If you are a training course provider or an eLearning platform, and you are wanting to encourage people to enrol onto more of your courses after they have signed up for one or more already, there are some simple ways you can help to improve your chances to upsell more of the courses you provide.
The good news is that you have grabbed the attention of your attendee enough for them to sign up for one of your courses in the first place. This tells you two things, that (1) they are open to learning and (2) that you gave them sufficient information in your training course title and course description that made them want to choose your course over another provider.
To that extent, you have done a lot of the hard work already. They now know your name as a training provider, and they know that they can gain the skills they need through learning with you.
Simple ideas on how to upsell your courses
Here are some simple ideas that can help you to upsell more of your training courses.
Introduce a Satisfaction Survey
The first important matter is to ensure that your training attendee is satisfied with the course they have just completed. This will help to determine whether they are open about doing another training activity with you. One way to gather this information would be to set up a simple satisfaction survey at the end of the training course, asking for their feedback through a mixture of multiple choice and open-ended questions.
You will want to include questions like ‘did you learn the skills that you were hoping to learn?’, ‘Did you find the online learning process simple and easy to follow?’. If their feedback is positive, they are more likely to return to the training provider that they know and have studied with previously.
Similarly, if they include some constructive criticism in there, you will be able to assess this information and potentially change parts of the course to improve it for future attendees.
In this same satisfaction survey, it is important to find out what line of work the attendee is in or wants to go into. This will allow you to recommend more training courses that are relevant to the skills they need. This could be in a follow-up email or an automatic link to more recommended courses after the survey. By suggesting relevant training courses or online learning that you offer, it seems less like an upsell and more like a helpful suggestion, because you know the attendee would benefit from what is available.
Find out additional information
Before and after the attendee has signed up to your training course, you will want to give further information (either through a link to a blog or information within an email) about the benefits of completing a training course or online learning with you. One of those benefits of learning is that there are no limits to when you need to stop. You don not just have to learn about skills required for your line of work, you can take a training course in anything and everything that interests you, and on your own terms.
By giving the attendee this information again after they have completed the training course with you, they are more likely to register for more learning, especially if they had a positive experience the first time around.
Offer a Loyalty Rate or Discount Code for more courses
Upon completion of their first training course and after giving the attendee more information about the benefits of online learning, you could go as far as offering them an exclusive loyalty rate or discount for registering for a second training course.
You could encourage them by saying something along the lines of ‘As a thank you for enrolling with us, here is a special discount code for you to choose a course on something that really interests you - something that you may have always wanted to learn’. This should be seen as a last push for sign ups though, as softer nudges like the previous points may do enough to convert them.
When attempting to upsell your training courses and online learning, the main things you want to ensure are that you are recommending something that is relevant and will add value to the attendees life or career, plus you are giving them an incentive to do so. If they learn everything they expected to learn from the initial training course, and feel it has been beneficial to them, they are more likely to consider you as a training provider when signing up to another one.
We hope this article on the simple ideas on how to upsell your courses was helpful. You can find out more about Continuing Professional Development.
Established in 1996, The CPD Certification Service has over 27 years’ experience providing CPD accreditation. With members in over 100 countries, our CPD providers benefit from the ability to promote themselves as part of an international community where quality is both recognised and assured.
If you are interested in offering training courses, seminars, workshops, eLearning, or educational events suitable for Continuing Professional Development, please visit the Become a CPD Provider page or contact our team to discuss in more detail. Alternatively, if you are looking for a free online CPD record tool to help manage, track and log your ongoing learning, as well as store your professional training records and attendance certificates in one simple place, go to the myCPD Portal page.
