Viewing Training, Marketing, and Documentation Content Through the Learning Lens

Years ago, the informationthat training, documentation, and marketing professionals created fortheir respective audiences contained very distinct and recognizablecharacteristics. Personnel with differing skill sets and talents ineach of these departments developed the content with variousintentions.

However, today’s global anddigital information landscape requires training, documentation, andmarketing practitioners to rethink and repackage information fortheir demanding and wired audiences. Ina world that is saturated with digital content, your customers wantinformation that informs, educates, and solves their problems at thecritical moment of need. If you’re a training, documentation, ormarketing professional, and you want your messages to resonate withyour audience, you must now view your role through the Learning Lens.Think of yourself as an engaging educator – not just a contentcreator.

Blending the disciplines and delivering learning content

Thanksto the speed, ubiquity, and accessibility of information distributionon the Web, customers expect a company’s online communications tohave value and relevance to their lives. In addition, the nature ofinformation retrieval on the Web is pushing all manner of onlineexperiences to become less prescriptive, less rigid, and lesscontrolled. As a result, training, documentation, and marketingefforts are harder to distinguish from each other and bear moreresemblance to self-paced learning.

Let’s look at each of thesethree areas more closely:

Training

Traditional training has beena scheduled event at a particular location, led by an instructor in adesignated classroom. This kind of training can be time consuming andcostly while lacking the continuous learning and reinforcement thatemployees need to advance and maintain skills over time. In order tomeet the learning objectives of today’s mobile and distributedworkforce, training professionals are converting classroom curriculainto self-paced eLearning courses and making content more accessibleand applicable.

Documentation

Installation guides, usermanuals, and other types of printed documentation are increasinglyreplaced with information sought online on Google, YouTube, LinkedIn,and countless other discussion boards, blogs, and portals wherecustomers and experts exchange information and advice. Documentationis no longer confined to printed pages that are shrink-wrapped withthe product. The concept of documentation has expanded to includejust-in-time self-help resources of all kinds such as knowledgebases, chat forums, video tutorials, eLearning courses, interactivegames, and live Webinars. Customers expect product learningexperiences to occur wherever and whenever the need arises –in the least amount of timerequired and in the most convenient way possible.

Marketing

Traditional advertising andpromotional messages are increasingly ignored by prospects and oftenviewed as annoying interruptions to their busy day. As a result,marketing practitioners are investing more time and money in thedevelopment of non-promotional content – suchas white papers, case studies, how-to videos, best-practice articles,and other such tools that deliver value. Prospects are alerted tothese information assets through social media channels, and theyconsume these resources when and where they need them. This newmarketing approach is referred to as “inbound” or “contentmarketing;” it’s about informing without interruption and educatingwithout pretense.

New proficiencies needed

In order to form meaningfuland productive relationships with customers and employees, contentproducers in an organization should produce materials intended toinform and educate rather than simply promote or saturate. Contentproviders need to address the learning needs of their customers andmeet those needs quickly before they are abandoned for bettersources. As a result, the success of an organization is increasinglydependent upon the effectiveness of the content it produces. And thiseffectiveness is directly related to the learning qualities investedin the content.

Developing content that isoriented toward on-demand learning requires professionals working intraining, marketing, and documentation to develop new proficiencies.In the past, documentation experts might have specialized intechnical writing, trainers might have focused on face-to-facepresentation skills, and marketers may have directed their effortstoward successful copywriting. Today, however, all threeprofessionals need to develop skills related to Web technology,multimedia formats, instructional design, information delivery,content management, and learning strategies such as blended learning,unstructured learning, and social learning.

Are you developing learning content?

Thereare three aspects to consider when evaluating whether your contentofferings fall into the category of successful learning content: 1)the content type, 2) the content delivery, and 3) your contentdevelopment attitude.

Content type

Thetypes of content that you develop are a first indicator of yourlearning orientation. Are your content offerings driven by what youwant to say or by what content customers want to know? Do you developglossy brochures with feel-good stock photos or do you createinteresting case studies that elucidate practical business solutions?Do you offer take-it-or-leave-it, day-long instruction by PowerPointor do you develop training modules accessable in small packets on anongoing basis? Determining the content type is not about whether theend product is a video or a slideshow but whether it’s a lectureformat, a Q&A session, a cue card, or a demonstration.

Thevolume, depth, and organization of the information included is whatcharacterizes learning content types. The organizational structuredetermines how users progress through the content, how they find thedesired pieces in the larger whole, and whether users can progressfrom general to more detailed information. Examples of learningcontent include a job aid that is structured to match an employee’sworkflow, a dialog that is staged between a manager and a vendor, ora searchable database that allows the user to query and pull thedesired information nuggets.

Youcan design nearly any content type with learning attributes, but somecontent types lend themselves more readily to learningcharacteristics. Such types include white papers, case studies,blogs, Webinars, eBooks, eLearning modules, tutorials, product demos,and knowledge bases.

Providinga rich variety of learning content types allows your customers tochoose the formats that work best for them. If you are creating onlyone category of content that happens to be glossy brochures orone-way broadcasts, you might be stuck in the old world of contentdevelopment. You may be spending time and money producing neglecteddinosaurs rather than challenging yourself to think of content typesthat provide the right hooks for customers to grab onto and pull intotheir lives.

Content delivery

Thecontent type is associated with, but is not the same as, the contentdelivery. Your content type might be a product demonstration, whilethe delivery could be a video, a live demo, or an illustrated book.

Thedelivery of your content types should be oriented toward the where,when, and how of the learner’s context. A learning approach impliesthat you are thinking about how to make your content available in away that allows for maximum impact with minimum intrusion. Are youexpecting employees to watch a 30-minute video in the cafeteria tolearn about a procedure change or are you also issuing several shortvideos they can access on their mobile phone just before initiatingthe modified process? Are you expecting customers to read an entire30-page manual before using your software or are you also postingshort, online tutorials from which they can select those that matchtheir current needs?

Thekey to learning-focused delivery is understanding where your contentcustomers are when they need the information, what problems they wantto solve, and how to give them the most open and efficient access tothe segments they need.

Content development attitude

Yourcontent development attitude is all about the posture you take towardyour content customers and the intentions you build into your work.Are you wrapped up in the messages you want to embed in yourcustomer’s mind or are you working to understand their context,their desire for saving time, solving problems, and overcomingobstacles? Are you expecting customers to come to you forenlightenment or are you packaging information in ways that allowthem to control how and when you enter their life?

Adoptinga learning attitude means that you strive to promote the learning ofyour content customers by learning all you can about them.Instead of pushing your proclamations into what you imagine to be agrateful world, you orient yourself to be humbly at the service of aworld that calls on you when it needs you. This creates a shift inthe power dynamic – insteadof lording over your customers you seek to empower them.

Thisattitude manifests itself in a content development process thatstarts with asking questions about the content customer: What arethey doing when they need the information? What level of granularityis appropriate? What are their physical circumstances? What event intheir day triggers the information need? What level of detail do theyrequire? What format will engage them? What distractions arecompeting for their attention? How will they know your content isthere for them? Before you commence any content project, generate asmany questions as you can about your learners, then seek the answers.Your exploration of your audience will lead you toward the rightcontent solutions.

Inaddition, your entire content development process needs to includecheckpoints for customer testing and feedback. A learning attitudemeans that you continually circle back to your content customers forfeedback, ratings, input, and improvement. You might even builduser-input mechanisms directly into the context of your publishedcontent. It means that you assume your users are the experts, and youcontinually consult with them about what they want.

Key takeaways

• Today’s digital landscape requires that marketing, training, and documentation professionals adopt the skills and best practices of learning-oriented experts.

• Content-producing departments need to produce learning content in order to generate output that is valuable and relevant to their content customers.

• Producing learning content requires analysis of your content types, content delivery, and content development attitude.

• Some content types – such as white papers, case studies, tutorials, demonstrations, eLearning modules, and electronic job aids – lend themselves more readily to a learning orientation.

• Content delivery needs to be designed for portability, flexibility, and accessibility in order to meet the needs of today’s learners.

• Adopting a learning attitude will lead you toward content solutions that empower your learners.