January 20

Strategies and Techniques for Designers,Developers, and Managers of eLearning

A publication of

THIS WEEK — MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES

2003

If you build e-Learn- ing, will they come? Studies show that they generally won't.But e-Learning designers, developers and managers can fix this! With tried and true marketing strategies like branding, posi- tioning, and segmentation, you can influence target learners to come.Here are the "first steps" to making this a reality in your organization!

E-Learning: You Build It — NowPromote It

BY JAY CROSS

ast year I talked with 60 companies about implement-ing e-Learning. These companies included vendorswatching their market share circling the drain, andcompanies disappointed that less than one person in fivewas getting involved. Since I was writing a book on imple-menting e-Learning, I asked lots of questions before pes-simistically concluding that most e-Learning initiatives failto meet expectations.

The bad news is that e-Learning is bro-ken. The good news is that there’s a wayto fix it. I’ll suggest that the road to recov-ery is marketing e-Learning internally as ife-Learning were a consumer product.

What’s the problem?

In company after company, I came uponwell-developed, on-target, exciting e-Learn-ing initiatives that lacked only one thing:learners. A very large bank licensed amulti-million dollar library of e-Learning pro-grams; a year later, not a single individualhad completed a course! A multinationalbuilt a two-year masters-level curriculumtailored to the needs of its managers; bythe time it was scrapped only two man-agers had taken the program. A chemicalfirm commissioned a $200,000+ customcourse of study to improve its financialoperations; management dropped the pro-gram for political reasons. Companies thathave purchased all-employee library cardsfor more than a thousand web-deliveredtitles find that only five to ten percent ofeligible staff took even one course. Almosttwo years ago, the American Society forTraining and Development (ASTD) and TheMASIE Center asked of e-Learning, “If webuild it, will they come?” Their study,released in June 2001, found that manyof them won’t.“The average start rate for courses

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WWW.E

EARNING

UILD.COM

where participation was voluntary was amere 32 percent, significantly lower thanmandatory courses. However, mandatorycourses had far from perfect start ratesas well, averaging only 69 percent.”

What’s the cause?

Ask learners why they’re not participat-ing and they will tell you:• “I have ‘real’ work to do.”• “I’m already doing the jobs of twopeople.”• “I didn’t know about it.”• “It’s not relevant to my job.”• “I’m diverted by changes in otherprojects.”• “It’s a waste of time.”• “It looks like I’m goofing off.”• “I tried it — but it didn’t work.”• “I’m plenty busy at home already.”• “It doesn’t look like fun.”• “There are continual interruptions.”• “I have higher priorities.”• “It’s boring, boring, boring.”• “I already know enough of this.”• “It’s klutzy.”• “It cuts my productivity.”• “I like classrooms better.”• “There are technical glitches, like the‘blue screen of death’.”With the exception of the last item,these are perceptual issues. I use thesame lines to turn off telemarketers andthese are also my knee-jerk reactions totradeshow sales presentations. They arethe result of low expectations going in.Some of the perceptions are real, andaddressing them calls for organizationalsupport, shifts in values, greater rele-vance, and better delivery.More often though, these objections arethe result of poor e-Learning marketingpractices. Learners don’t understand howe-Learning can help them. Busy and har-ried, they resist putting anything new ontheir plates. No one has sold them one-Learning’s benefits. Rather than choosinge-Learning, they feel that e-Learning isbeing imposed on them. People may likechange, but they don’t like being changed.Marketing deals with issues like theseall the time. Applying a marketing mindsetand techniques such as branding, position-ing, segmentation, and promotion couldnot help but improve the acceptance ofe-Learning.

Marketing

Marketing may not be what you think...Suppose you see an unfamiliar face in thecompany cafeteria and ask your colleaguewho the new person is. “The new hire inmarketing,” is the reply.Now, just as an experiment, form a pic-ture of this marketing person in yourmind’s eye. Is this someone you will like?Is this person honest? Can this person betrusted? STOP READING! Take a minute,actually close your eyes, and try to picturethis individual.OPEN UP! What did you imagine? Let meguess. You probably imagined an exaggera-tor, a prevaricator, an insincere and boast-ful person, or a snake oil salesman. I knowwhat you’re probably thinking because I’ma professional marketing guy. In SiliconValley, I’d have more credibility if I starteda presentation with “I am a doofus,” than“I’m a marketing guy.”But that’s not the kind of marketing I’mwriting about. The kind of marketing I mean

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T H E E L E A R N I N G D E V E L O P E R S ’ J O U R N A L

MANAGEMENT/

strategies

SymposiumThe

A Winter Intensive for e-Learning Managers and Directors

February 27 & 28, 2003Scottsdale, Arizona

Produced by

www.eLearningGuild.com

Learn more about thissymposium, it’s all online atwww.eLearningGuild.com!Registrations are strictlylimited so Register Today!You can register onlineor by phone by calling707.566.8990.

is the sort of marketing that David Packard(founder of Hewlett Packard) said was tooimportant to leave to the marketing depart-ment. I mean the kind of marketing thatPeter Drucker (www.peter-drucker.com) wastalking about when he said the only twofunctions of business are innovation andmarketing. I’m talking about creating andmaintaining relationships with customers.And I’m convinced that the key toe-Learning success involves treating thelearner as a customer!

Marketing today

Twenty-five years ago, Harvard BusinessSchool taught me that marketing involvedassembling a “marketing mix” of the FourP’s. The P’s are product, price, promotion,and place. (In some versions place be-comes channels of distribution, makingthings a bit clearer but ruining the allitera-tion.) I was taught that inventing and imple-menting the marketing mix involved fivesteps:1. Do market research2. Design the marketing mix3. Develop marketing campaigns4. Launch a campaign5. Assess results and cycle backIf these steps have a familiar ring, it’sbecause you already know them as theinstructional design process. Table 1 belowcompares these concepts.While writing my book I read the latesttextbooks in marketing, scoured profes-sional journals, and interviewed marketingmanagers. I found two important thingshad changed since I left Harvard:1. Marketing now looks further ahead intime. The goal used to be revenue alone.Just plain sales, fast sales, and one-timesales were fine as long as they involved alot of money changing hands. “Marketing’s job was seen 25 years ago as simply mak-ing selling easier.” But today’s marketingfocuses on building and maintaining

relationships

. We aren’t after just one-timesales; we want continual fees (annuityincome, as it is sometimes called). Wearen’t selling magazines on the corner;we’re selling lifetime subscriptions. We’llspend money up front to start a relation-ship that will eventually become profitable.2.

Brand

has replaced the Four Ps. Atbest, the Four Ps were a checklist, not amagic formula. We’re interested in whatthe customer sees, not what the marketerassembles. A brand is the sum of the FourPs and a whole lot more, and if you don’thave a winning brand, you won’t have awinning product.I’d written 60 pages of the book, essen-tially force-fitting the marketing processinto the e-Learning environment, when Icame to my senses. The elaborate steps,the checklists, and the nifty acronyms wereinappropriate. I was walking in the foot-prints of previous marketing authors whodrank the Kool-Aid™ and repeated thedogma.I zapped what I’d written and replaced itwith a simpler approach, which I christened“Marketing Design.” Marketing designlooks at customers and prospects through

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strategies

The eLearning Developers’ Journal™

is design-ed to serve the industry as a catalyst for inno-vation and as a vehicle for the dissemination ofnew and practical strategies and techniques fore-Learning designers, developers and man-agers. The

Journal

is not intended to be thedefinitive authority. Rather, it is intendedto be a medium through which e-Learning practi-tioners can share their knowledge, expertiseand experience with others for the generalbetterment of the industry.As in any profession, there are many differ-ent perspectives about the best strategies,techniques and tools one can employ to accom-plish a specific objective. This

Journal

will sharethese different perspectives and does not posi-tion any one as “the right way,” but rather weposition each article as “one of the right ways”for accomplishing a goal. We assume thatreaders will evaluate the merits of each articleand use the ideas they contain in a mannerappropriate for their specific situation. Weencourage discussion and debate about articlesand provide an Online Discussion board foreach article.The articles contained in the

Journal

are allwritten by people who are actively engaged inthis profession at one level or another — notby paid journalists or writers. Submissions arealways welcome at any time, as are sugges-tions for articles and future topics. To learnmore about how to submit articles and/orideas, please refer to the directions in the side-bar on page 6 or visit www.eLearningGuild.com.

Publisher

David Holcombe

Editorial Director

Heidi Fisk

Editor

Bill Brandon

Copy Editor

Charles Holcombe

Design Director

Nancy Marland

The eLearning Guild™ Advisory Board

Ruth Clark, Conrad Gottfredson, John Hartnett,Bill Horton, Kevin Moore, Eric Parks,Marc Rosenberg, Allison Rossett

The eLearning Developers’ Journal

™.Compilation copyright by The eLearning Guild 2003. Allrights reserved. Please contact

The eLearning Guild

forreprint permission.

The eLearning Developers’ Journal

is published weeklyby

The eLearning Guild

, 525 College Avenue, Suite215, Santa Rosa, CA 95404. Phone: 707.566.8990.

The eLearning Guild

is an operating unit of FocuszoneMedia, Inc., 1030 Beatrice Street, Eagan, MN 55121.

The Journal

is distributed to all

Guild

members free ofcharge.To join the

Guild

go to www.eLearningGuild.com.

Objections are the

result of poor marketing practices. Learners don’tunderstand how e-Learn-ing can help them. Apply-ing a marketing mindsetcould not help but to im-prove the effectivenessof e-Learning.