Publish at March 23 2015 Updated June 14 2023
How to sell a training course. What are the marketing methods for this very special service? To explore this question, let's wander from stand to stand at a "Human Resources and Training" trade show. Let's interview the salespeople and observe.
The characters we meet in the aisles of this imaginary trade show aren't real, yet you may recognize them!
Nothing is more immaterial than training. Once the room door is closed, and as soon as the e-learning trainees are connected, the buyer sees nothing more.
Some exhibitors at our show demonstrate that there's no shortage of ideas for making service visible, even tangible.
The CD ROMs once handed out at every stand have disappeared in favor of more traditional media: cloth bags that rub off on clothes and pencils. Sometimes even candy.
More consistent with its offer, Erudia distributes small games, or humorous cards that reflect the playful and participatory bias of their educational project.
Other companies have played the long game by creating a strong visual identity. You've just dipped your hand into a jar of sweets. A salesman pops up and asks if he can help. You'd think there were sensors in the jar! Let's ask him about the importance of brand readability in training.
"It's simple," he replies. You'd be surprised how many trainees don't know what the trainer's name was, or which company organized the training, when they leave the course. It's essential to avoid remarks like: "It was a good course, but I can't remember who did it."
So it's essential to extend a visual identity right down to the evaluation media or documents. Uh, more candy?"
The empathy card is a good tool for thinking about these questions. What does the trainee see, hear and think? What do they say about the training when they leave? What are their fears and concerns? What are their motivations for enrolling?
The questions proposed by managementdela formation deserve formalized answers. Organizing a small meeting to respond to them is not useless! Regularly, it's worth asking ourselves about our learners' motivations, brakes, needs, objectives and constraints.
A training course therefore remains something invisible to the managers who buy it. We interview a human resources manager, busy sorting through the leaflets she has just collected from the stands, while eating a chocolate bar.
"When I send someone on a training course, they come back and give an assessment that's usually very vague. I'd like to assess the effect on skills. But the context evolves so quickly that it's difficult to know whether a change is linked to management training or to changes in the environment... Satisfaction remains. But employees are mostly happy, and when they complain, it's almost always about organizational issues."
And yet, executives tell us, it's a very involving investment for a human resources manager. You have to dare to think and talk numbers. All corporate functions use financial language. The training function should be no exception.
"Management has been told repeatedly that training is an investment. The pity is that they believed us"
tells Jonathan Pottiez. And now they're asking us to demonstrate the added value of training for their business.
Training marketing should, according to some, consist of a mix made up of e-learning, Mooc of serious games, and face-to-face training. One lesson: training goes beyond the walls, and when it's remote, it goes beyond the platforms dedicated to it.
On the training center side, the mix can be broken down according to the classic 4 P's. The 4 P's are the mnemonic that reminds us that marketing is built around a product, a "place", i.e. a distribution channel, advertising and promotion, and a pricing policy. This approach has been applied to training, sometimes with interesting results.
Be careful not to over-detail the product when selling training! Managers don't care whether you're going to do e-learning, blended or games, they want to know to what extent employees' work is going to be changed. That's the point of KPMG's Sophie Maladri's testimonial on the futurskill website.
The training is over. Everyone has had an intense, enjoyable time, and heads back to their workspaces refreshed. But everyone is well aware that in a week, or even a day or two, they'll be taken back by the rhythm of work and will gradually forget. We've exchanged e-mail addresses, but we know we won't be writing to each other...
.Why not create a community? Why not integrate an activity that leads to the use of a social network, a collaborative space, a virtual place of exchange that will continue after the training course.
We could imagine a community of learning.
Other techniques are conceivable, such as electronic letters, as long as they also highlight what alumni can contribute.
The principle is to make your customers your best salespeople. This means paying attention to the after-sales. Sending an evaluation accompanied by a personalized note or a few extra references in connection with the informal exchanges that took place during the training... it's not wasting your time.
Let's continue our journey between the stands. What's striking is the number of references all these exhibitors have. And what's really striking is that they all have the same ones. The big companies with tens of thousands of employees work with hundreds of organizations, sometimes on very small operations that only concern a distant branch... But that's enough to put their logo on a brochure.
The hubbub of a room close to the stands attracts our attention. One 45-minute conference follows another. How do you sell a training system or e-learning method in such a short space of time? Our presenters have solved the question. But as they all solved it in the same way, we leave after the second presentation.
.These two presentations taught us how to sell a training device in a matter of minutes. All you have to do is complete the passages highlighted in orange below.
The method is close to that used by Steve Jobs when presenting new products from Apple. Carmine GALLO detailed the four-part plan:
Selling training is selling a service. It's an atmosphere for some, the opportunity to meet other participants, it's a chance to progress, achieve goals, consolidate skills. But it's also four walls, tables and chairs, most of the time... To add value, and make people dream, you have to tell a story, do some storytelling.
Some Moocs communicate success stories. A septuagenarian who dropped out of school at thirteen was able to take a cutting-edge course in a country where training is not widely available; all the employees of a small craft business took a Mooc, devoting an hour a day to it; Mr. J, who was severely paralyzed, obtained certification with results that impressed the other participants...
Some Moocs communicate success stories.
The personal success stories are the most numerous. The trainee who has set up a business, the one who has found a job, the one who has gained market share. It works like an exchange of advertisements, in that the trainee takes the opportunity to boast about the success of his business, or his career!
illustrations: Frédéric Duriez
Training marketing - Akene - accessed March 20, 2015 http://www.akene-formation-management.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Marketing-de-la-formation.-Nouvelles-donnes.pdf
le marketing de la formation - Sophie Maladri consulted on March 20, 2015 http://www.futurskill-digital.fr/business-case/le-marketing-de-la-formation-par-sophie-maladri-kpmg/
Les secrets pour réussir une présentation à la Steve Jobs sur Conseils marketing consulté le 20 mars 2015 http://www.conseilsmarketing.com/promotion-des-ventes/les-secrets-pour-reussir-une-presentation-a-la-steve-jobs
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