VMEdu Looks at e-Learning Trends for 2016

VMEdu Looks at e-Learning Trends for 2016

Almost sixty percent of online educational providers are ready to kick their LMS to the curb.

A recent report referenced by DDI Development on current e-learning trends asserts “that nearly 2/3 of online courses’ students, as well as their managers, are not satisfied with their current LMS and are not going to renew their subscription.”[1]

As a software development firm, DDI is interested in how these trends affect coding and coders. When their blog says, “New e-learning companies create new learning trends, as their online community is very flexible and quick to abandon LMS solutions that do not meet learners’ needs,” they are seeing opportunities for programmers to write the code that provides the new solutions e-learning companies are shopping for. When VMEdu sees this trend, they know they have that solution already.  

“Unlike other traditional LMS platforms, you do not have to pay any licensing fees, buy expensive hardware or hire expensive software professionals to launch your online courses and mobile apps,” says VMEdu, adding, “traditional LMS platforms usually have negligible support for mobile apps; VMEdu creates best-in-the-industry mobile apps for you at zero-cost for Android phones (if more than 1 hour of video is uploaded for a single course) and $250 for iPhones.”

Based on these differences and their LMS’s connection to the VMEdu Authorized Training Partners (V.A.T.P.) network, the company claims, “You will save more than 90% of your current LMS expenses by using VMEdu– and have signifi­cantly more capabilities than those offered by traditional LMS platforms.”

They explain the value of this connection saying, “Courses created by our V.A.T.P.s can be made available and sold through our fast-growing partner network of 800+ Authorized Training Partners in 50+ countries. This makes your course available to an extensive network of companies, colleges, universities, training companies, and individual trainers and experts. No other traditional LMS platform helps you with customer acquisition.”

The e-learning trend is projected to continue explosively, “It is estimated to reach $200 billion worldwide by 2018 - more than 200 million people actively using various learning management systems,” according to DDI. They conclude that “One of the most important features any MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) should provide is scalability.” This trend makes VMEdu happy because “V.A.T.P.s have the ability to scale their training very quickly with negligible upfront investment. They get to create and launch their courses on their own websites and mobile apps using the VMEdu Cloud LMS.” DDI notes that for scalability, “As of now, only cloud hosting is capable of providing sufficient resources for this task.”

“It appears that 2016 will become a year when Big Data will stop being a distant future and become our everyday reality, so it’s best to keep this in mind when planning statistical algorithms for your LMS technology,” says DDI. The VMEdu Cloud LMS enables “your courses to include videos, tests, study guides, flashcards, and more: students can track the progress of their coursework, and determine improvement opportunities.” The ability to track student progress, manage courses and more is part of the VMEdu LMS’s ability to handle big data. As they are fond of saying, “VMEdu’s state-of-the-art Cloud Learning Management System (LMS) takes care of this!”

A continuing trend is the growth of mobiles: “Mobile LMS technology is supposed to surpass computer counterparts soon (as well as in many other fields of application). Developing mobile LMS apps is vital for any provider aiming for success,” according to DDI. VMEdu says, “We can create the best-in-the-industry mobile apps for your company with your company name and logo. This app can be downloaded from the Google Play Store (for Android Apps) or the Apple App Store (for IOS Apps) and can be used by your students to experience all of your courses. This provides your students the flexibility to study online and on-the-go.”

“Backend as a Service – That’s the one of the trends underlined by Martin Puryear on TechCrunch. Third party services that support chunks of backend tasks are faster to apply than repetitively building generic things. That helps to focus on innovative and competitive aspects of a product,” is a trend Marina Blinova cites in her article on LinkedIn’s Pulse.[2] VMEdu believes that by providing professional trainers and educational organizations with one of the industry’s most robust LMS, those educators can focus on developing the best educational experiences and value for their students.

VMEdu began creating its LMS more than seven years ago. They tested it thoroughly by launching multiple courses and websites, which have now become global leaders in their fields, teaching more than 500,000 students from 150 countries and 3,500+ companies. The VMEdu LMS is hosted on a scalable cloud infrastructure and already hosts hundreds of courses, with more than 50,000 learning resources including videos, questions, case studies, simulated exams, flashcards, study guides and more.

With its professional training and accreditation bodies, innovative LMS and extensive network of training partners, VMEdu has grown to be an industry leader. That growth is one of the most reassuring trends in e-learning today.

http://www.smstudy.com/Article/VMEdu-Looks-at-e-Learning-Trends-for-2016

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Leaky Funnel

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Leaky Funnel

Accepting that the sales and marketing funnel will always be leaky is akin to accepting that, despite all efforts, we will not grow taller… or younger. It’s never going to happen, we know this. The marketing funnel will always be leaky, no matter how talented and thorough sales and marketing teams become at plugging the holes. But accept it we must! Since as of today, there is no leak-free funnel and none on the horizon, we all just have to deal.

We learn from SMstudy that the leaky funnel is an analogy. Water being poured from the top represents prospective customers and the water existing from the bottom represents converted customers. 

SMstudy states: “Digital media reaches out broadly and acquires potential customers using a variety of online tactics. Marketers then capture information about those customers and begin to target them more effectively with marketing messages and other digital marketing initiatives, and many become qualified prospects or leads. Eventually some of the qualified leads buy the product, thus becoming customers.”

In a perfect place known as “Sales-and-Market Landia,” every dear soul who ever views our ad, not to mention visits our website, would be swirled into our seamless steel-trap funnel with no chance of escape except out the bottom as the proud owner of our product or service, free to roam and spread the good word.

Well, the real world is not “Sales-and-Market Landia,” and most of those who venture into the funnel will ultimately slip through the cracks on their way to the final stage (aka the sale). Leakage numbers vary, but according to Lisa Cramer nearly 80 percent of those who fall into the funnel are never brought to sales. On the bright side or perhaps a cautionary warning, 60 percent of leads who enter the funnel will end up purchasing within the next 24 months… just maybe not via that same funnel.  

With figures like these it’s no surprise we find all sorts of advice on how marketers can plug the holes of their own unique funnels. Just google, “plug leaky funnel” and you’ll see what comes back, a bucket load of funnel advice. 

Basics such as data analytics and understanding the Point of Loss (POL) and Point of Influence (POF) can help to identify and shore up the holes, and realistic genuine attempts should be made to do so. But at some point, acceptance of a leaky funnel is key to not obsessing over the holes and maintaining your sanity.   

David Lund of Marketing Executives Networking Group recognizes the inevitable nature of the leaky funnel and the necessity of accepting said leakage, but still offers these simple steps to increase sales even for a hole-riddled funnel:

• Put more total people in the funnel.  Your funnel still leaks, but more people in should mean more people out.  If only 1-5% of the people at the top of your funnel actually buy from you or sign up for your services, you need to first focus on improving your funnel rather than putting more people into it.
• Put more of the right people in the funnel.  You hope to attract and sell more of your target audience.  But, if you don’t clearly understand why they are choosing you, this approach will not be fully effective.
• Retain more of the right people in the funnel.  By slowing or stopping the leaks in your funnel, you will optimize your efforts to attract and retain more target customers.  This is usually a much more productive near-term effort versus just spending more on ads or offering promotions.

So, ideally, yes, all holes would be plugged and anyone who ever knowingly or unknowingly fell into our funnel would come out the proud owner of whatever product or service was for sale. But that is a myth, a dream straight out of “Sales-and-Marketing landia.” The truth is, despite all our efforts, there will always be holes. Always. But still we plug on!  

For more articles on sales and marketing, visit smstudy.com/articles/

http://www.smstudy.com/Article/how-I-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-leaky-funnel

The Rise of Organic Advertising on Snapchat

The Rise of Organic Advertising on Snapchat

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

There are 83 million Millennials. That is 83 million young adults that were born in the early 80s to late 90s, and 71 percent of those young adults check their social media websites every day. It only makes sense that companies have moved to social media when it comes to advertising their brands.

Snapchat, a company born in 2011, is now worth 18 billion dollars. So, ask the question. Go ahead. How did they do it? They learned how to monetize their product. Snapchat Discover is part of the latest app update. It provides companies with the ability to market their brand on the Stories menu. This not only eliminates the restriction of only being able to reach the people that personally follow a company but also costs 100 dollars CPM or cost per mille. For those who have no idea what that means, that is 100 dollars per 1,000 views. You can imagine how fast the money is being raked in when you consider there are 100 million daily active Snapchat users and the number is rapidly growing.

As fantastic as the new Snapchat Discover is, it doesn’t really assist companies that are not able to fork out large sums of money to reach the masses. Companies such as The Coca-Cola Company have figured out how to overcome this issue by handing the metaphorical reins over to Snapchat Influencer, Harris Markowitz. Snapchat Influencers are just your average Joes that have accumulated millions of followers by utilizing the app to it’s potential. The Coca-Cola Company partnered with Harris Markowitz to organically advertise their brand.

Markowitz has been providing weekly exclusive content for their Snapchat Story by, “reflecting the company's set mission: to refresh the world, to inspire moments of optimism and happiness, and to create value and make a difference. The Snapchat stories Coca-Cola creates refresh the organic advertisement world within the app by meeting all of their company missions in a creative way,” said Julian Gamboa, Lead Course Assistant at the University of California, Berkeley.

So not only do these snaps reach the followers of The Coca-Cola Company, but every single one of Markowitz’s 5 million followers has the opportunity to enjoy the engaging and entertaining Snap Story. By hiring Markowitz, The Coca-Cola Company went from promoting their brand to the few that have chosen to follow the company to having the brand viewed by millions of users virtually overnight. Other companies such as Taco Bell and Mashable have also jumped on the organic advertising bandwagon by partnering with Snapchat Influencers.

Partnering with an influencer on social media almost tricks viewers into thinking they watching their favorite Snapchat star’s Story and in the digital marketing world we like to call this native advertisement. According to Digital Marketing, book 3 in theSMstudy® Guide, “native advertising is a form of online advertising that blends in with its surroundings. The objective is to promote a company’s product or service in a way that is ‘native’ to the platform in which the message appears. Native ads are promotional pieces that are attempting to look like the material to which they are adjacent.”

The going rate for partnering with Snapchat influences varies as much as their online personalities, but there are best practices when it comes to negotiating a mutually beneficial agreement. Most influencers accept a flat fee. It simplifies the process for everyone and it is helpful for the allocation of funds months in advance (if need be). As Snapchat charges cost per mille, so do influences. For the most part. Influencers have also been known to ask for a percentage of the sale rather than flat compensation, as well as free products or services.

According to Ad Week, “Snapchat splits revenue with the media companies for ads on Discover channels, and those sponsorships can cost as much as $75,000 a day, say marketing execs. In other cases, brands like McDonald's cough up as much as $750,000 for daily official sponsorships.”

Companies like Boost Insider aids brands in finding the right influencer for them at the right budget. You can partner with an influencer for as little as 200 dollars, but, again, this number does depend on the amount of followers the influencer has. For small business, hiring an influencer is not out of the cards, it will drastically improve the way you organically use Snapchat and give you the fun of going native.

For more interesting articles about sales and marketing, visit www.smstudy.com/articles

http://www.smstudy.com/Article/The-Rise-of-Organic-Advertising-on-Snapchat

Is the Dancing Bear Threatening User Interface?

Is the Dancing Bear Threatening User Interface?

A “Dancing Bear” is very interesting and entertaining to watch, but the more you watch the more you think, what is the point?

Nicholas Griffin, regional director at Allen International equates a dancing bear to the digital experience. Everyone is looking for the digital experience: a computer-automated world that will get you what you want when you want it. But the more you think about it, what is the point?

Everything is right at your fingertips in the digital world, but that is until you open your mobile app and you can’t seem to navigate the app to save your life. Gone are the days where you could pick up a newspaper and skim through the pages until your eyes land on an article that tickles your fancy, welcome to the new age where that darn search button on your favorite news app appears to be hiding from you.

The information that you thought was right at your fingertips is actually not. And you’re not alone. Your customers are having the same experiences. So, what do you, as a company, to fix this problem for your customers?

The answer is quite simple really, look to SMstudy. According to Digital Marketing, book 3 in the SMstudy® Guide, “User interface refers to the quality of design, ease of navigation and responsiveness of an app or mobile site. An app or mobile site might perform all the functions and have all the features that customers want. However, if the graphic quality is low, or navigation is not intuitive, or the app or mobile site is slow to respond, then the perception of the app or mobile site from a user’s perspective is negatively impacted.”

In order to avoid the “Dancing Bear,” companies need to ensure their customers that they can do anything with the touch of a button and that button should be very easy to find. But don’t stop there. The app or mobile site also needs to be engaging. Which sounds difficult, but it’s really not. If you create content with your customers in mind rather than your business, the content will feel tailor made and will attract more customers. Visuals are processed 60,000 thousand times faster than text, so they are also a must.

But how do you know if your company has produced a product that will truly satisfy your customers? As noted in Digital Marketing, A/B testing can be very useful when a company is unsure whether their app or mobile website is, in fact, engaging, easy to navigate and performs all of the features their customers are looking for. The company can divide its’ budget between two or more design layouts and track the response rate.

Lucky for you the “Dancing Bear” is easy to evade if you keep a close eye on it, and for any future questions in regards to your sales and marketing needs visit www.SMstudy.com.

http://www.smstudy.com/Article/Is-the-Dancing-Bear-Threatening-User-Interface

Brand Perception

Brand Perception!

Brand perception refers to how prospective and current customers react to seeing or hearing about a company`s product or brand and how the company is perceived within the market. Leading organizations spend millions of dollars to create their most important intangible asset as it can be a decisive factor in the purchase funnel. Be it commodities or niche products, a positive brand perception always gives an edge against competitors.

Brand perception is not an outcome of a single interaction between the company and the customer but is created over a number of interactions before and after a purchase or even when no purchase is made. The various types of interactions include, but are not limited to, visiting the company`s website, visiting its stores or offices, meeting an employee, talking with customer support, experiencing or trying a product, or viewing an advertisement. Hence, companies try to control as many avenues of interaction as possible so that they convey an integrated message.

All organizations need to keep a tab on how their brand is perceived by the customers-both existing and potential. One of the prevalent ways to measure brand perception is to conduct surveys. Major metrics that are used to quantify the results of these surveys are:-

Brand Recall:- This metric is an indicator of how many customers or prospective customers mention a brand when a relevant cue is provided to them. Generally, respondents are asked unaided recall questions like Please name all the car brands you can think of, before being asked aided recall questions in which specific prompts are provided like Are you aware of brands A, B, C, and D?

Higher unaided recall is expected for established organizations as they already have a Brand Name and if their Marketing Campaigns are successful then the respondents should remember their brands without any further prompts. For upcoming brands it is better to set higher aided recall targets than unaided recall targets as they are still trying to establish their brand.

Brand Loyalty:- This metric is reflected by how many customers purchase a brand repeatedly. It indicates the commitment that customers have towards a brand and is the basis of a strong relationship between the brand and its customers. It can be measured by asking questions regarding purchase of other brands in the past like Have you purchased any other brand of packaged milk in the past 3 months or future purchase intention like Which brand of packaged milk are you considering to buy next. Another way to measure brand loyalty is to examine customer response to situations where the preferred brand is unavailable. Respondents are given various options like I will buy another brand which is available, I will go to another shop to search for my preferred brand, I will buy another variant of my preferred brand etc.

Share of Mind, Share of Heart and Net Promoter Score are some other metrics used for measuring Brand perception. These metrics can also help in identifying competitors and their brand perception.http://www.smstudy.com/Article/brand-perception

SMstudy and the Post-Advertising World

We recently read that “We are living in a post-advertising world.” The claim was made by John Horsley, director of Digital Doughnut, a global digital marketing community. Horsley should know, so we took notice.
Horsley explained his claim in a LinkedIn group forum: “Conversations have replaced campaigns, engagement trumps reach, and brands are no longer built by above-the-line agencies, but at every touchpoint the business has with its customers. And the thread that links all these elements is social media.” This resonates with us at SMstudy. We have included a lot about touchpoints, engagement and social media marketing in A Guide to the Sales and Marketing Body of Knowledge, also referred to as theSMstudy® Guide.
Horsley was using his claim to incite and invite members of the group to take part in a survey being conducted to explore the current status of companies and social media and contribute to his work “New Report: Social Media’s Impact on Customer Experience.” He says “businesses have been slow to respond, often hampered by outdated structures, siloed thinking and a lack of strategic understanding.” Now, that really resonates with us because we wrote an entire book on Marketing Strategy as one of the six aspects covered in the SMstudy® Guide and we offer certifications in marketing strategy.
His claim did not resonate so well with others, however. One group member commented, “Social media channels are simply another way to touch someone, as is and remains advertising. Effective communications usually consist of multichannel or cross channel strategies.” We had to agree with several points here. Our Digital Marketing book says, “Given the nature of the online world, which is constantly evolving and expanding—new channels are developing with greater frequency, and audiences are continuously exploring new sources of online content—digital marketers must regularly assess and reassess digital marketing channels for their effectiveness and applicability in helping achieve the company’s overall organizational goals and objectives.”
Social media provide many opportunities for delivering messages that advertise. Within Marketing Strategy whole sections have been dedicated to planning and developing social media as well as other digital channels.
The term “posting” (as it is used in advertising) comes not from posting mail but from a time when fences, street lamp poles, telephone posts and any available urban wall space were festooned with advertisements for products, shows, soon-to-arrive circuses and political candidates. When the rampant postings got out-of-hand, a new posting appeared saying, “Post No Bills.” Now, many marketing and advertising messages are being posted online and in social media. Perhaps we should say we’re living in a post-post-advertising world? Well … maybe not.
Another commenter added, “effective marketing communication is always a delicious idea (whatever it might be) served on many different (multichannel) dishes.” And that’s an idea we can relish.
To get more insights about sales and marketing, register for the free SMstudy subscription today - http://smstudy.com/Subscription/Free-Subscription

Acknowledgement: http://www.smstudy.com/Blog URL: http://www.smstudy.com/Article/SMstudy-and-the-Post-Advertising-World
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Sampling in Market Research

In statistical language, sampling is choosing the portion or subset of a population. A population is the entire group of objects having characteristics of interest under study. The subset of a population that is chosen for the study is known as a sample. In the context of market research, sampling means collecting opinions from a chosen segment of a large mass, to know the characteristics about the whole group.
The chosen sample must represent all or most of the features of the population from which it is chosen. To ensure that the chosen sample appropriately represents the population, a strategy is required. This strategy is known as a “sampling strategy.” The sampling strategy is a plan or strategy created to make sure that the sample of the population on which data will be collected is accurately representative of the group identified for study.
The task of sampling is undertaken when information regarding a process or product is not readily available, and analysis of the entire population on which the critical information is required is not feasible or possible (i.e., such an undertaking would be too time-consuming and too costly). Because sampling reduces costs and employs fewer human resources (among other benefits), it is commonly employed in most industries that require critical information regarding a process or product.
Sampling is also used when the data collection is a destructive process. For example, CDF Inc. is a mineral water manufacturer that produces bottled mineral water. The quality assurance team tests the quality standard of the mineral water by randomly selecting a sample of bottles taken from each production batch. In the testing process, they open the bottles and introduce chemicals into the contents, thus destroying the sample. These bottles will no longer be hygienic enough for sale and the water will be contaminated; testing the entire population of bottles would result in no revenue for the company, and therefore a sample is tested.
Researchers can choose from a number of different types of sampling strategies. The type of strategy chosen should appropriately suit the research objectives.
Sampling strategies are classified as either probability sampling or non-probability sampling.
Probability Sampling Strategies—Probability sampling strategies are the most reliable sampling strategies because the margin of error is minimal due to the statistical procedures used. In these strategies, every component in the population has an equal and independent opportunity to be chosen.
The four main methods of probability sampling are simple random sampling, systematic sampling, stratified sampling, and cluster sampling.
Non-probability Sampling Strategies—Non-probability sampling strategies are not as reliable as probability sampling strategies. The selection procedures in these strategies involve non-random methods. As a result, the subjects in the population do not have an equal chance of being selected as part of a sample. These types of sampling strategies are less likely to produce representative samples than probability sampling strategies. Regardless of this factor, many researchers have successfully used and continue to use these strategies. The three main strategies of non-probability sampling are Convenience, Quota, and Purposive.

Acknowledgement: http://www.smstudy.com/Blog URL: http://www.smstudy.com/Article/Sampling-in-Market-Research
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