Marketing Never Ends – How Does Product Education Help?

EDITOR’S NOTE: Because extended enterprise learning involves multiple disciplines, we sometimes ask other experts to share their insights with our readers. Today we feature excellent customer education advice from Ruairi Galavan, Senior Manager of Customer Engagement at Intercom.

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Every New Customer Counts

Customer acquisition is an obsession among startups. This is especially true for software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies, where each new customer adds revenue that can help your business grow.

No wonder many early-stage companies invest so heavily in marketing tactics to attract prospects and convince them to sign-up. Blog posts, paid advertising, white papers, hero videos, webinars, social media, specialized landing pages – the choices are endless.

If you’re lucky and your message resonates with your target market, sign-ups will soon start filling your pipeline. But does this mean you can just put your feet up and wait for subscription dollars to roll in?

Not so fast. Truth is, most of these new users will take one first look at your product. Then, for any number of reasons, they’ll leave and never come back.

Ouch. You just invested all sorts of time and money in marketing campaigns to get people in the door, only for them to question your product’s value and walk away.

What’s the Missing Link? Product Education

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If you don’t immediately show new sign-ups how they can succeed with your product, don’t be surprised if they move on.

And what about folks who do decide to stick around a bit longer? You’re on borrowed time with them, too.

Forget the adage, “If you build it, they will come.” Most startups have found that it simply doesn’t hold true. Neither does, “If they sign up, they will use it.” Instead, many sign-ups are just kicking the tires.

You can guide these people to early success, or you can turn a blind eye and let them figure it out for themselves. But I’ve found that even a modest product education effort can keep new customers from leaving.

How to Bootstrap Product Education

When I first joined Intercom, my role didn’t have an official “product education” title. Instead, I wore many hats. I wrote our product documents. I hosted how-to webinars. I created our help videos. I also managed our outbound messaging to customers.

The goal was simple – to create and distribute content that would help new customers get the best out of our product as quickly and easily as possible. As this function grew, I hired a team of customer-minded content specialists. They’re writers, video editors and educators. We call this group the Product Education team.

Simply put, we market our product to existing customers. And we measure our impact by analyzing specific customer behaviors:

• Do we activate new sign-ups?
• Do we expand their usage?
• Do we retain these customers over time?

You might not think of product education as a traditional marketing activity. But SaaS marketers are quickly discovering that you ignore it at your peril.

Think of your solution as a luxury hotel. There’s no point building in a grand lobby with a shiny marble floor, only to have guests find a broken elevator and no stairs leading to their room!

5 Ways Product Education Helps Seal the Deal

Below are some tactics I used in the early days of Intercom, when the Product Education “team” was just me, and we fought for every new sign-up to become an active, loyal customer.

(NOTE: Nothing has changed about that product education goal. We still fight the good fight every single day.)

None of these tactics require a large, established team or a huge budget. They just require a genuine commitment to treating existing customers as well as you treat prospects.

1) Start with Minimum Viable Documentation

Don’t try to produce polished demonstration videos or invite hundreds of people to an orientation webinar until you clearly define the information new customers need most. This may seem obvious to you, but I guarantee that formalizing it in writing is worth the effort.

No matter what kind of product you sell, chances are you’ll need some kind of documentation to support it. For example, you’ll want to develop a written description of your product, the problems it helps people solve, how it works, how to get the most from it and how customers can find additional help when they need it.

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Before you do anything else, capture the answers to these questions in as much detail as possible. Writing, rewriting and refining this information will bring clarity and focus to your ideas, advice, beliefs and tone.

Our team relies on this core messaging document when creating other materials like webinars and help videos.

It’s a common reference tool that we use time and time again to check how we defined things in the first place. In effect, it is our “knowledge base.”

2) Look Beyond Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

When you’re working at an early-stage startup with dozens of competing priorities, it’s tempting to publish the quickest, easiest type of documentation, just to keep your head above water. Usually, that means you’ll crank out a hasty “starter” collection of FAQs.

There’s nothing wrong with FAQs, per se. But if that’s your only documentation, you’re likely focusing on what to do when things go wrong.

Of course, you should answer common questions and be honest and upfront about your product’s shortcomings. But FAQs alone don’t inspire new, successful usage.

Your most effective content is likely to focus on turning trial-minded users into paying customers, and also turning paying customers into loyal, long-term advocates. It should not only be useful, coherent and relevant, but enjoyable and motivational, as well.

3) Deliver White-Glove Treatment with Live Demos

“A demo allows the customer to see and feel how things will be better if they buy (and worse if they don’t).”
– Geoffrey James

When I started at Intercom, we made a point of inviting every single person who gave us their email address to a weekly live product demo. These were usually attended by 1-50 new customers.

Even if it meant getting up at 6 a.m. in Dublin to demo to three people in another time zone, we never missed a Wednesday demo. The benefits of this practice soon became clear – customers who attended were less likely to churn later.

In the early days, when your sign-ups are in the hundreds or low thousands, it’s worth showing each and every willing prospect and new customer a live demo that illustrates how your product can improve their lives. Unlike other content, live demos are extremely personal. They give attendees an opportunity to talk in real-time with the people behind your product and learn exactly why they should stick around.

This might not seem like a scalable activity, but you can automate lots of it. Just set-up a recurring automatic message to all your new sign-ups (for example, using a tool like Intercom) with a link to your registration page. Be sure to offer two or three dates/times, using tools like GoToWebinar, Zoom or On24. These tools are purpose-built for hosting recurring webinars.

Next, put together a script that demonstrates the value of your product in various use case scenarios. This isn’t just about features and functionality. In fact, the worst thing you can do is make customers sit through a parade of features that aren’t tied to problems they need to address.

The goal is to showcase how your product can improve your customers’ lives. The sooner you demonstrate this to new sign-ups, the more likely they’ll be to stay.

4) Offer Onboarding Screencasts

It’s frustrating to see just how many early-stage companies don’t showcase their product directly in their marketing materials. Maybe they think there’s not much to show.

Or maybe they think a 2-minute animated cartoon will somehow do a better job at helping prospects and customers understand what they’re buying.

Regardless, if you don’t set accurate expectations and help people see just how easy it is to move toward their goal, they’re likely to walk away wondering exactly what your product does.

Onboarding screencasts are a perfect way to show off your product, and set-up new users for success. (A screencast is a video recording of on-screen actions, accompanied by narration.)

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As soon as you offer this kind of product education, I guarantee that the business benefits will become clear. Your product launches should pack a bigger punch, adoption rates should increase, customer service queries should decrease and churn rates should improve.

Many people dismiss screencasting as too complex or time-consuming. It’s not. It’s something anyone can do. Don’t let the word “video” concern you. Trust me, if you’re working at a startup, screencasting is far from the most complicated or time-consuming thing you’ll do!

So jump right in and start playing with tools like Screenflow or Camtasia. The more you work with tools like these, the quicker and more proficient you’ll become. You’ll find that each screencast you produce is better than the last. I bet you’ll be surprised just how fast you can achieve high-quality results.

5) Take Time to Include Activation Webinars

Some customers will sign-up and stick around for a little while, but they’ll take little or no action. These folks are going to need extra encouragement to get up and running. For your business to survive, you’ll need to activate these fence-sitters, so they can start to see the value in using your product.

Here are several examples:

1)  For a dating app

•  Answer required profile questions
•  Upload at least one personal photo
•  Publish the completed profile

2) For a project management app

•  Create a project
•  Identify core steps/milestones
•  Share the project with team members

Once you’re confident about the actions that customers should take to see value in your product, invite those who haven’t taken these steps to a getting-started webinar. Your goal is to show them why it pays to move forward, and then how to take those first few important steps.

As with live demo invitations, you can automate much of the event planning and production process by combining several tools. All you need to do is show up each week and spend an hour moving your inactive customers into the active user category.

Product Education Litmus Test:  How Sexy Are You After the Sale?

Remember, your new sign-ups are more important than any would-be customer. These are the people who believed your promises, took a risk on your product and gave you their money. Now is not the time to give them half-baked learning materials like poorly crafted documentation – or worse, nothing at all.

All of your content is marketing – both before and after the sale. That means everything you create should be crafted with the intention of educating, helping, selling and retaining your customers. As Creating Passionate Users blogger and author Kathy Sierra says, it’s important to keep asking yourself: “Are you sexy after the sale?”

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EDITOR’S NOTE:  This article has been adapted, with permission, from a post that appeared on the Intercom blog.

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Inside the Customer Learning Lifecycle

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How can you drive lasting business value through continuous customer education? 

Find out on October 24th from 1-2pm ET as John Leh, CEO and Lead Analyst at Talented Learning, and Mike Martin, CLO at SAP Litmos examine what works – and why. You’ll learn:

• How to prioritize fluid customer education needs
• How to build a convincing business case
• Guidelines for choosing effective tools and technologies
• Tips for quick deployment and continuous improvement
• Successful “lifecycle” content strategies
• Metrics to evaluate program impact over time

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The post Marketing Never Ends – How Does Product Education Help? appeared first on Talented Learning.

Marketing Never Ends – How Does Product Education Help? original post at Talented Learning

Podcast 26: How to Extend Learning Content Availability – With Troy Gorostiza

Got LMS Implementation Questions? Ask a Learning Tech Analyst

Welcome back to our “Ask Me Anything” column! Previously, we explored extended enterprise learning tech trends, and talked about how organizations can choose the best learning system for their needs. Today, let’s move to the next step – LMS implementation.

What’s in that “black box” sitting between your purchase decision and deployment?

Choosing an LMS isn’t the end. It’s actually the start of a whole new adventure. And implementation is the connective tissue that can move you in the right direction. (Or if you’re not careful, it can derail you even before you get out of the gate!)

I think that’s why so many people are uneasy about software implementation. It’s fraught with uncertainty and risk. But it’s not magic. With realistic expectations and the right approach, implementation can make your new learning system the success it deserves to be. Here’s how…

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Ask Me Anything:  About LMS Implementation

1) How difficult is LMS implementation, really?

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Good news. LMS implementation is generally much faster, cheaper and easier than it was a decade ago, thanks largely to the massive shift toward cloud-based applications.

However, it’s not the instant slam-dunk that some vendors may want you to believe – especially for extended enterprise learning. These solutions involve many moving pieces, some of which operate outside of your LMS and your organization’s control.

2) Does the level of implementation difficulty depend on the system you choose?

Absolutely. But frankly, if you pick the wrong tool for the job, you’ll probably never be 100% satisfied.

Fortunately, there’s something for everyone. That’s because the LMS landscape has mushroomed to more than 1000 systems in recent years (also thanks to the rise of cloud computing). Many of these solutions specialize in some form of extended enterprise learning. But you have to sort through all the options to find the right needle somewhere in that massive haystack.

And there’s the rub. Choosing the best learning system for your needs is much more challenging these days. A decade ago, the LMS space was defined by a handful of well-known employee learning platforms. No more.

That’s why independent advisors like us exist. Every day, we’re in the trenches helping organizations choose new systems, so we know what realistic LMS selection and implementation requirements look like.

3) What level of LMS customization is reasonable to expect?

Well, I think “customization” is a dangerous word.  Configuration is what you are looking for. To learning systems vendors, it suggests that you want to change the underlying software code.

It’s best to avoid customization unless it’s absolutely necessary. Because once you alter the code, you’ll likely face ongoing complications with maintenance and system upgrades.

4) How can we tailor an LMS to fit our particular needs?

Extended enterprise learning systems offer varying degrees of “configuration.” This is what you should look for. Configurable systems include predefined settings that let you chose how a specific feature behaves in your deployment.

For example, many learning systems include configurable settings for various user interface elements. This makes it easy to create a look and feel for your learning environment that aligns with audience interests and your brand standards.

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Low-configuration systems are often very good at precisely what they are designed to do. But because their breadth of functionality is limited, they don’t adapt well to changing needs. These systems tend to appeal to first-time buyers, who see them as an easy way to get started.

But keep in mind that it’s easy to outgrow these systems as your business requirements become more sophisticated. That’s why highly configurable systems are more appealing when organizations are trading up to a second or third LMS, or are operating in a dynamic business environment.

5) What if we want to connect other applications with our LMS?

You’re not alone. Today, even small businesses rely on expansive digital ecosystems.

Regardless, a learning system must fit into your unique technology infrastructure. That means you should expect strong integration support in whatever solution you choose.

Fortunately, most extended enterprise learning systems include excellent API integration capabilities, along with strong out-of-the-box application connectors,  webhooks and notification engines.

This approach ensures that your LMS is ready to snap into your tech environment today and will continue to evolve along with you.

6) As an LMS selection consultant, do you ensure that vendors deliver what they promise?

Unfortunately, vendor amnesia happens. But a good LMS selection consultant can restore foggy memories with thorough documentation.

That’s one reason why we clarify buyer requirements in a formal RFP. Plus, we record product demonstrations and capture notes from every session in the selection process. It’s a buying blueprint that you can also use as an implementation reference tool whenever questions arise.

In addition, for clients who want our guidance beyond the primary selection process, we offer “Implementation Liaison” services. This is when we operate as a virtual member of the project team to help move LMS implementation forward. In this role, we advocate on our client’s behalf throughout the process to ensure strong results.

7) What do you do when a vendor drops the ball?

It’s important to remember that LMS providers have a vested interest in delivering on their promises. Success leads to new sales opportunities – especially when working with consultants like us, who recommend vendors on a continuous basis.

We often remind vendors not to misrepresent their capabilities in a proposal or demo, or overlook their implementation responsibilities. Otherwise, they’ll get a one-way ticket to our doghouse. (And no one wants to be in our doghouse!)

8) How long does it take to implement and deploy an LMS?

I hate fuzzy “it depends” answers. But truly, it depends on a variety of factors:

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• Is this your first LMS? Or are you replacing an existing system(s)?
• How much content will be loaded or migrated into the system?
• What types of content are involved?
• How many users and historical records will be included?
• How homogenous are the various learner audiences and business workflows?
• What kind of tech integrations must be completed prior to launch?
• How much experience does your team have with similar implementations?
• Are resources available internally to drive this process?
• How will holidays, vacations and seasonal workloads affect team availability?

Any combination of these factors can directly influence your implementation schedule. That said, here are some general guidelines to keep in mind:

First-time solutions with relatively simple requirements can be deployed in only a few weeks. On the other end of the spectrum, highly complex, large-scale scenarios can easily take a year or more to complete. However, most implementations require a 3-5 month timeline.

9) How much does LMS implementation, testing and deployment cost?

The level of necessary professional services and their cost is a differentiator among learning systems providers. You can find a wide range of possibilities, from free to ridiculously expensive.

Some vendors rely on professional services as a money-maker. Others provide solid implementation services, but they don’t charge much because the value of long-term license revenue is more important to them.

Here’s one point of reference:  We find that extended enterprise deployments with moderate complexity tend to fit in the $50,000-$100,000 cost range.

By the way, we know the implementation strategy and pricing approach of more than 200 learning systems we’ve analyzed. In fact, this is one of the criteria we use when developing LMS shortlist recommendations.

10) Should we test systems with a proof-of-concept or pilot program before jumping into implementation and deployment?

It’s important to understand the difference between proof-of-concept and pilot:

1)  PROOF OF CONCEPT (POC)
Vendors often provide a sandbox that buyers can use to test and verify critical use scenarios. Great vendors use this as an opportunity to shine. They pre-populate the sandbox with relevant branding, content and learner profiles, so a buyer can readily evaluate the system’s capabilities in action.

Some vendors insist on orientation or training sessions to be sure buyers are successfully introduced to their system. Others simply hand over the keys. When buyers hire us to help with vendor selection, we include targeted use case demonstrations as a key evaluation step. This ensures that a POC environment is available to you much earlier than normal in the selection and implementation process.

2)  PILOT
A pilot project occurs after a contract is signed. Typically, it involves a limited rollout with a small, representative user group, so you can identify and resolve key issues before a full-scale rollout.

This is usually a wise practice because it minimizes risks and surprises. Unfortunately, it is often omitted because rollout schedules are too tight.

In extreme cases where failure could bring monumental consequences, buyers may pay one or more “finalist” vendors to provide pre-contract pilots.

11) Who should review and sign-off on an LMS pilot?

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Who should be involved is usually easy to determine. The operative question is how much should they be involved? Too many cooks in the kitchen are exactly that!

Generally, throughout the entire LMS selection and implementation process, it’s useful to include stakeholders from the business unit, the executive team, IT, project management and possibly HR.

We often coach buyers to create a 2-Tier pilot review structure:

TIER 1
This is the core team. It includes day-to-day stakeholders and often the ultimate administrative owners of the application.

TIER 2
This is the “extended” team that will use the application in practice. It often includes training teams, customer service, sales and/or compliance groups.

Typically, we recommend that Tier 1 members attend all meetings throughout the selection and implementation process. The Tier 2 team is included only at key milestones such as RFP evaluation, demonstrations and proof of concept review.

12) We’ll need someone to manage implementation for us. Who should we trust?

Some LMS companies depend on third-party experts to implement their solutions. For instance:

• Vendors involved in large, complex deployments for large, complex organizations
• Vendors that offer purely custom solutions – also for large, complex buyers
• Open-source learning systems vendors – where third-party service providers exclusively manage deployment, hosting and support

There are pros and cons associated with third-party development partners. For example:

• You’re working with dedicated resources who are experienced at deploying the LMS you selected. However, those resources can come at a significant premium.
• With open-source systems, the cost of professional developers is often offset by no/low system licensing costs. However, for other scenarios, the cost premium can be significant.
• An independent developer may help clarify questions and streamline the implementation process. However, it adds a layer of communication complexity and potential conflict when troubles arise between vendor, customer and development provider.

Some LMS vendors offer their own professional services group. These organizations often are willing to forego a business opportunity if their team can’t manage deployment.

13) Hiring a dedicated systems implementation firm is overkill for us. Should we consider a temporary independent adviser?

This can be a wise move. Reputable vendors usually assign their own system roll-out resources, but buyers are expected to shoulder many action items along the way.

Most organizations benefit from an extra set of experienced hands to help guide them through LMS implementation and deployment. Often, the timeline is driven by competing priorities and immovable events, or staff resources are stretched too thin.

Under these circumstances, expert temporary resources can keep a project on track and provide a sober, independent checkpoint for ongoing advice. If you want more information about why it pays to have an implementation advocate in your corner, or if you have additional LMS implementation questions, let’s talk.

Thanks for reading!

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EDITOR’S NOTE:  Got more questions you want John to answer in his “Ask Me Anything” column? Submit your question here. You might just be featured in a future post!

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LMS Selection Step-by-Step

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With hundreds of learning systems available today, finding the right LMS for your unique extended enterprise needs can be tricky. But with so much at stake for, it’s worth the extra effort.

How can you choose the best solution? Walk step-by-step through a real-world example with John Leh, CEO and Lead Analyst at Talented Learning. You’ll learn:

• How to develop a relevant business case and success metrics
• Methods for researching and defining use cases and requirements
• When to issue an RFP (or not)
• Tips for creating a viable LMS shortlist
• How to make the most of vendor demos and proof-of-concept projects

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Need Proven LMS Selection Guidance?

Looking for a learning platform that truly fits your organization’s needs?  We’re here to help!  Submit the form below to schedule a free preliminary consultation at your convenience.

• First Name*
• Last Name*
• Email Address*
• Company

The post Got LMS Implementation Questions? Ask a Learning Tech Analyst appeared first on Talented Learning.

Got LMS Implementation Questions? Ask a Learning Tech Analyst original post at Talented Learning

How Practice and Feedback Drive Deeper Learning