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Giving Fans Backstage Access: How Paper.li Is Embracing Its Users

All InAlmost a year ago, my friend Kelly Hungerford contacted me about working with Paper.li to help the company build structures to help it more efficiently connect with its users and create value for them.  Paper.li has a pretty devoted userbase, and a big reason why is because of the personalized customer service (or ‘customer care’ that Kelly calls it) that Paper.li has given its users.

But Paper.li’s team is like many growing companies in that team members are often required to wear many hats.  Which presented a challenge for Paper.li: How do you scale having individual relationships with users when the userbase expands from a few thousand to a few hundred thousand users?

So we started out by asking and answering those two questions that I mentioned in the last episode of #FanDamnShow:

1 – What does Paper.li get from this?

2 – What will Paper.li’s users get from this?

 

We came up with some very specific goals that we were shooting for on each end that I don’t want to get into here.  The bottom line is that Paper.li wanted to create programs and structures that help it better connect with its users, and give those users more value and more input into its marketing, product design, and feedback, moving forward.

Many of Paper.li’s planned projects are still in development, but you’ve already seen one, the #Bizheroes chat on Twitter.  This chat is run primarily by Kelly and Magda.  The topics are chosen based on a simple question: “What business and life skills would be beneficial to Paper.li’s users?”  Paper.li brings in experts each week to discuss and teach about a particular skill.  Kelly, who transitioned from Paper.li to start her own consulting business late last year, is working with Paper.li in an advisory role now with the chat.  It’s a wonderful chat that happens each Tuesday at 1pm Central, in fact the participation numbers are often at or better than #Blogchat’s levels!

Another initiative that Paper.li has just rolled out is called Backstage at Paper.li.  Paper.li believes as I do that your passionate customers hold incredible value for your company as a feedback channel.  From our first discussions, we explored the idea of creating a way to let Paper.li users not only give us feedback on existing features, but also input and opinions on possible future features, products and marketing.

To that end, Belinda Sadouk, Paper.li’s new Marketing and Communications Manager, is spearheading the launch of Backstage at Paper.li.  This is a new place that will not only give those who signup an advance ‘sneak peek’ at new features and products from Paper.li, it will also be a feedback channel to better incorporate the ideas, opinions and expertise of Paper.li’s users into future offerings.  The idea is to create a place where Paper.li can connect with its users in a deeper way, allowing them to be able to get early access to new products, features and initiatives, so that their feedback can be applied throughout the development process.  This will not only improve the quality of the ideas and products that go through Backstage, but the users will become more invested in helping those ideas be successful, since they had more input in their direction.

Paper.li CEO Edouard Lambelet talks about this on Paper.li’s blog this week, but the Paper.li platform has allowed the company to collect massive amount of data, especially around content.  What type of content resonates with users, for example, and this is user-generated data.  So part of the goal of Backstage is to take this data and give it back to the users so it can benefit them as well.  By combining the intelligence created by Paper.li’s data along with input and feedback from users, Paper.li hopes to create products that make a more positive difference in the lives of its users.

If you are a Paper.li user (or just curious!) please signup here to join Backstage at Paper.li.  I will say this: Within the next few weeks members will be given an advance look at a new app that Paper.li will be rolling out that many of you reading this blog will want.  You can find out more information on Paper.li’s blog.

One Final Takeaway

Your most passionate customers, call them fans, advocates or ambassadors, are more than simply ‘volunteer salespeople’.  Yes, fans create cash, but your fans are also a treasure trove of valuable feedback and insights into how to improve your business processes.  It pays to reach out to your most passionate customers and invest in creating stronger connections with them that drive real business growth.  I’m looking forward to seeing what Paper.li has in store for creating deeper connections with its users.

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The Fan-Damn-Tastic Marketing Show Episode 12: Saying ‘Thank You’ As a Marketing Strategy

Welcome to the 12th episode of The Fan-Damn-Tastic Marketing Show!  BTW before I get to the Show Notes for this episode, thank y’all for making last Tuesday the best day for downloads of the show at 66 downloads!  That’s the best in the history of the show since it was launched last May!  Thanks to everyone for listening.  I mentioned my audience goals for the show earlier this month, and while January is now the best month ever for downloads, there’s still some work to do to reach January’s goal of 750 downloads.  So any help you can give me by telling others about The Fan-Damn-Tastic Marketing Show would be greatly appreciated!  In fact if you enjoy the show please consider leaving a review on iTunes, it really helps!

Show Notes:

0:45 – Thank you to Amy Robles, Sarah Seado and Kary Delaria

1:00 – The role of saying ‘Thank you’ in building an audience

2:25 – Appreciating your customers is the great marketing equalizer

3:10 – Too many companies focus on acquiring new customers vs showing appreciation for their existing customers

4:00 – Why would you not say ‘Thank you’ to the people that are helping you reach your goals?

4:45 – The bar has been set so low that when a company appreciates us, it surprises us

 

Here’s where you can download this episode directly.  And if you can,please subscribe to The Fan-Damn-Tastic Marketing Show on iTunes, and I would *love* it if you could review the podcast on iTunes as well.

Here’s this week’s episode:

And here’s all the episodes so far:

 

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Converting at the Speed of Your Customers

6462543711_4e0a692861_zOne of the struggles that companies have always had with social media marketing is balancing the functions and sometimes even limitations of the tools, with the company’s need to drive sales and increase revenue.  As I have said before, social media really doesn’t function well as a direct-sales tool.  Social media definitely plays a role in the sales funnel, but it’s closer to the top than the bottom.

In Marketing 101 class we learned about the AIDA model of consumer behavior.

A = Awareness

I = Interest

D = Desire

A = Action

 

We could change that a bit for the modern consumer’s purchase journey, especially with an online context:

1 – Awareness, a potential customer becomes aware of your brand

2 – Comparison and evaluation, the customer evaluates your brand, if it is a fit for their needs, and compares it to other brands to determine which is best for them

3 – Action, the customer decides to buy your product

4 – Post-purchase evaluation and service.  The customer evaluates your product and if they are satisfied with the product as well as the company’s support and service for the product.  This greatly influences the word of mouth that the customer will generate about the product moving forward.

 

So there are two key points to realize here:

1 – There is an actual customer journey prior to and even after each purchase.  Every customer has different content needs based on where they are in their unique purchase journey.  You need to determine how to reach the customer at each point, and create the appropriate content for them.

2 – Customers will require multiple content touchpoints prior to a purchase, and that takes time and effort.

 

A big reason why many companies start and abandon social media marketing is because they don’t fully understand the role that social media plays in the customer’s purchase journey.  Since interaction with social media content happens at the top of the sales funnel for most customers (during the Awareness stage), then it’s often difficult to tie the sale back to the content that moved the customer closer to the sale.  At the same time, it’s imperative for companies to continue to create that content because if not then it won’t rank as well in search engine results, which makes it more difficult for a customer to find your content to begin with.  If you google ‘creating a brand ambassador program”, you’re going to find one of my posts, you won’t find the post written by the agency in 2010 that hasn’t written a new post on its blog since 2012.

Let’s go through a hypothetical.  Let’s say I have a laptop that runs hot as a firecracker after 15 mins.  So hot that it’s uncomfortable, and I am doing research on what I can do to make my laptop run cooler.  I google the term “Why does my laptop run so hot?”, and I come across a post on your company blog titled “Why does your laptop run so hot?  Because it needs a cooling pad!”

A cooling pad?  I had no idea such a device existed!  But apparently it does, and your company sells it.  It’s a pad that has two fans that you put under your laptop while it is running that cools the laptop down.  So now that I know such a device exists, I move from the Awareness stage to the Comparison and Evaluation stage.  This is where I ask my friends if they have ever used a cooling pad, and I research them online on sites like Amazon, etc.

This is where it’s very important for your company to stay connected to its customers.  If your company that sells the best little cooling pad in the world has been actively engaging its happy customers, then those happy customers will now happily sell me on why I should buy a cooling pad from your company.  They will be writing blog posts praising your cooling pad, and 5-star reviews on Amazon.  See how we are already dealing with multiple content touchpoints?     

So I found out about your cooling pad by reading a post on your company blog.  I then researched several cooling pads and your company’s happy customers told me that your company’s cooling pad was the best.  So I went to Amazon and bought your cooling pad.

Here’s the thing that drives companies crazy.  Even though I bought your cooling pad, and even though my purchase journey began with reading a post on your company blog about your cooling pad, it is incredibly difficult if not impossible to tie that post to the sale of a cooling pad.  Which is why many companies will abandon social media marketing efforts that may actually be working, they just can’t easily track the results.

But I’ll talk more about ROI in a few days.  For now, you have to understand that multiple content touchpoints will be required to generate a sale.  Typically you won’t have one blog post that directly generates all the sales you need.  You need to not only create a steady flow of customer-centric content, you also have to keep engaging the customer at every step of the purchase journey.

Pic via Flickr user Alexis Fam

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The ‘Plant Your Flag’ Approach to Creating Your Content Strategy

5878418781_51d6e175db_oYou’re at a conference with a friend at one of those ‘mixer’ networking events the night before the event starts.  Your friend spots someone she knows, and calls him over.  They quickly say their hellos, then she turns to you and says ‘Pete, I want you to meet my friend Kate.  Kate is…..’  And at that point one of two things happens:

1 – Your friend tries to explain who you are and what you do based on her perceptions of who you are and what you do

2 – Your friend knows who you are and what you do, and explains that to her friend

Whenever I work with companies on their content strategies, one of the most important questions I ask them is ‘How do you want to be known?’  If someone was going to introduce you at a networking event, how would they explain what your company does and what it stands for?

In other words, you need to decide what you want to be known for, and plant your flag there.  You need to own the topics that you want to be associated with, and create content that focuses on these areas.  The more useful and relevant your content is to others, the stronger the association you’ll create between yourself and your expertise in these areas.

This works for a company or an individual:

Jay Baer – “Oh he’s that YouTility guy, he writes about marketing that’s so useful that people would pay for it”

Red Bull – “Oh they are that company that sells energy drinks and is active in all those extreme sports”

Jeremiah Owyang – “Oh he’s that analyst that’s always writing about The Collaborative Economy”

Patagonia – “Oh they are that clothing company that sells active wear and supports the environment”

Jay and Jeremiah focus on the topics of YouTility and the Collaborative Economy because they want to be associated with those ideas and terms.  Your company needs to have the same focus, think about what you want to be known for, and write content around those topics or areas.

But I Know Zip About SEO and Hate the Idea of ‘Writing For Search Engines’

This is why this approach works so well, because if you focus on creating content that relates to the topics that you want to be known for, the SEO stuff largely takes care of itself.

The cold, hard reality is that if you don’t define yourself, someone else will, and you might not like the definition they give you.  For years I was known as ‘The #Blogchat guy’.  I love and am very proud of #Blogchat, but from a business perspective, being known as ‘The #Blogchat guy’ really doesn’t help me.  So a couple of years ago as I was writing Think Like a Rock Star I really buckled down on my content and started focusing on the topics I wanted to be known for.  Such as brand advocacy, customer-centric content, brand ambassador programs, and customer engagement.  By focusing on creating content around these topics, I’ve changed the conversation about who I am and how others view me.  Plus writing a book that covers these same topics didn’t hurt!

So as you are getting ready to focus on your planning for 2015, apply this method to your content strategy.  Ask and answer this question:

“What are the 2-3 things that we want to be known for?”

If you need help thinking this through, you can apply the Topic Buckets approach to this.  Once you have determined what those 2-3 things are, relentlessly create content around each topic area.  Over time, it will become easier for search engines and people that read your blog and interact with your content to identify you and your business with those topics.

Plant your flag, and win!

Pic via Flickr user  marsmettnn tallahaassee

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The Passion Point: When Brand Like Turns Into Brand Love

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Earlier this decade, Patagonia made a rather bizarre plea to its customers: Stop buying our stuff.  The outdoor apparel brand launched a marketing campaign designed to ask customers to reconsider their shopping habits.  To stop buying new coats when their current one was just fine, to stop indulging in spending sprees on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.  To spend less on what you want and more on just what you need.

So did Patagonia’s customers heed the brand’s advice?  They did not, as Patagonia’s sales increased by more than $150 Million over the next year.

Obviously, this approach won’t work for every brand.  And that’s the point.  It works for Patagonia because the brand has established the trust of its customers.  Its customers believe that Patagonia’s motivations behind asking customers to avoid extravagant purchases are truly to create a better world.  Many of Patagonia’s customers share these beliefs and wants.  Which means Patagonia’s marketing message to ‘buy less’ actually validates to its customers that Patagonia is a brand that they should believe in, and support.

This story also goes to the heart of truly successful marketing.  Too many brands market their products, when they should be marketing how those products fit into the lives of their customers.  Patagonia does this amazingly well.  The brand focuses on its customers and their likes and beliefs.  The company shares many of those same beliefs, such as protecting the environment, enjoying the outdoors, and sustainability.

We all have certain things we are passionate about.  Maybe it’s something specific like US military history, horseback riding or automotive repair.  Or it could be more general like design, simplicity, minimalism.  But we all have things that we are passionate about and that we love.  Things that motivate and excite us.  We can relate some of those things with some brands.

But we love the brands that we identify as being related to the things we love.  In the Patagonia example, its customers love the brand because its customers love protecting the planet and believe that the Patagonia brand has this same desire.  Patagonia is helping to facilitate the ideas and beliefs that are important to its customers: Protecting the environment, being active in the outdoors and sustainability.  Patagonia’s customers feel better about themselves for supporting the brand.

So if you truly want to make a connection with your customers, don’t promote your brand so much as you promote the things that your customers love that they associate with your brand.  For Patagonia, that’s protecting the environment, being active outdoors, and sustainability.  For Fiskars it’s scrapbooking.  For Harley-Davidson it’s the freedom of the open road.  It’s not about a parka, a pair of scissors or a motorcycle.

It’s about us.  It’s about the things we are passionate about, that we love.  How well you relate to the things we love determines how well we will relate to your brand.  When you can show us that your brand is just as passionate about these same things and can help us realize our passions, we might just love your brand as well.

Pic via Flickr user David Robert Bllwas

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This is Exactly Why You Should Ask Your Customers For Online Reviews

EnterpriseEmailConsider these customer service/satisfaction facts:

Americans tell an average of 9 people about a good experience with a company, and 16 people about a bad experience.

Roughly 80% of all tweets related to a customer service issue with a company, are negative.

But think about how this applies to you: Are you more likely to praise a company or complain?  Personally, I am more likely to share a negative experience, or rather I am more likely to be motivated to share a negative experience.  Especially when I think the company just completely screwed up.

Yet when it comes to a positive experience, I am less likely/motivated to share that experience.  Case in point, for over a year now I’ve been renting cars (quite often) from a particular Enterprise location locally.  So much so that the employees that work there recognize me and know which vehicle I prefer in the class I rent.  I always get a good experience, and a couple of times it’s been exceptional.  So when I received an email (screenshot above) encouraging me to review them online, it was a no-brainer.  In fact my first thought was ‘Of course, I should have already done this!’

The reason why?  We complain because we want to get the company’s attention so they will fix our problem.  That’s typically our motivation when we complain online.  With a positive experience, we aren’t trying to get the company’s attention, so our motivation to share good news is typically less.

The takeaway is this: A lot of companies are very reluctant to send an email like the one Enterprise did.  “We’re just encouraging our customers to leave negative reviews online!” I can see many CEOs lamenting.  But most of those unsatisfied customers have already left a negative review online.  Asking for reviews would typically encourage more positive reviews than negative.

We are more motivated and likely to share negative experiences with a company than positive ones.  So by asking for reviews, you are evening the scales because you are making it easier for customers that had a positive experience to share that.

Do you agree with this?  Are you more likely to share a very positive or negative experience online?

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Sprint: 20% of Employee Bonuses Are Tied to Net Promoter Score

14325498366_f041d5d541_zSprint has rolled out a new bonus structure for all its employees, including executives.  Moving forward, 20% of employee bonuses will depend on how effectively its current customers promote Sprint to new customers.  In short, Sprint is betting on the power of the Net Promoter Score, and will pay its employees big bucks for raising its score.

Here’s how it works: Surveyors ask Sprint customers to rate — from zero to 10 — how willing they are to recommend the company to others. Only nines and 10s count as promoters. Sevens and eights are considered neutral, and anything less comes out as a detractor.

The key for Sprint employees and execs is that 20 percent of their incentive pay is now tied to improving that score.

On paper, this sounds like a good idea.  The rationale is that if more of Sprint’s current customers are generating positive Word of Mouth, it will lead to new customers.  So Sprint wants to reward employees when its NPS increases.

Here’s the potential problem I see:  By paying employees for raising its NPS, it gives employees an incentive to raise its NPS instead of creating an environment where happy customers promote the brand.  What gets measured gets managed.  The goal shouldn’t be improving your NPS, that should be a by-product of doing a better job of understanding your customers.  The goal should be to better understand and connect with your existing customers.  A by-product of this will be an increased NPS.

Here’s another example:  Telstra, Australia’s largest telecommunications company, is also betting big on the power of its brand advocates.  But instead of focusing on raising its NPS, Telstra has focused on its call centers, on giving customers a better and more efficient experience.  Additionally, the company sends out over 11 million customer surveys a year, including 30,000 a day.  The feedback from these surveys as well as call centers is then mined and applied to Telstra’s existing marketing efforts.

As a result, Telstra’s NPS has increased by 3 points in 2014.

Whenever I talk to a company about launching a brand ambassador program, we talk about the reasons why they feel they need such a program.  Then I ask them to tell me what in it for their customers.  Many companies can tell me exactly how they want to benefit, but when it comes to discussing the value created for the customer, they typically haven’t given that as much consideration.  The goal shouldn’t be to raise your NPS, it should be to give your customers a reason to rave about you.  If you do that, then your NPS will take care of itself.

Whenever you considering launching any initiative that’s dependent on your customers performing some action for you, always carefully outline what’s in it for the customer.  Be able to spell out how you benefit, and how the customer will benefit.

The goal is a win-win, not a win for your brand.

Pic via Flickr user Mike Mozart

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The Fan-Damn-Tastic Marketing Show Episode 8: Building Loyalty To Your Brand, Not Your Offer

Hey y’all!  In this 8th episode of #FanDamnShow I talk about loyalty programs and why most companies completely mess them up.  For a good background on what we’ll be discussing, check out this post.

Show notes:

1:09 – Discussion of Loyalty Programs (that are more interesting than Andy Griffith re-runs), and why these are typically structured incorrectly

1:52 – Punch cards as an example of building loyalty to the offer versus the brand

3:40 – How to build a smart loyalty program by rewarding the behavior you want to encourage (think rewards for past behavior not incentives for future behavior)

5:02 – Wal-Mart vs Publix and why I love Publix and hate Wal-Mart based on the experience that each provides

6:50 – When you ask fans/customers to engage in an offer, make sure you reward them for doing so and an example I ran into recently where this didn’t happen for me

13:45 – Recap and how to know that your company is structuring its loyalty program correctly in order to build loyalty toward your brand

 

You can listen to all 8 episodes of The Fan-Damn-Tastic Marketing Show on iTunes, please subscribe!

 

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This Is (Probably) Why Your Brand Ambassador Program Sucks

Every week I field calls and conversations with companies about starting a brand ambassador or advocacy program.  Almost every time, the company explains that they are excited about the idea of launching a brand ambassador program as a way to generate sales for the brand.  They tell me how they have fans and they think they need a program to better connect with those fans so the fans can sell for them.

This makes complete sense.  Then the conversation typically goes something like this:

Me: “So what’s in it for your fans?”

Company: “What do you mean?”

Me: “Well you want your fans to start going out and actively selling for you, that’s a lot to ask of them.  What are you prepared to offer them in exchange for being a part of this program?”

Company: Long pause…”Well they are our fans, I just assumed they would be happy to help us!”

Just as communities do not form around the idea of being monetized, your fans are not waiting for you to take advantage of them.  You have to give your fans a compelling reason to be involved in your program.  If they don’t care about your program then they won’t care about selling your product to other customers.

So when you create a brand ambassador program, give special thought to what your fans get from being involved in the program.  Your goal is to create a set of benefits from being in the program that are so compelling to your fans that you have so many fans wanting to be involved that you have to limit membership.

A Real-World Example of How This Works

Your company sells lawn care products, and you want to create an ambassador program for the fans of your products that are designed to kill bugs in their lawns.

From the company standpoint, you want to do things like give your fans special coupons so they can give them to customers that they meet in their day-to-day activities.  You want to have a way to collect feedback from your fans when they talk to potential customers, and you want to be able to track sales generated from your fans.

That’s all company-oriented.  So what do your fans get from being involved in this brand ambassador program?

Since your fans are already buying your products to kill pests in their lawns, it’s obvious that these customers spend a lot of time maintaining their lawns.  So your company could offer them materials, seminars, etc that help teach them how to create and maintain a more beautiful lawn.  You could teach them why certain lawns attract certain pests, and how to eliminate them.  You could partner with chains such as Lowe’s and Home Depot to offer special Fans Only workshops on lawn care.

The best part about all of this is as you are teaching your fans how to better maintain their lawns, you are also educating them on your lawncare products.  Which means you are teaching your fans a new set of skills, but you are also teaching them how to better sell your products.  Because once your fans understand why certain pests are damaging to their lawns, they will be able to better sell your product, because they will know that it eliminates those pests.

So by creating benefits for your fans you are not only increasing their loyalty toward your brand and the program, you are also empowering them to be better salespeople for your products.

When you are creating a brand ambassador program spend as much if not more time on what your fans get from being involved.  The more you offer your fans, the more you can ask of them.  Never assume that your fans will happily jump through hoops for you simply because they are your fans.  Think about who your fans are as people, and how you can give them skills and empower them to better succeed in their day to day lives.  And do so in a way that relates to your product and why they love your brand to begin with.

 

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5 Reasons Your Company Needs Marketing Training

J0289538When I taught new media marketing, I wanted so much to attend conferences and hear about the latest thinking in my industry. When my organization refused to fund my attendance, I took on a side job creating content for reputable industry sites, so that I could qualify for press passes to quality events.

Training and professional development meant that much to me (and still does), which is why I’m incredibly happy that I’m now part of MarketingProfs, one of the absolute best (and best known) resources for marketing training.

You might be a small business with limited resources, or an established company with an experienced marketing team. Either way, earmarking some of your budget for marketing training is a smart investment.

Staying current helps you

First, even if your marketing team is bringing in leads like crazy right now, the fact is that things change almost daily. We all know this, and yet we have a natural tendency to continue doing what works right now.

But even if you’re doing well, you could probably be doing better. More importantly, what works now will stop working once your competitors discover new channels (think Instagram, Snapchat, and Vine) and find ways to increase their share of mind and market.

You might undertake a skills assessment, so you can identify areas for improvement. For instance, if your team comprises experienced marketers who came on the scene before the advent of social media and mobile, it’s possible you’re not doing as much in those areas as you could.

An assessment will reveal this weakness, and you can invest in some targeted training experiences to bring everyone up to speed. Good for your team, good for your company.

You don’t know what you don’t know

You could be using LinkedIn to connect with clients and confirm sales appointments (which is great), but did you know that you can also use it for email marketing and targeted advertising?

Did you know that Facebook offers “custom audiences,” an advertising feature where you upload your email list into Facebook and it displays your ads just to that highly qualified group?

Maybe you did, but even so, there are bound to be features rolling out as we speak that you weren’t aware of. Channels, platform features, best practices, laws and consumer trends all change so quickly that it’s impossible for any one person to keep up with it all.

But you don’t know what you don’t know: marketing training will make you aware of emerging trends in your industry, and you can even focus on learning what’s new with the channels that interest you most. Which brings me to my next point…

You can tailor the training to your organization’s goals and needs

Whether you run a skills assessment to identify gaps in your team’s knowledge, or choose training courses based on your marketing goals (e.g. “expand our mobile marketing efforts), you can select the provider and the training experience that will help you to meet your objectives.

For some organizations, hiring a consultant to come in and conduct on-site training works best. For larger companies with big marketing teams spread out across the country or the globe, online learning may work better. In many instances, a blended approach (online training with an in-person component) gives companies the best of both worlds.

Whichever type of training you select, actively participate in the planning process: choose the topics you want to cover, the method of delivery, and the schedule. The best marketing training providers use established learning theory to guide their curriculum design, so ask about that when you choose a training vendor. Consider ways to measure the success of your training, as well. (More on this in a minute.)

Buy-in from managers helps ensure lessons are applied

There’s nothing more frustrating than returning from a conference or training event brimming with ideas, only to have them shot down. It’s enough to make you stow your binder of materials on a shelf, and never touch it again. What a waste!

If you’re supervising a team of marketing professionals, you’re uniquely positioned to see how marketing training benefits your organization. By facilitating the training, you will know what your marketers are learning, and can see how they apply their new skills and insights to upcoming product launches, marketing campaigns, and more.

Depending on your position within the company, you could even see ripples from your team’s marketing training affect sales through social selling initiatives and content marketing, improve customer service through social, and impact PR.

If you’re on the team receiving training, someone clearly cares enough to help you develop as a professional, which is the hallmark of a quality employer. Moreover, you can expect that your suggestions based on the training will meet with support, because management wants to see a return on their investment.

You can measure the results

Completing the training is just the beginning of the process: the ultimate goal is to see the learning drive real business results.

At MarketingProfs, we set narrowly tailored learning objectives for each training course, so participants know exactly which skills they will acquire from the training.

The goal isn’t just for your team to “know” or “understand” the latest thinking in marketing, but for them to apply this knowledge to your specific marketing goals and, in turn, support your company’s overarching business objectives.

The success of your marketing depends on the skill of your marketing team. Give them what they need to succeed!

Kerry O’Shea Gorgone is a writer, lawyer, speaker and educator. She’s also Instructional Design Manager, Enterprise Training, at MarketingProfs. Kerry hosts the weekly Marketing Smarts podcast. Find Kerry on Google+ and Twitter.