Market Your Customer Training Program the Right Way

Customer training has become more important than ever, especially in the software industry. Why? When you have poured your heart and soul into creating a very efficient product, shouldn’t your customers be able to use it? If they are not able to figure out how to use the product they might end up thinking that the product is useless or it doesn’t work properly. On the contrary, if they are taught how to use the product so that they benefit from it the most, the chances of your customers using and buying your software often increase. 

Creating a stunning online customer training program is not that difficult, thanks to many technologies coming our way. LMS and authoring tools just made creating online courses a breeze. Your course might be the best thing ever, but if it is not marketed well, nobody is going to take up your course. You can’t expect customers to join your training just by creating and uploading a course. Marketing the benefits to them is the key. 

Alright, make yourself a cup of tea and join me for a quick marketing lesson to sell your customer training program successfully. 

Do you know whom to sell a.k.a, your audience?

Do you know who your target audience is?

Well, the customer?

Let’s get one thing straight. Everyone is never your target audience. For example, you sell design software that is meant only for professionals. In this case, the one completing your training program is your “customer,” the end-user, or the designer. But is he the one who is going to buy the software? Maybe, maybe not. It is mostly the company that will arrange these things for their employees. Therefore, your marketing approach needs to be in order to persuade the manager of the company who buys your product. You have to convenience them that this customer training program is beneficial for your employees and that it will help in productivity and efficiency at work. 

You can even segregate your target audience into groups. Each group is seeking a certain benefit from your customer training program. You are selling only one training program but the marketing message should be different for different interest groups. 

Research where to find your audience 

You cannot just put up an advertisement on your website, magazine, YouTube, Google, and everywhere else without giving it any thought. Displaying ads will cost you a lot of money, so make sure you are not wasting your money by buying a slot in a media channel that is not even used by your target audience. 

Your website is undoubtedly a good place to put up an ad. Email is another great and cost-effective choice. But what if your audience is someone who rarely checks their emails but is very active on social media? The right thing to do is to target them while they are scrolling through Instagram. 

Therefore, it is important to figure out what medium your audience uses the most. 

Sell the benefits 

People don’t buy products and services, they buy the benefits. I am sure your customer training program has ample benefits, but are you communicating those benefits? Your ads, emails, and website content need to communicate the benefits of your customer training program. You have to do two things. One, tell the benefits. Two, convenience them that they need those benefits. How do you do this? You hire a good copywriter. 

Apart from the benefits of your course, you should also convey the benefits of the LMS you are using to provide the course. For example, you are using Thought Industries, which is a comprehensive tool to do most of the things related to selling an online course. So your copy should talk about how the software will make it a breeze to access the course material and complete the training. 

Lead generation is not enough

Generating leads sure is difficult, but that won’t suffice. You need to make sure these leads join your customer training course. Once you find a good lead, make sure to follow them where ever they go on the internet. Send them an Email. Send them multiple Emails. Make sure that your name and benefits are constantly in front of them. 

Add some fun elements 

You can go a few steps extra and add a fun element to your marketing strategy. You can try discounts and coupons. You can also include some rewards in your program to lure the customer into completing your course. Get creative, but while you are using your creativity make sure you have the image of your audience in front of you. The fun that you are offering should appeal to your target audience. 

Bottom Line 

There is no hard and fast rule when it comes to marketing your customer training program. Marketing is a lot of trial and error, but in the quest to attain the best results faster, we tend to forget the basics. I hope this post was a good reminder of all the basic things you should be doing as a marketing professional for your company.