Amplify Your L&D Message With These 5 Marketing Techniques

Ever noticed how many companies are reinventing fairly mundane products off the back of engaging and exciting marketing?

Whether it's mattresses, tooth brushes or toilet paper, smart promotion and branding are turning 'boring' products into things we'll rave about to anyone who'll listen.

?? So, maybe there’s no such thing as a boring product, just boring marketing…

But what does this have to do with L&D?

Well, learning fails without engagement.

?? And when people aren’t engaged with learning, or we’re struggling with buy-in, we presume it’s an L&D issue.

? It's often a marketing issue. We are not communicating the value of what we’re offering effectively enough to get people to want it.

Luckily, there are some marketing techniques that lend themselves to driving engagement with learning.

1. Build your learning brand

Good branding is why people queue round the block for the latest iPhone!

And a good brand is more than a flashy logo or vibrant colours, it’s the sum of all the interactions people have with L&D in the business.

This means we essentially have some kind of learning brand already, the question is whether we’re aware of it.

And if we’re not aware of it, let’s be honest, it’s probably not very good.

L&D teams need to take control of how that learning brand is received and start shaping it…

Four questions that’ll help you create a better learning brand

1. Who is it for? And be more specific than employees! Think about the roles they do, where they work or typical behaviours.
2. Why does it exist? Build a vision statement for L&D that gets others on board and supports company goals.
3. What’s your brand identity? This is where you consider the visual elements people connect with - like the name or logo.
4. What’s your tone of voice??How you speak influences how you talk about, create and deliver learning.

2. Put social media to work

People spend an average of 144 minutes per day on social media, and yet we so rarely use it to promote learning to our target audience.

?? So, why don’t we?

After all, we should be taking learning to the places people are engaged!

What’s stopping us creating an Instagram page to share highlights from learning resources and driving our internal customers to follow it?

That’s just one example of how we can tap into existing behaviours to drive learning!

Ask people which social channels they use, deliver value-adding content there, and tap into tagging, hashtags and social learning.

Webinar: Empowering Employees to Grow in the Flow of Work

The flow of work is where we can really drive impact! It's where employees are motivated to solve a problem and have the context to apply information.

Join us for our next webinar and learn how to deliver the right content at the right moment to have the right impact with Anthony Ryland ( Tap'd Solutions Limited ) and Adam Lacey ( Assemble You )

Join us live! (Or sign up to get the recording on-demand).

3. Leverage internal influencers

We all want to be recognised for our abilities, skills and achievements among our peers, it’s why we post on social media or share useful content in the first place.

But L&D can give influencers a platform to share what they know ??

And it’s not about trying to change them or how they create content.

We want it to sound like it's in their voice and feel authentic, our role is simply to give them the airtime and backing to get it out there.

First of all, we need to find them! And there are a few things to consider:

• What’s their reach??And not just in terms of quantity, but the quality of the people they reach?
• How much engagement do they get??When influencers are posting in channels like Slack, do they get a lot of engagement? That’s great validation of their influencer capabilities.
• Do they have the experience and authority needed in the organisation?And remember, hierarchy isn’t directly tied to influence! You don’t need to be high up in the org chart to influence others.

4. Optimise for search?

Think about how you use Google. A moment of need arises, and you search for the answers.

You’re hoping that there’s content that meets your intent. And you’re often lucky that brands are fighting to optimise their content for that term and give us the answers we need.

But as L&D professionals, how much thought do we put into keywords and search intent?

Not enough… so go and speak to your end users.

Ask them to describe a problem and listen to how they respond. The language they use will help you optimise content to meet their intent in moments of need.

5. Use stronger calls to action (CTAs)

It would be a shame if all that good copywriting and well-branded content went to waste.

But too often, it does because our calls-to-action are an afterthought!

We don’t consider how we’re going to encourage and compel people to take the desired action.

Here are four tips for writing better CTAs:

1. Use value-focussed calls-to-action:?Like swapping out enrol now for become a better public speaker - something that clearly shows value.
2. Position your CTA at the point of decision: For example, after we've shown them value through a resource or customer success story.
3. Use social proof:?Convince your audience that similar people have benefited from it. Whether that’s ‘join the 200 people who…’ or a direct testimonial from a real person.
4. Make the CTA stand out:?Use odd shapes, bright colours, eye-catching contrasts – consider how, in that moment and context, you can get more people to click.

If you liked that, you should listen to this ??

In just 19 minutes and 48 seconds, Gary Stringer and MAAS Marketing ?? 's Hannah Clark will teach you how to:

???Really put the audience first.

?? Answer the what's in it for me question effectively.

?? Partner with the rest of the business in a better way.

?? And create compelling stories around learning's impact.

Join more than 100 people who've already heard this gold and listen here!