Whenever a member of your team sends an email to someone outside your organization, their digital credentials will be present on their email, and will always be present whenever that email is seen, forwarded, or replied to. From there, potential customers, and partners can click on these badges to learn more about your programs or products.
Similar to what we mentioned in social media engagement if you’re issuing digital credentials to external learners, prompting them to add their badges to their email signatures will go a long way. When one of your organization’s students or employees adds their digital credentials to their emails, the recipients can easily verify them and will know that the person that sent the email is the real deal. For people looking for jobs, recruiters and HR managers will be able to get an idea of the abilities and skills that the candidate possesses, and will be able to verify them almost instantly.
Website Traffic
Digital credentials are designed to be viewed, shared, and posted, all of which work well with one of the core focuses of a marketing campaign: to drive your target audience and other quality traffic to your brand’s site or landing page.
Just like how incoming links help point users toward your website, a digital credential can be clicked on to take a potential customer or learner to a dedicated landing page for your digital credentials. Creating a dedicated landing page where these potential learners can see all your badges and the skills associated with them is a great way to increase reach for your credentials, programs, or products.
Partnerships
Partnering with companies that will market your organization as well as their own is a symbiotic way to increase reach, especially if you’re working with a small budget. Offloading some of your organization’s marketing responsibility is a creative way to increase brand awareness. Collaborating with industry-leading companies gives your organization credibility and their company marketing exposure, and both parties get a chance to increase reach. It’s a win-win!
Better Credential Value Produces Better Retention
No matter how much value you pack into your organization, it goes to waste if people who are accessing it don’t know about its benefits and if they can’t experience them.
If you make it easy for learners and professionals to be connected with you and informed about everything, from new companies that accept your digital credential, to new courses that you provide digital credentials for, they might have a deeper understanding of what they can get out of their digital credential and what you do for them every day.
The more informed that your students or employees are about the benefits you offer, and the more they are acknowledged and engaged with, the more likely they are to advocate your organization and brand.
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