Picturesque Rollouts: Marketing Online Learning Contents and Learning Sequences

Introduction

This will explore the following questions:

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  When sharing messaging about the new learning to the broad public and targeted publics and private groups, what are ways to differentiate the learning contents from competitor works (using visuals, still and moving)? What are the best ways to communicate the competitive advantages in using these resources as compared to others?

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    What are the optimal ways to tailor the messaging to the respective audiences—strategically and tactically?

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    What spokespeople should be used, if desired?

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    What are the technologies that are optimal for disseminating particular messages?

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    What are the most effective sequences for the rollout? In terms of continuing messaging, what should these be, and how should these be conveyed? What modalities should be used?

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    How can frugality be considered in every aspect, for the “guerrilla” and “shoestring” marketing?

Figure 1.

A Word Cloud of Chapter 8­

Once the designed learning has been developed, tested, and revised, it may be ready for rollout—whether to a limited audience(s) or a broadly public one(s) (or both, or some combination). Chapter 8 focuses on publicity rollouts and outreaches to targeted publics. (Figure 2)

Figure 2.

Topic Sequence in Visual Approaches to Instructional Design, Development, and Deployment

“Marketing” generally involves research about how to reach particular populations with messages about an organization, a brand, products, and services. “Advertising” focuses on strategically communicating about a product or service to target audiences, in order to encourage their use. A simple way to think of the two is that advertising is a part of marketing. Where advertising is “practice,” marketing is “applied research and practice.” “Branding” may also be part of marketing: here, a distinctive logo and / or tagline may be used to differentiate an organization from others in the same “vertical” or sector. Ideally, a brand should represent quality in the world, as well as other dimensions.

In the open-shared learning space, because of tight (and sometimes non-existent) budgets, most approaches will involve so-called “guerrilla marketing,” or creative approaches for low-cost marketing. (This approach is also called “shoestring marketing” in this chapter.) Common strategies in “guerrilla marketing” involve efforts to create viral social media campaigns (to let electronic word-of-mouth publicize the products and services), using freeware, creating strategic alliances with others, and other efforts. On rare occasions, paid channels may be harnessed to publicize particular contents. One author explains: