Top Customer Education Marketing Tips: Customer Ed Nugget 29

Which Customer Education Marketing Strategies Matter Most?

On the previous episode of this podcast series, we explored common customer education marketing mistakes to avoid. However, that’s only half of the story.

Knowing what doesn’t work is one thing. But knowing what to do instead is much more useful. So today, we’re taking a closer look at customer education marketing practices that will help you achieve better business results.

This Customer Ed Nuggets conversation is inspired by an excellent new playbook designed to help your team make smarter customer education marketing decisions. So, if you’re looking to gain more traction by promoting learning throughout the customer experience, tune in and read on…

Buying or selling a customer-focused learning system? Get independent insights you can trust, with our in-depth analysis of 16 top solutions. Learn about our Customer LMS Buyer’s Guide →

Today’s Guest Expert

Shannon Howard, Sr. Director of Customer & Content Marketing, Intellum

For reliable advice about customer education marketing, I’m welcoming back one of my favorite guests, Shannon Howard, Sr. Director of Customer & Content Marketing at Intellum.

Shannon is the ideal person to join me for this discussion, because she manages customer education marketing on a daily basis. She is one of the most skilled, creative marketing professionals in the learning tech industry. And her efforts to empower customer communities have been highly successful.

I’m always impressed with Shannon’s ideas, and I’m sure you will be, too. So, let’s get started…

Find out how real-world companies are achieving more with learning systems that create business value. Get inspiration from dozens of success stories in our free LMS Case Study Directory →

4 Smart Customer Education Marketing Moves

For successful results from your customer education marketing efforts, build a strategy around these core elements:

1. Look for Big-Picture Context

Customer education marketing won’t succeed if you only promote a bunch of isolated courses and resources. Instead, zoom out to gain a broader perspective, and think holistically about the story you’re inviting customers to embrace.

This is important because customers have goals. They don’t visit your academy just because it’s there. They show up because they have a problem they need to solve, and they need answers.

Of course, they want to learn how to use your product. But why? What exactly is motivating them to learn?

Pay close attention to how they answer these questions. Because when you understand what customers want to accomplish with your product, you’ll be able to communicate more persuasively. Since you won’t have to guess what kind of learning content people value, your messaging and methods will be more relevant and compelling.

Too often, organizations overlook this vision step. But once it’s part of your process, you’ll be less likely to jump from tactic to tactic without connecting the dots to a broader agenda. And as customer needs change, a clear vision will help keep your customer education marketing efforts on track.

2. Know Your Customers

Effective customer education marketing requires more than a one-size-fits-all mindset. That means you need to know details about the various types of people who are likely to be interested in your offering. For example, what is their job role? Where do they work? Under what circumstances would your product help them? The list of key characteristics goes on and on.

Because this kind of analysis can quickly become complicated, you’ll want a consistent way to document all the variables. In the B2B world, this often is captured in ideal customer profile (ICP) description.

You may only be able to start with one ICP. That’s fine. Do the work to fully define that type of customer. Then, gradually develop more profiles for other valuable segments as resources permit. But keep in mind that customer profiles are not static snapshots. So, you’ll want to modify ICPs as variables change.

Technology can help you gather, process, and apply this kind of intelligence on an ongoing basis. Begin with feedback from existing customers for accurate data-based personas. Then, update existing profiles periodically and expand your portfolio by casting a broader net.

No matter how many personas you manage, AI-driven learning tools can leverage that information to deliver the right instructional content to the right people at the right time. These personalized, adaptive learning experiences can incorporate customer education marketing elements, as well.

3. Choose Communication Channels Wisely

Where do your customers and prospects typically look for information and updates? How do these channels fit into their daily workflows? And how can you leverage these points of presence to attract, engage, and reinforce learning participants?

It’s important to meet people where they are, and different types of people operate in different places. So, customer education marketing should tap into whatever channels make sense for individuals in each audience segment as they progress through their learning journey.

For example, think about email as a channel. People have relied on it each day for decades. Certainly, email marketing is not dead. In fact, recent research says it is still the world’s most widely used workplace communication tool, as well as the most preferred option. Still, email is only one channel, and others are rapidly gaining ground.

So, even if your email open rate is a healthy 40-60%, how can you reach the others who never even see your message? And at those levels of visibility, how can you reinforce messaging, so it sticks?

Think more broadly about which customer education marketing channels are best. It could be email, in-app, or social. It could also be through sales teams, account management, or support people who share learning content while interacting with customers. Or it could be a combination of channels.

The right answer depends on your audience. Wherever customers are in the lifecycle, relevant calls-to-action should naturally be there to greet them with a simple nudge or reminder that says, “You might find this helpful, too.”

So, think about the various ways you can direct people to content or resources that help them continue their learning journey. Also, what touchpoints can you use to incorporate meaningful learning resources at a time and place that makes sense for them?

4. Promote Continuously 

Strong customer education marketing strategies treat promotion as a dynamic ongoing effort, rather than a static one-and-done event. So, think about when and why customers interact with their preferred channels and let that guide your moves.

Of course, mapping every step in each type of customer’s journey takes time and intention. But with an accurate framework, you can pinpoint when and where you can bring learning into the mix to help people move forward and enhance the customer experience.

Once you identify those moments, it’s much easier to determine which educational content to feature at each touch point, and how you can drive awareness and engagement.

It’s tempting just to pick a channel and let your communication decisions follow from that. But you’ll get much better results from customer education marketing if you start by thinking about a customer’s ideal learning path. After that, you can determine how to weave in persuasive communications along the way.

This is when the fun begins, because you can test, tune, and improve any marketing idea with any type of customer at any stage in the lifecycle.

For instance, imagine a new customer is setting up their account. At that point, are they likely to be talking with an implementation manager? Or are they signed into in the product? If so, you could integrate a marketing message and link from there.

And if they’re customer community participants, you can capitalize on that. Communities often enjoy a beautiful back-and-forth flow, where community activity leads to learning, and learning leads to community. This circular communication builds relationships, trust, and deeper brand commitment. So, during the early account set-up stage, you could plant a seed that leads to future community engagement.

This is just one customer education marketing example. But you can see how effective it could be to weave customer education marketing into specific interactions and the overall customer experience.

More Ways to Level-Up Your Customer Education Marketing Efforts

What else can you do to succeed and customer education marketing? Here’s a resource with powerful ideas.

Shannon and her team at Intellum have published a new guide called  “Everything You Need to Successfully Market and Promote Your Education Program.“

This step-by-step guide is packed with strategies, tools, and tactics to help you put effective promotional practices behind your customer education efforts.

Best of all, the guide is free. So, if you find this podcast helpful, you’ll want to read more.

GET YOUR COPY →

Watch This Customer Ed Nuggets Episode

Want to learn more about why Shannon and I agree on the best customer education marketing tips? For our full 10-minute conversation, watch the brief video below…

Or, if you’d rather listen to our discussion, tune in to the audio version of the podcast right here at TalentedLearning.com.

The Bottom Line on Customer Education Marketing

For the best results, don’t leave customer education marketing to chance. Effective strategies are built on four pillars:

• Start by clarifying the broader story you’re inviting customers to embrace.
• Define key audience segments and regularly revise them to be sure they remain accurate over time.
• Try multiple channels to ensure your customer education marketing meets individuals on their terms.
• Commit to continuous testing, tuning, and improvement so your programs stay on track.

In a noisy world, convincing people to pay attention and respond to customer education marketing is always a challenge. But you’ll achieve much more profitable results if you rely on proven promotional strategies, techniques, and tools.

Learn More About Intellum

Check the vendor profile in our Learning Systems Directory – including my hot take review, demo videos, case studies and more. Or visit the Intellum website.

About Talented Learning Customer Ed Nuggets

Hosted by Talented Learning CEO John Leh, the Customer Ed Nuggets podcast is a trusted source of advice, guidance and best practices for customer education professionals of all types. In this series of brief video and audio “nuggets” (each 10 minutes or less), we explore key topics with numerous guest experts.

Join us anytime here or on our YouTube channel to explore all facets of customer education, from how to build a persuasive business case, to effective strategies, technologies and content that help professionals create, deploy and grow successful customer-centered programs.

How to Follow the Customer Ed Nuggets Podcast

We practice what we preach by providing our content in a format for every learning preference. You can stay up-to-date with this podcast series through these channels:

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Need a Great Customer LMS? Let’s Talk.

Where customer education marketing leaves off, your learning platform should step in. But which LMS is best for you? Get independent guidance you can trust. Start with a free 30-minute consultation with me, John Leh, Founder and Lead Analyst at Talented Learning:

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