Put The Learner First With Learning Campaigns

L&D professionals are often order-takers and as a result, we create one-off learning solutions that are quickly put together with no real thought or engagement. If a marketer were to reach out to a prospect once, because they are on our website or filled in a form, and never be in contact again after that, what do you think would happen? Most likely, nothing. The prospect isn’t engaged, we didn’t understand her needs and pain points, we can’t deliver valuable content to move her along in the marketing funnel and we won’t be able to make the sale in the end. Take this scenario and flip it over to L&D: we take an order, offer a training, the learner comes, sees, takes a quiz, and leaves. That’s the end of the training, the engagement and knowledge sharing.

What is a Marketing Campaign?

In order for marketing to not lose any prospective clients, they leverage campaigns. A campaign is simply a defined series of activities using various marketing channels and media to deliver content. It isn’t just the use of email, advertising or social media, it also includes word of mouth and influencer marketing. Campaigns can have different goals such as increasing awareness and engagement, building a brand image, introducing a new product or increasing sales. Marketers usually go through a number of steps to get started:

1. Set campaign goals and measures of success
2. Define the target audience
3. Develop a clear message
4. Review and select the right type of media
5. Track success
6. Make adjustments as needed

Create Campaigns to Engage Learners

Back to L&D, what does all of this have to do with learning? Marketers are excellent in planning quarters ahead and thinking about how to engage prospects and moving them through the funnel with content that resonates with where they currently are in their purchasing decision: are they just looking around and want to learn more? Are they already more informed and need a deeper dive on a product? Or are they ready to buy but need just a little bit more convincing? Based on their needs, marketing offers them content just-in-time that is relevant for them.

Taking a closer look at the steps marketers take when creating campaigns, you will see that L&D professionals follow a very similar process: needs analysis (set goals, define target audience and decide on delivery channels), develop content (develop message) and evaluate success (track success). The difference is that In L&D, we often react to immediate needs (that often are not really training needs) and create ad-hoc content that doesn’t resonate with the learner, let alone engage the learner. We don’t plan ahead and even if we do, we look at one learning initiative as a point in time, rather than an ongoing engagement piece. The other challenge is that we are often asked to create eLearning and are then given the content, meaning the delivery channel is chosen for us. Imagine a marketer would decide on the delivery channel before even looking at the target audience!

Think About the Learner First

Instead of being told what delivery channel to use, leverage the steps a marketer takes in creating a campaign, relay it back to what you already do every day, and think about the learner first. How can you engage the learner, and what other delivery channels besides eLearning can you use to teach a learner about a new product or service? How can you space out the content over time, and add an element of repetition? The solutions are sheer endless and just thinking about this puts a smile on my face! My ask to you is that for your next learning project, give this concept a go and see how you can delight your learners.

Tell me in the comments below how you put the learner first.

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