It’s no secret that training employees can give your business an edge over the competition. The resources you have can contribute more to your business if they have access to training that enables them to learn new skills.
Training doesn’t just help you add new skills to your company’s talent pool, it also helps boost the productivity and the quality of work you can expect from your employees.
Just like any other department, your marketing department can also benefit greatly with the right kind of training. In fact, training your marketing team isn’t just about better results, it is about adapting to an increasingly competitive and innovative business environment.
In this article, we will discuss the step by step process you can follow to provide your marketing team with a quality training experience that is relevant to their day to day responsibilities.
Without further delay, let us begin:
Conduct A Training Needs Analysis
This is the step where you determine the training needs of your team. This step is important because in order to provide your team with a training experience that actually benefits them and your business, you must first identify where your team’s weaknesses lie.
Once you identify these weaknesses and skill gaps, you can not only understand the particular disciplines of training that you will be providing, but can also determine the best channels and formats to deliver this training to your employees.
Develop Relevant Training Content
Once you have identified the skill gaps, it is time to start addressing them. The first step to doing the same is developing custom elearning content designed for self-paced training.
To do this, you will require the expertise of an instructional designer. If you don’t already have a L&D (Learning and Development) team in your company, the next best way to develop custom training content is to outsource the task to an external vendor.
Some of you may also be thinking that there is nothing wrong with off-the-shelf training content. In a sense, it is true, since off-the-shelf training content is also developed by experts and costs a fraction of what custom training content costs.
However, off-the-shelf training content does not directly address the most pressing training needs of your marketing team. Off-the-shelf training content can also add to the time it will take your employees to complete the training, since it is not only talking about the topics you want your team to learn.
With custom training content, you can design a training experience that uses examples from your company’s experiences. By investing in custom training content, you can ensure the training experience is relevant to your learner’s (employees’) needs and is focused at solving the marketing challenges that your business is facing.
Deploy Self Paced Training And Track
Once you have your training content ready, it is time to deploy. To do this effectively, you will require an employee training software, also known as a learning management system.
With the help of a learning management system, you can provide your employees with an immersive and engaging training experience.
Modern LMS don’t just support the use of multimedia in training, they also enable business owners and training administrators to employ proven learning techniques to boost the effectiveness of their training initiatives. Some examples include microlearning (breaking long-form training content into bite sized chunks of information), gamification (adding game-like elements like a point system to the training experience), and social learning (learning with and from peers on forums).
Moreover, a LMS will also enable you to track the progress of each of your employees. This way, you can identify the areas of your training where your learners are struggling and optimise it for easier understanding and comprehension. At the same time, the tracking capabilities of an employee training software will also enable you to identify learners that may require personal attention.
Enlist Help Of Coaches And Mentors
Speaking of personal attention, to maximise the effectiveness of your training, it is a great idea to get a couple of professional coaches and mentors on board.
If your budget doesn’t allow you to hire a professional mentor, don’t fret. The top performers at your organisation, along with individuals in the top management can prove to be great mentors for your employees.
In fact, such mentors share knowledge derived from real life experiences that your employees are likely to face themselves, making their training all the more relevant and interesting for your employees.
Not to forget, these individuals will still be available to answer questions and address challenges that an employee may face after the training is over.
Conclusion
Providing training to your marketing department is not very different from providing training to the other departments of your organisation. The best part is, with a combination of self paced training and mentor-led training, your organisation can start experiencing the benefits of a more skilled team, without having to sacrifice day to day productivity.
