Weleda Online Academy: comprehensive training platform for professionals

The Weleda Online Academy is a platform offering training courses on Weleda products and the most important topics relating to natural beauty and health. The courses are aimed at a specialist audience, primarily pharmacies and specialist retailers, but also doctors and alternative practitioners.

Ms. Seibold, you have been running the Weleda Online Academy since 2015. What motivated you to set up an online academy back then?

Weleda has always been committed to training professionals. It is extremely important to us that they are fully informed about our products so that they can in turn provide their patients and customers with the best possible advice. In addition to face-to-face training, we wanted to offer our target group training courses that they could conveniently access from home or on the go.

What format do the courses at the academy take?

In addition to short instructional videos, our online offering consists primarily of live webinars. This means that a speaker gives a presentation and participants tune in live from home or on the go. Participants can see both the speaker and their presentation. Following the live event, the webinars are also available on demand in the online academy. In addition, the accompanying documents are available for download.

Who hosts the webinars?

Our webinars are held by experts in the fields of natural cosmetics and anthroposophic medicine. Some of them are employees from our own company. However, most of them are doctors and pharmacists who are intensively involved with our products and related topics.

What is particularly important to you about the online academy?

There are several points: First of all, it was important to us that the academy was our own platform and that everything was designed in the Weleda look and feel and tailored precisely to our needs. In addition, we want our training courses to be an experience for the participants. We therefore rely on high-quality webinars that are produced in a professional studio. Our training courses thrive on our instructors, who all have a wealth of experience and charisma. This comes across very well in this format.

The most important thing for us is that, even though the training courses take place online, we don't have to forego interaction with our participants. Our webinars offer numerous opportunities for this.

What exactly does interaction with participants look like in your webinars?

First, there is the polls feature: the presenter can send polls of various types to the participants. After the participants have voted live, the results are displayed directly in the webinar and can be discussed. We use this, for example, to ask participants about their experiences in certain areas. This allows the presenter to better respond to the audience in the webinar.

Participants can also ask the speaker questions via a question box. These can then be answered live in the webinar by the speaker, or one of our employees will respond directly via the question box. The questions our participants ask are very important to us. Feedback from our customers is a key component in the continuous improvement of our products.

What do you think are the success factors for webinars?

The most important thing, of course, is the content, which must be relevant to our target group. It is important to have a concept that is reflected in every webinar—just as it is with face-to-face training.

In order to convey the content, it is important to have authentic speakers. They do not have to be professionals in front of the camera. The important thing is that they feel comfortable presenting in front of an audience or on camera and are able to convey their extensive expertise well.

From a technical standpoint, we are convinced that the opportunities for participants to interact with experts make our webinars particularly attractive. We also focus on providing the highest quality image and sound.

What feedback do you receive from participants?

The feedback is very positive and motivates us anew after every webinar.

People who have already attended a face-to-face training course are now looking forward to seeing the speakers on camera. But it also works the other way around: we regularly gain new face-to-face participants who previously only knew us through the webinars.

Participants also appreciate the interactive content and the contributions using a wide variety of media, which makes it varied and entertaining. However, a product experience is also essential for webinars, which is why each participant receives a small product package from us. This is also very well received, as it allows participants to experience the product despite the medium.