How to successfully promote a Learning Management System (LMS) within your organisation

However, all the time and effort that goes into choosing the right LMS will be for nothing if your employees aren’t motivated to use it.

While you can mandate your workforce to undertake formal training, the way to get the most out of a good LMS is to encourage a culture of learning within your organisation and incentivise employees to learn whenever and wherever they like.

To do that, you need to promote your LMS internally so that the entirety of the organisation is on the same page about how best to use the system, and what they can get out of using it.

If you’ve just invested in a new Learning Management System, are thinking about doing so, or even have an existing LMS that you’d like to encourage employees to engage more with, here are six useful tips to help you get your workforce excited about using it.

1. Promote your LMS to employees ahead of time

If you’ve yet to invest in a Learning Management System, or know which one you’re getting but have yet to get it up and running, don’t wait until it’s already set up to tell people about it.

You should start internal messaging about your LMS, its benefits and how to use it ahead of time – several months beforehand if possible. Continue to promote the LMS regularly up until its launch date, and beyond – the points below will give you some ideas about internal messaging you can run, and tactics you can use to get people interested and inform them about the new system.

Even if you’ve already got your LMS installed, these ideas can be used to give it a new lease of life.

2. Carry out an internal marketing campaign

Promoting your LMS to employees within your organisation is just the same as trying to sell any product – it requires good marketing. So, approach promotion of your Learning Management System like a marketing campaign. If you already have an internal marketing team, co-ordinate with them to develop and plan messaging around your LMS; if you don’t have an internal team, consider setting one up for this purpose.

Here are some ideas for ways to “market” your LMS internally:

• A presentation – This could be tied in with a hands-on workshop (see #3) or presented separately. If you have a lot of remote workers, consider running it as an online webinar
• Videos – Either how-to videos, or testimonials from other learners
• Emails – Design some engaging, eye-catching promotional emails to send round to your organisation. You can use these to sell employees on the benefits of the LMS, and also to promote any events (like workshops) or feedback sessions
• Team leaders – Make sure that the managers of your internal teams are sold on the LMS. Make it easy for them to understand the course objectives, format, and time requirement, and most importantly, get their buy-in on the system so that they will champion it within their teams.

As mentioned, this “campaign” can start several months ahead of when you roll out the LMS, and continue until it’s deployed. Of course, don’t let the messaging drop off after that – you should continue to remind your organisation at regular intervals about the learning opportunities available to them, perhaps offering refresher tips or videos.

3. Run a workshop

One of the best ways to get your organisation engaged with your LMS and help them understand how it works is through a hands-on demonstration. Set up a workshop – or several, depending on the size of your business – to run through the new system and explain its benefits.

Some things that you might cover in an LMS workshop include:

• A brief overview of the system and its key features
• Case studies – share a success story of your LMS (for example, a course that saw great engagement and resulted in a measurable change within the organisation) to get people excited about what it can do
• The different types of content hosted in your LMS – e.g. recorded webinars, live training events, videos, courses and resources
• Technical benefits – does it work on mobile? Can you download resources offline for remote learning? Make sure to highlight ways that your system enables learning anywhere, at any time
• Social features – many Learning Management Systems have social sharing or gamification features that will act as an incentive for your teams to complete training and share their achievements.

Report: How Marketers Learn

4. Identify early adopters

Once your LMS has been in use for a few months, single out some early adopters who are engaged with the system – or those who have a particular facility with it – and encourage them to help their colleagues become familiar with the software.

This could take the form of one-to-one sessions, informal group training, or simply being on-hand to provide help and advice.

5. Gamify and introduce incentives

Gamification is a great way to incentivise your employees to complete the e-learning material. As previously mentioned, many LMS have gamification features like points, rewards or leaderboards built in, but even if your system doesn’t have these features, you can keep score internally, create leaderboards, and offer rewards to encourage a bit of friendly competition.

Don’t forget to celebrate your employees’ achievements – and not just those employees who are most engaged or successful, but those who have just started out, or who are making a regular effort.

6. Collect feedback and testimonies

It’s important to collect feedback from your employees on how they’re finding the training, so offer them the opportunity to give it after they complete a module, course or session. Make sure you take on board and address any criticisms. (You can also set up a dedicated internal helpline or support email address for the LMS, to help troubleshoot problems as they arise).

For those employees who give positive feedback, ask for permission to share their testimonies (anonymously if they’re uncomfortable with being named). You can even ask if they would be comfortable with recording a short video testimony or speaking about their experiences with the LMS at the next workshop or company event.

By implementing these tips, you can start to build a culture of continuous learning and development within your organisation. For more on the business case for developing an L&D strategy, complete with expert tips and findings from a survey of more than 200 senior marketers, subscribers can download Econsultancy’s best practice report, ‘How Marketers Learn‘.