Call them rules of thumb or guiding principles, best practices should be established standards a company sets in order to serve as points of reference for all project developments. At The Learning House, Inc, dedication to best practices is an important part of our mission to offer proven, easy-to-use solutions for all of your online education needs.

Online education — still a burgeoning branch of the education market — is a perfect example of an industry that greatly benefits from the use of best practices. Best practices — established within a company — are designed to assist all employees in structuring new policies, procedures and projects that align with both the company’s goals and successfully-proven business models. They are also designed to provide a self-assessment framework for pre-existing practices. As many colleges, universities, businesses and other organizations turn to distance learning as a legitimate tool of instruction, they look for guidance in the proper path toward future online success.

At Learning House, we are a total online education solutions provider that helps colleges and universities offer and manage their online degree programs. Therefore, the implementation of best practices is a daily exercise. Best practices help us to identify disparities, develop solutions, grow online enrollment and, ultimately, craft a customized path of performance excellence. In fact, we go so far as to offer all the resources and knowledge needed to design and customize each component of an effective online campus.

However, Learning House’s expert knowledge of online education solutions is not limited to online course and campus development and management. Learning House features a whole line of marketing services that range from traditional marketing (e.g., Web sites, posters, brochures, press releases, testimonials) to advanced marketing (e.g., pay-per-click and pay-per-lead ads, banner ads, lead generation, search engine optimization and social media optimization). Our complete package of marketing services is based upon the most effective promotion strategies — otherwise known as Best Practices for Marketing an Online Education Program — and is proven to ensure our clients’ online education programs receive the maximum amount of attention while producing the most enrollments.

We believe the best practices for online education marketing include:

1. Define your market / design your message
2. Design a complete online program (100 percent of courses delivered online)
3. Assign a qualified /effective program coordinator
4. Understand the adult learner market (different approach than traditional student market)
5. Create a 12-36 month marketing plan — choose most effective marketing mix
6. Understand the style of Web content for marketing purposes (search engine optimization, community marketing practices). Writing for the Web varies from academic writing (scholarly research, referencing, etc)
7. Understand running an online business — results / revenue / enrollment based
8. Determine the value of a new student ($1000 / new student) — can you afford it?
9. Create an effective online campus Web site — visible on the Web, easy to navigate, containing all useful information for a student to make an educated decision
10. Follow up with incoming leads from multiple sources — provide a timely response — track sources of leads / provide feedback for each lead generation source

If applied correctly, these practices will bring any online education program to the forefront of the academic market and enhance student enrollments. Fortunately, you are not alone in this process. The Marketing Department at Learning House assists clients in targeting the appropriate local, regional and national markets of nontraditional students. We work with our clients and use the most effective marketing mix that will produce the best results. Learn more now about the comprehensive online education solutions provided by The Learning House, Inc.