Creating good quality, engaging eLearning doesn’t have to cost the earth. But it does require a healthy eLearning budget to be successful. From content curation and audience research to training needs analysis and beyond, there’s a lot to consider both before, during and after embarking on an eLearning project.
To get the most out of these endeavours, it’s important to start with an eLearning budget. A budget gives you parameters in which you are able to work and forces you to distinguish the must-haves from the nice-to-haves. Here are our 7 top tips for creating an effective eLearning budget.
7 Tips For Creating Your eLearning Budget
Be Realistic
We get it, you’ve got BIG plans for your eLearning content. But how realistic are those plans in practice?
It’s easy to get carried away in the planning stages and forget that blockbuster training needs a blockbuster budget. However, in doing this you run the risk of having to cut corners, resulting in underwhelming and ineffective training content all round.
That being said, lack of a mega budget doesn’t mean you can’t create something special! Before you get ahead of yourself, pinpoint exactly what you want your eLearning course to achieve. Then make a list of the ‘must-haves.’ But keep them short and realistic. Consider how you might be able to utilise the resources you already have in the time you’ve got and see how they fit into the big picture.
Breakdown The Costs
When you have your overall budget in mind, it’s time to break it down. Consider how much you are willing to spend on each ‘must-have’ element like audience research, content authoring tools, learning management systems, learning experience platforms and design.
It’s important to leave no stone unturned in this stage of planning an eLearning budget. By not asking the right questions you run the risk of missing something vital, which could see you going over budget.
Our best advice is to ask the people involved in the project exactly what they will need, from time estimates to tools. You might find you have skills or resources available that will help you cut costs. Alternatively, you might discover that a task you thought was relatively straight-forward is actually more time-consuming and costly than you imagined.
Whatever the outcome, asking the right questions before you get the ball rolling on your project will give you a better idea of how long it will take, how much it will cost, and what will be needed to deliver the type of learning experiences you envisage.
Give Yourself Wiggle Room
When building out your budget and timescales, you should give yourself a bit of wiggle room for unforeseen circumstances. While we recommend planning as far as you can, some things you just can’t anticipate – at least not exactly.
So, give yourself room to move should something unexpected happen. It’s likely that, upon testing your new content, feedback gives rise to further changes and bug fixes. This is completely normal, but if you don’t plan for it you might find you’ve painted yourself into a corner, leaving you with no time or money to fix them.
To avoid this, build time and allocate budgets for snagging, modifications, bug fixes, design changes and tweaks. The more robustly you plan for scenarios like this, the better prepared for them you’ll be if and when they occur.
Factor In Maintenance
It’s tempting to think that once your eLearning course is built you don’t have to worry about it again. But this is sadly not the case. Effective eLearning should be updated regularly to keep it fresh and engaging for users.
Maintaining your eLearning content is a necessary part of the lifecycle. So, when planning your budget, consider how long your finished product might last before it needs updating. This could be weeks, months, or years depending on the content.
For example, a compliance piece may only need updating when legislation changes – which is likely to be a few years in the future. Conversely, bespoke eLearning courses around a company process might require more frequent changes to reflect what’s happening in the business.
Updates take time and effort. There’s re-scripting, re-building, re-animation, re-design…the list goes on! So, be sure to factor in maintenance costs when planning your eLearning budget.
Choose Off-The-Shelf
There are some topics where bespoke eLearning might not be the most cost-effective choice. For example, compliance training such as Fire Safety or GDPR is based around set information that doesn’t change from business to business.
You might find that it is much healthier for your budget to invest in off-the-shelf eLearning solutions for more generic content. This option is often cheaper than bespoke, not because of lack of quality but due to the fact that providers can create one course and sell it at scale.
These plug and play modules are ready to go as soon as you buy them and can be rolled out through your existing LMS or LXP with ease. While there are some areas where bespoke is best for learners, in some cases the path of least resistance is the most effective and the cheapest!
Use What You Already Know
If you already have an eLearning strategy and budget, use the data you have to understand what you need.
It’s important to remember that eLearning isn’t just a tick box exercise. Instead, each course should have a clear learning outcome in mind to help you measure its effectiveness. Look back and evaluate the performance of old eLearning initiatives and analyse how much you spent in different areas.
Seeing both costs and results side by side will help to inform future decisions. What’s more, you’ll have a ready-made cost sheet at your disposal which will help your budget remain realistic. You might also be able to spot areas where you can improve or make savings.
Reuse And Repurpose Learning Assets
It’s likely you already have a bunch of tools, content and assets you can use from the outset that will save you considerable time and money.
With this in mind, take time to audit the resources you already have. For example, you might have worksheets, presentations, videos or other media that you currently use in face-to-face training that can be easily translated into eLearning content.
If you already have a learning and development initiative in place, you’re probably sitting on a goldmine of modules, tutorials, how-to guides, quizzes, templates and more that can be reused or repurposed to save time and money!
Get Help With Your Budget
There are many factors to consider when creating an eLearning budget. But, with some astute planning and a dose of realism, there is lots you can do to maximise the budget you do have without compromising on quality or the goal of your initiatives.
Here at DBLX, we produce off the shelf and bespoke eLearning courses for businesses looking to level up their L&D initiatives. Should you need some help in planning an eLearning budget, our team of experts are on hand to help you understand what you need to create effective courses that deliver on user experience, accessibility and your overarching training needs. Contact us to find out more.