This toolkit will help you:
1.
Build a Public
Content Strategy
2.
Nurture Your
Learner Segments
3.
Pursue the Right
Fee vs. Free Model
4.
Unlock Maximum
Profitability
The Thought Industries
Growth Toolkit
Unbox the secrets to a growing, thriving enterprise learning program.
With constant organizational or economic change, limited resources, and a laundry list of content to produce, growing a training business is not easy.
But “growth” is really about two simple components: First, how are you getting your program in front of your audience – and how do you plan to increase the volume of that audience? And second, how are you currently pricing and packaging your learning so that your customers and your organization are seeing maximum benefits?
Simply put, Growth = Reach + Profitability.
At Thought Industries, we often conduct our own research and hold conversations with highly successful training organizations. Along the way, we’ve found that these businesses are not only actively working to grow the number of engaged customers, they’re also thinking about the best ways to enhance their pricing model to get the most bang for their buck… and in return, they’re seeing gains in headcount and budget.
This toolkit will walk you through how to do exactly that – first by mastering discoverability and promotion, then by optimizing your pricing strategy until you maximize that return.
Build a Public Content Strategy
Achieving clarity and usability isn’t just important for your learners – it’s the foundation for healthy SEO and discoverability. Search engines need to easily understand the goals and components of your Academy so they can direct the right traffic toward it. The good news is, that same clarity and readability makes a big impact on your user experience (UX).
SEO matters most when it comes to in-the-door discoverability – it’s how a lot of learners will find you in the first place. But once they’re in your Academy, UX is how you can ensure they can find the information they really need.
Check out our Anatomy of an Optimized Academy below to quickly take stock of the components that promote both discoverability and great user experience. For a more detailed audit of your Academy’s public content strategy, use our Discoverability Checklist.
Anatomy of an Optimized Academy
- Title: Your header and title tag, using thoughtful keywords, are great SEO indicators that your academy aligns with learners’ search terms.
- Headings: Headings visually break up & organize your page for users. Use additional and related keywords here to add SEO value.
- Optimized Images & Video: Including media is a great SEO boost – be sure to always add a meta-description with built-in keywords.
- Clear Navigation: A navigation bar will be visible on multiple pages throughout your academy, which adds weight to its importance for SEO.
- Engaging CTAs: Clickable CTAs keep users moving through the site, exploring new content. Make these eye-catching to encourage traffic.
Double-Check Your Discoverability
Learn more about all of the factors that go into a user-friendly
(and Google-friendly) learning experience with this checklist.
Nurture Your Learner Segments
Simply building and launching more content won’t lead you to growth. Learning businesses should not only be focused on best-in-class content, but also the channels and activities that drive demand and interest. Promoting training through channels like social media or a customer community can result in a huge boost in the breadth of your audience – but remember, the depth of learning for each of those users is key, too.
Nurturing all of your learner segments to engage with training often requires the direct collaboration and partnership of other groups in your organization, like Marketing. Check out our Learner Lifecycle below to better understand the impact of learning consumption throughout entire customer journey. Then, download “11 Tips to Drive Learning Content Consumption” for more guidance to drive engagement.
11 Tips to Drive Learning Content Consumption
Need to boost learning engagement? Check out this eBook packed with advice and ideas to get started.
Download 11 Tips to Drive Consumption
Pursue the Right Fee vs. Free Strategy
As your pool of learners expands, you’ll need to turn your attention to the profitability of each new learner you’re adding. How are you packaging and offering your learner components? For some learning businesses, content might be grouped according to level of complexity, or some might offer popular courses for free as an incentive.
Ultimately, your team will need to set goals that align with a particular customer learning business model (see below for details) – then move deeper into pricing and packaging strategies to help you meet those objectives. In other words – your training should be accessible, but you don’t want to leave money on the table.
3 Business Models for Customer Learning
Ultimate Guide to Monetization
Check out our guide for more tips on the nuances involved with pricing and monetizing your learning. Pick the strategies that work best for your organization!
Download Ultimate Monetization Guide
Unlock Maximum Profitability
For many successful learning businesses, finding and narrowing in on the best pricing and packaging strategy for training is a constant, ongoing process of optimization.
From the types of subscriptions you offer, to the technology you use to host or build your content, profitable learning businesses look across the board for areas to trim down expenses and boost revenues.
Profit optimization is a constant balancing act between short-term savings and long-term gains – check out the infographic below to explore the most common factors, or “levers,” learning teams wrestle with, and what to consider along the way.
Explore the Profitability Levers
See a birds’-eye view of the factors that go into increasing profitability.
