The lines between marketing and training are blurred and stretched and somewhat nebulous these days. It’s time that we stop reserving marketing just for our consumers and start educating and impressing your employees.
In our June podcast, Bridget Fowers, marketing manager, and I, a senior design consultant, came together to explain just how gray that area is and talk about how to make sure both departments get the best of both worlds (and budgets). These are just the highlights, so make sure to click on over to listen to the full episode.
Training isn’t just training anymore.
- Training is in a liminal space right now—straddling both consumer education (which lends credibility by giving buyers the product information they want) and marketing (ensuring brand isn’t lost in the shuffle, internally or externally).
Marketing to employees = external customer education.
- Employees are the frontline of our brand. They need to know how to engage, how to use, how to represent the brand (especially socially).
- Employees shape each experience a customer has.
Marketing should welcome training as a partner.
- Both are trying to capture attention, convey information, and target behaviors.
- These two can learn a lot from each other.
Target the learning approaches that work—both in marketing and training.
- Content and modality both need to be relevant. Know your audience so you can target the type of media they need. Target your audience first and foremost.
- Ensure there is robust learning theory behind any marketing or training.
- For example: Onboarding training has to have marketing involved to create loyalty.
- Likewise, consumer education pieces provide credibility behind amazing visual engagement.
A foundation of learning theory in marketing provides credibility.
- Have substance behind pretty pictures—layer the message, ensure there is a purpose behind it, and convey the right information.
- Think: what tools can I use to help convey the same message?
- Think: how can I repurpose these assets to be used internally and externally?
- Establish credibility everywhere within the organization—everything is building their perception.
Invest in your employees.
- Employees know if you’re not spending anything on them.
- Marketing comes in to provide quality work that shows you care.
- Your employees need to know your brand and feel it.
- Engage them. They’ll be grateful. Give them something they can actually use, and they will.
Marketing and training departments CAN work together.
- We’re all going the same place, even if we’re using a different pathway. Budgets can be optimized by dual-purposing assets.
- This will make sure everyone is delivering assets of the same caliber.
- Training departments don’t always have the same budget, so don’t spend twice. Share!
- Marketing needs quality information, and L&D’s expertise is a valuable layer with instructional design theory.
- Marketing numbers can be better achieved with instructional design behind the campaign, background, and plan.
Tips to make bring both departments together.
- Marketing can engage L&D to ensure marketing assets have a layer of instructional design.
- Marketing can target customer education, but ensure assets can be dual purposed for internal use.
- Training can ask to be involved in consumer education.
- Training can raise all training to the caliber of marketing assets.
Sometimes it’s an ownership thing, but if one person’s a superstar, everyone is.
Are you ready to create superstars? Learn more about the right learning strategies to create engaged employees.
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