Posts tagged with "Online Booking"

Training management software provider accessplanit completes its series of insights into online booking with a look at how trainers can get the very best from their system once it has been implemented…

Welcome to the world of eCommerce.

Your training company has launched itself into the global market with an online booking system; yesterday you sold training programmes to anyone who calls into the office, today you are exposed to anyone using the internet.

Sounds great, but the journey into the worldwide web cannot end here. To ensure you get the very best from an online booking system it’s essential that training companies implement an online marketing strategy that ensures good quality traffic is flowing to the website at all times. In effect, it means that the shop can be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

To help training businesses to get one foot on the online marketing ladder, and help push the right levels of traffic through to the website, we have compiled this three-step guide…

Step 1: Think about where the traffic is going to come from

Too often social media platforms are presented as the silver bullet for online marketing. It simply isn’t the case. However, the likes of Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin can play an instrumental role when they are part of an overall strategy. In this first step you should see social media as a vehicle to collect potential customers and channel them towards your website.

Set up the social media platforms you are comfortable using, let’s start with Twitter. Then think about the kind of targets you have for your training programmes, who do you want to come and book a place on your programme? Then using the Twitter search function type in some keywords associated with your target market. So, if you offer leadership training and specialise in the hospitality sector, search for key companies you want to target in this sector. Follow all relevant accounts, and track who follows you back.

You are building a community of followers – but now you need to grow that list by passing on some valuable information…


Step 2: Kick off a content campaign

Well-written and valuable content is one of the key players in a results-driven online marketing plan, and is a great way to engage with target audience. The websites that attract large traffic numbers are the ones that give visitors a reason to come in the first place.

Think about topics for two or three blogs per week. Each time you write and post on to your website, send a teaser with a shortened link (shorten at https://bitly.com/) out on your social media channels. Ask them to comment and create an open environment for discussion.

If the content is relevant, interesting and engaging to your target market, the chances are it’ll spark enough excitement for your ‘social community’ to click through and read the rest...which is conveniently placed on your website.

It’s not just content that will spark that interest, great offers and promotions are likely to have a similar impact. Why not try a combination of both?

The question now, is: How do I get them stay on the site and book online?

Step 3: Converting visitors into customers

Getting clever with the way you link up your pages is crucial to completing this simple but effective online marketing strategy to get the maximum value from your new online booking form.

This is really about channelling traffic to your booking page, so there needs to be two things in place:

1. A live ‘click here’ link for visitors to seamlessly land on your booking page from your blog
2. A good reason for them to make the switch

If your blog is about sales training, for instance, and you have developed an interesting debate around the most effective ways to ‘close’ the sale – there should be outlets to the booking page throughout the piece. For example, the ‘outro’ at the end: If you would like to develop your sales skills with a proven trainer, click here and sign up for one of the last few places on our next one-day training programme.

You can also work the links into the copy (note, we’ve italicised where the link should appear): “Good quality training providers will demonstrate this point in their training programmes, giving delegates ample opportunity to develop their skills…”

These three steps will give your training business a great start in online marketing and certainly help to develop a strategy that gets your new online booking system showing some value.

Getting it right takes time and the finer detail is always dependent on the market you are selling into. However, the fundamentals (social media, content and effective linking between pages) always remain the same.

The online booking system is just one part of the accessplanit Course Manager software – you can DEMO the features by clicking here and emailing the team or by calling 0845 543 0229.

• Date of launch – it would be wise to consider when a good time to launch the new system would be, there is no denying that an online booking system will streamline processes and help build a far more effective training business – but the initial launch will need attention and time. Don’t take on too much at once and look for a gap in work.
• How staff will fill their spare time – something our clients have said to us in the past is that they are less reliant on administrative tasks being carried out from employees once the online booking system is in place. Think about what else those individuals could be doing and how best they could spend their new found time – don’t let it become downtime.
• You’re an online store now – take a look at Amazon, they work tirelessly to build traffic to their site and ensure that people buy when they land. Is your site geared up to be an online store? You might want to consider how much traffic you get to your site and how valuable it would be to increase that traffic.

In a world where everything is 24 hours, from the news to food shopping and from sport to entertainment, I often wonder why more businesses aren’t prepared to take the leap and be open for every single second of the year.

Then it dawns on me, we all have personal lives and perhaps like to have some sort of boundary between the working hours and the non-working ones. It’s no great surprise, and I’m not unearthing any great news when I say that the biggest influencer over this 24 hour culture is technology, it has made it possible and safe to do many more things at any time of the day, regardless of where in the world you are and which timezone you find yourself in – and to this extent, businesses are not too shy at coming forward. Because, if technology allows you to get a happy balance between being a 24 hour business, while not actually being sat in front of a computer or behind a desk for the entire time, most people would be content, right?

I heard a story recently about a local theatre that was struggling to cope, it urgently needed modernisation and needed to attract a new crowd. Its future was grim. Today, in a very short space of time, the theatre has managed to turn things around, and it’s because of the way it has embraced the digital world. Theatres are traditional businesses, and probably not the first to jump onto the latest technological advances to help them find success, but this one tweaked the way it operated and addressed the fact that it spent so much money on admin staff who sat around for hours on end waiting and hoping for a busy period. It rarely came.

Instead, the business (it’s OK to call a theatre a business, they are not there purely to entertain, they need to be effective and successful too) integrated an online booking system and allowed visitors to book at any time of the day they wanted.

In other words, they tapped into the 24 hour audience, and it saved their lives. This is a theatre that recognised that the best way for its staff to build the business back up is not by sitting around and waiting to take a booking, it’s by using their creative flare and ensuring that the theatre is producing shows that people want to see. It’s also about channelling that creativity and passion to market the theatre effectively, and a simple and basic system like online booking allowed them to do that.
This is a scenario mirrored in many industries, not least the on that I work in, the training arena.

All too often passionate and dedicated trainers spend their time carrying out administration work and are forced to abandon their post, where they should be developing new training programmes and getting companies and delegates excited about their latest courses. There is training management software that automate every part of the administration aspect and reach out to new customers in the 24-7 world, and in turn allow them the freedom to do what they do best.

The software’s out there, and if any training or course provider would like to demo it to get an idea of what it can do, just click here and let me know.

If you want to hear what other training companies have achieved from using the accessplanit software, which includes online booking and automatic generation of certificates, happy sheets and invoices, just get in touch today by calling 0845 5430229 or email enquiries@accessplanit.com.

The definition of efficiency savings is providing and maintaining your existing level of services at lower cost.  AccessPlanit’s Training Management Software will ensure you do more with less and will increase your efficiency savings through:

• Significantly reduced administrative burden and cost achieved through automation
• Convenient, 24/7 customer access for booking and online payment
• Increased conversion rate through your website resulting in increased sales
• Reduced cost of bookings
• Automated billing and payment
• Increased staff efficiency in dealing with customer enquiries and queries
• Improved customer experience and interactions
• Reduced marketing costs
• Increased control through comprehensive, real-time management reporting
• Increased control of resources and costs
• Staffing cost savings and operational efficiencies
• Regular updates meaning you have the most up to date version at all times

 Do more with less, one system does the job of many…

• Course and Event Scheduling
• Administration and Correspondence
• Customer Records
• Work Flow Management
• Online Booking and Registrations
• Secure Online Payment and eCommerce
• Booking Management
• Resources
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
• Bulk Email and Marketing Initiatives
• Finance Management
• Reporting
• Website Integration   & Client Portals
• Feedback and Evaluation

To learn more about how you can make efficiency savings then please contact AccessPlanit and we would be more than happy to discuss your concerns.

It’s the 21 ^st century; an era of wireless connectivity, touch-screen technology and automation is at its peak. Yet many companies still fail to recognise the benefits of such technologies that, when embraced within your business, are proven to streamline operations and improve efficiency throughout.

• Online booking systems are becoming increasingly prevalent in today’s society across various industries; the training sector, in particular, provides a whole host of online booking benefits for companies and consumers, in contrast to old-fashioned face-to-face, telephone and fax exchanges... 

• Customers can instantly check availability rather than have to check over the phone or via email. Staff save valuable time dealing with bookings and can spend their time elsewhere on more pressing issues. Clients can check availability and book instantly, thus completing a booking without having to wait for staff to confirm. This is exceptionally useful in unsociable hours where staff aren’t working – meaning your company is open for business 24/7.

• Because customers conduct their own transactions and receive confirmations, they are free to make changes during or even after the process, with a minimum of complicating factors – providing them with ultimate peace of mind.

• Training companies can protect themselves with online booking systems because many systems require payment upfront or a credit card guarantee to hold the reservation. You’re also safeguarded against non-payment which saves time having to chase up invoices.

• Training providers have an up-to-the minute head count of purchases and bookings. Precise head counts can circumvent the problem of underbooking to avoid disappointing customers, or overbooking to make sure a sufficient number of actual transactions go through.

• Websites can be updated instantly with live information pulled directly from your booking system. No more waiting for your website developer to update your site with new course dates and availability.

Click here to find out more about our Course Booking System..