E-learning is big business, projected to generate nearly $400 billion in revenue by 2026. But if you want to take advantage of this period of tremendous growth in the e-learning industry, your customers need to know how to find your company and where and how to purchase your courses. Online e-commerce is one important avenue that you will want to implement to take advantage of this opportune moment, and Shopify is a particularly powerful, highly functional, and immensely user-friendly e-commerce solution. Before you set up your virtual storefront, though, there are a few tips and tricks that you should know to take full advantage of all that Shopify has to offer.
Why Shopify?
Nowadays, almost anyone with a secure, high-speed internet connection can set up a digital storefront. But platforms like Shopify can give you the tools that you need to manage your online commercial operations more effectively and to ensure that your digital store stands out from those of your competitors.
Above all, Shopify provides a stable and secure platform from which you can more easily scale your e-commerce operations, manage your inventory, promote your content, and reach (and serve) your clients. You can leverage the site to showcase your wares, acquire customers through targeted marketing and promotions, and deftly manage accounts. Shopify’s management and marketing tools enable you to deliver the kind of personalized, specialized customer service that’s essential for capturing new customers and keeping them.
In fact, this may be why Shopify is one of the most popular and prolific platforms for e-commerce. The site offers superb e-commerce functionality and support on the backend, equipping you with the tools that you need to manage your virtual store.
If you’re new to e-commerce, you might feel intimidated by the prospect of setting up your own virtual storefront. The good news is that Shopify makes it easy, providing customizable templates that enable you to create and launch your e-store within minutes. The interface is fairly intuitive, and you’ll find numerous design and style options to suit your particular brand. Once your e-store is set up on a Shopify-hosted platform, you can easily monitor and manage your virtual store from there, such as by leveraging the Shopify/Firmwater LMS integration.
Customizing Your Shopify Store
If you’ve been in the e-learning business for a while, you know that your customers are likely to be highly diverse, so you need a diversified and holistic strategy to reach them. Whether you’re selling annual recertification e-course bundles or new workplace training content to established B2B customers, such as recertification courses for security guards or updated training on workplace anti-sexual harassment and discrimination policies, you’ll need a range of approaches to reach your clients wherever they may be.
That’s the beauty of the Shopify platform. Depending on the plan that you choose, you’ll have multichannel selling opportunities, including website, blog, and social media integrations. Ultimately, that will provide you with the flexibility that you need to optimize your customer outreach.
For example, you can leverage Shopify’s email marketing capacities to inform established clients of new product lines and e-course updates. You can also use your Shopify-hosted website or blog to introduce new and prospective customers to your business.
Perhaps most importantly, the Shopify platform is a mobile-first system, meaning its applications are designed for optimal performance on mobile devices. Whether your customers are shopping for courses on their PCs, smartphones, or tablets, they’ll always be able to find your Shopify store.
Shopify Integration with Firmwater LMS
You can have the best e-training courses in the world and the most robust online storefronts and still lose customers if you can’t take them easily from e-store to e-learning.
The Shopify integration with the Firmwater LMS gives your customers immediate access to the content that they’ve just purchased. With one click, they’re taken from Shopify to their new courses hosted on the Firmwater LMS. That ease of access and use will ensure the kind of stellar customer experience that keeps them coming back for more.
With the Firmwater LMS integration, you link products in your Shopify store to the corresponding courses in the LMS. Once you have created a new product in your Shopify store, you can link it to all the relevant courses in the Firmwater LMS.
Similarly, the Firmwater/Shopify integration also enables you to easily control access to your courses. For example, your customers can purchase a seat to a course for themselves or buy multiple seats and invite others to the course via email. As the Shopify store admin, you can use the integration to establish the necessary parameters, such as a time limit on when those seats need to be assigned to learners and how long they maintain access to the course.
Another advantage of the integration is that you can easily bundle the courses offered in your Shopify store using Shopify bundle apps. For example, you can offer volume discounts and promote related courses by selling various course combinations or collections at reduced rates.
Tailor Product Promotions to Client Needs
Selling your products on Shopify means that you can leverage all its powerful tools to maximize your marketing and targeted customer outreach. For example, Shopify analytics can help you understand the unique needs, habits, and behaviors of diverse customer segments.
In this way, you can capitalize on a new and important trend in marketing: the business-to-person (B2P) model. With B2P, you’re truly harnessing the power and opportunity of the customer-centric business model that consumers expect today. You’ll be pouring rocket fuel on your revenue and customer growth because you’ll be aligning your business to the needs of your target market. There’s no better way to drive customer acquisition and loyalty than to make your clients feel like your business is tailor-made to serve them.
For example, Shopify enables you to sell and promote products and direct how courses are found, presented/previewed, promoted, and purchased. For B2B, B2C, and B2P clients, you can leverage your Shopify store to whet their appetite for your products. For instance, you can use “seed” content, including course previews, samples, and free or discounted trials, to drive customer awareness, interest, and demand.
Take Advantage of Shopify Apps
Shopify isn’t just a marketing and selling powerhouse. Your Shopify account also gives you access to important tools to help you engage and understand your existing and prospective customers. For instance, you can use the Shopify apps to create platforms for customer reviews and engagement. These have been shown to dramatically increase revenues.
Shopify also provides SMS tools that can help you take customer engagement and outreach to the next level. With SMS, you can communicate immediately and directly with prospective and established customers, including following up on abandoned carts and completed purchases. This will ensure that you’re helping customers complete that coveted journey from consideration to purchase completion. Best of all, with the kind of immediate access that tools such as SMS provide, you can more easily identify and resolve potential issues, either with the product or the purchasing process, that might hinder completed sales. For instance, depending on your Shopify plan, apps, and settings, you can choose to be notified if a potential customer abandons their cart and can reach out to them via SMS.
Similarly, Shopify’s analytics enable you to monitor visitors’ behavior, including how many go to your Shopify store, how much time they spend there, and what store pages they visit. This can help you identify the products (and topics) generating the greatest amount of interest. For example, if visitors are quickly leaving your site, this could indicate that you are using the wrong keywords to bring prospects to your Shopify store and that they are not finding what they expected. This information will help you shift and optimize your SEO, marketing, and even product development strategies.
The Takeaway
There may be many e-commerce platforms out there, but there’s only one Shopify. Whether you’re looking to launch your business or have your mind set on growth, Shopify integrated with the Firmwater LMS is a powerful tool that can help you reach your customers where they are. These platforms ensure that you’re providing your customers with the exceptional shopping and learning experience that will keep them coming back for more!
Here at Firmwater, we don’t just sell an LMS for training providers. We partner with our clients, giving them the tools and insights they need to implement the best practices in e-learning course development, growth, and delivery. We care too much about our customers’ businesses to have them wade through forums and chatbots for help.
Ready to use an LMS that’s designed for the way YOU work, with a team dedicated to YOUR needs? Book a no-obligation consultation directly with our team today!