Combining Learning And Development With Marketing: 4 Steps To Follow
According to the Bersin by Deloitte Research Bulletin, "The Real Challenge with Learner Engagement: L&D Has a Marketing Problem", a staggering 65% of Learning and Development (L&D) professionals report that their learners are not aware of the learning opportunities available at their organizations.
What’s the point of working day and night to plan, design, and implement an LMS powered, corporate training program just to have your users forget about its existence after the first few weeks of launch? You worked so hard to give people what they wished for, yet nobody is participating.
To boost engagement levels, and bring your LMS initiative under the spotlight, you have to treat your organizational members, both learners, and decision makers, as prospective customers who must be lured to your product.
"People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it." – Simon Sinek
Once your LMS is launched, you need to hype it up, showcase it in a positive light, communicate it’s value, connect with your audience, and increase product loyalty. Sounds a lot like what a marketer would do right?
Here’s how you can market your LMS initiative to your audience to drive usage levels and boost awareness.
1. Analyze Your Audience
First, identify and analyze your target audience. Categorize all internal and external users that will use the LMS into 5 categories.
Namely:
- Administrators.
- Builders.
- Instructors.
- Learners.
- Key influencers.
Each of these groups has unique needs, and will require communication that is relevant to their needs. Here’s an example list of implementation needs per category:
- Administrators.
Implementation planning/set-up expectations, detailed system training, access to technical help etc. - Builders.
Design expectations, detailed system training, compatibility with existing content etc. - Instructors.
Instructor expectations. Detailed system training, access to technical help, system benefits as opposed to current process—Instructor level. - Learners.
Launch date, system training, access to technical help, confidence in the system, ease of use, system benefits, accessibility options etc. - Key Influencers.
The business value of the LMS, role in adoption process etc.
2. Identify Communication Channels
There are various communication channels available these days. It’s up to you to pick those that will work best for your organization. The path of least resistance will be to use channels that are already being used by your organization.
Examples include your intranet, corporate blog, Slack, Emails, Skype, Whatsapp groups, or other social collaboration tools. You could even use face to face meetings in order engage your employees, and get your message across.
3. Create Campaigns
This is where things get fun and creative. Now that you have picked communication channels, it’s time to leverage different marketing and communication tactics to catch the attention of your audience.
For example, to market your LMS initiative to your learners, design creative and attractive messages, to showcase new learning opportunities introduced by your LMS. Similarly, communication of progress updates and ROI calculation can be communicated to key influencers to keep them in the loop.
4. Listen To Feedback
Communicating your messages to your audience is the essence of marketing. However, in your case, marketing should be a 2-way street. Rolling out company-wide emails about learning courses without asking for feedback isn’t the best thing to do. Feedback is key to potential improvements to your program. Consider adding an anonymous feedback form at the end of your messages that records responses on what is working, and what is not.
And more importantly, don’t be afraid of negative responses! Instead, work with your users to resolve any issues that they may have faced. Once solved, share such success stories across departments to highlight the versatility of your LMS. After all, you have the power to accelerate adoption rates by promoting the effectiveness of the system—Why not use it?
In Summary
Making marketing a strategic part of your L&D program is a surefire way to get your audiences engaged and interested in your LMS. The relationship between you, and your targets, must change from selection to seduction.
Want to learn more about how to implement an LMS in your organization? Read the article '4 Key Steps to Implement a Blended Corporate Training Program' where you will find a variety of implementation techniques to integrate traditional classroom learning with LMS-powered online learning for your corporate training deliverables.
