Developing an ongoing training program gives employees the opportunity to keep up with changes in your industry while addressing any existing skill gaps. It also helps learners maintain knowledge, and provides them with the chance to acquire new skills and gain access to new career opportunities.

Emerging technologies in education are making it easier than ever to develop and deliver ongoing training programs, but many organizations are still approaching training as one-time events—for instance, by limiting training to an orientation for new hires.

Instead of perceiving training as a one-time event, organizations should make L&D like a journey. A learner's journey is similar to a buyer's journey, and you can benefit from using the same strategies—in this case, using email marketing to build a relationship with a lead so that they can keep consuming the content. Let's explore how email courses can be implemented as part of your L&D program.

What Is an Email Course?

You can create an email course by setting up a series of autoresponder emails. This format allows you to focus on one topic at a time and to use storytelling techniques to create a progression from one email to the next. It is important to figure out the right length for each email and pay attention to the optimal amount of time between each email.

Microlearning and mobile learning are two trends you can incorporate into your email course. Instead of desktop computers, Internet users are twice as likely to open emails on mobile phones. Therefore, you should make sure your email course is mobile-friendly and includes a module that a learner can complete the required tasks whenever they are available.

One benefit from using email is that it allows for some flexibility. You can either decide to design an entire course using emails or use emails to complement another learning program. For instance, your email can include a few bullet points to summarize the content a learner has consumed on another platform, or to keep a learner engaged by emailing them suggestions regarding the learning content they might be interested in.

Email Courses and Engagement

When designing an email course, a strong engagement strategy must be put in place at the beginning. Employees can receive more than 100 emails in a day, so your email course must stand out by delivering value so that learners will look forward to their next email.

Here are a few strategies you can use to boost engagement:

• Use a simple design for your emails. It should draw attention to the main takeaway of the learning content.

• Explain the value of the email. Learners should be able to identify how they will benefit from the learning module that is sent to their inbox.

• Use the personalization features of your LMS to create content based on the learner’s past results and interests.

• Give learners flexibility by letting them choose which email courses they want to subscribe to.

• Help learners keep track of their progress by sending a follow-up email with a quiz shortly after they have completed a learning module.

• Use emails to foster accountability, for instance, by sharing a reminder if a learner hasn't completed a quiz yet.

Email courses can become an integral part of your ongoing training program since they are a convenient way to keep delivering content to learners. Learners’ interests and engagement can be retained if your learning content consistently provides value, keep the training modules in a reasonable time frame and use analytics to evaluate engagement, measure feedback, and continuously improve learning content.