While there often are tangible career benefits to continuing professional education, training is also a very effective sales and marketing tactic. Sy Syms famously said, “An educated consumer is our best customer.”
Many companies promote professional education or training as a benefit to their sales channel, installation and support partners, and select customers. If participants include prospects or new customers, training validates their assumptions, hopes, or buying decisions. If students are longtime or loyal customers, training supports, nurtures, and obligates your best customers. Once comfortable and confident in selling, installing, or using your product or service, stakeholders become highly invested in your company and very resistant to change.
Courses may be free or for a fee, and offered online (aka on-demand, self-paced, synchronous, or asynchronous) or in-person. Topics may range from business or industry trends, social or technical trends, specialized professional skills, and product specifications, installation and applications.
A free webinar, training, seminar, or panel discussion is a common offer in a marketing campaign. It’s a great way to acquire contact information and qualify leads. You acquire a captive audience for an hour, a day, or several days to whom you can frame thinking and conversations in your favor. You can inculcate your stakeholders, customers, or potential customers with exactly what you want them to know.
Then, give them a certificate for completing the course or provide a clear track toward a professional certification that they can then use to differentiate and market themselves (and you).
Early in my career I competed with a company that had a huge training budget, which they used to develop “professional instructors” offering “accredited courses” toward industry (or company) certifications. The company provided classes at their facilities, online, at customer locations, road shows, trade shows, etc. The instructors provided resource materials and reference books with all the course content. Participants would receive credits toward an industry certification or pass a test to obtain a course certification at the conclusion of the class.
During sales meetings, I was consistently questioned about esoteric topics, applications, and specification. I tried to keep the conversation focused on substantive issues, but inevitably I got derailed by tangential subjects. If I explained that the issue they were raising was not really a problem, I was dismissed. They thought that I must not be knowledgeable because that’s what they learned in “class” for which they received a certificate.
Training, certifications, and even award programs are powerful tools I now use to promote new product launches and company branding. Training is education, but it’s also a sales and marketing tactic if used strategically.
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