MARKET RESEARCH FOR L&D TEAMS

“Why do I need to conduct market research, my audience is internal?”

“I know my audience, they’re my employees… duh!”

“I have loads of data, I don’t need to do my own research.”

I’ve heard all of these responses (and more) from L&D professionals when I discuss market research. But contrary to popular belief, market research is so important for learning teams. Particularly if you want to get this marketing for learning thing right.

In this blog we’re going to dive deeper into why market research is important, and how you can conduct it for yourself. And we’ll do that by bucketing our research into three areas:

1. Your market (aka your organisation or industry)

2. Your audience (this might be employees at your organisation)

3. Your competition (yep, you do have some!)

So let’s get stuck in…

L&D’S MARKET

For most L&D professionals, your market will be your organisation. But it’s not as simple as that – within your organisation you have different business units to cater for, a variety of proficiency levels, and a range of personality traits. And of course, being in L&D means you need to keep an eye on the business strategy and objectives too!

When considering market research; I see a lot of L&Ders attempting to compare themselves to other organisations. This is, in my opinion, a big no no.

When it comes to learning, no two organisations will be the same. Each organisation will have unique employees, objectives and strategies. So with that in mind… What's the point in comparing your L&D function to another? How is that going to be beneficial for you? Instead, focus on comparing your L&D team to the position you were in last year. How have you improved? How has your culture developed? And most importantly… How are you servicing your consumers?

HOW TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT YOUR MARKET

Out of the three buckets, researching your market is likely the easiest to complete, and some of it you will simply already know. But to make your life a little easier, here’s a list of research I recommend you undertake:

• Face-to-face conversations with senior leaders. Those people that were either there at the business's inception, or long enough that they have an encyclopaedic knowledge of your business. When having these conversations, try to uncover:

  • The history of your organisation. How much change has there been? Have there been layoffs and redundancies? Or is it a scale-up business growing at a rapid pace?

  • How is the business segmented? How do the operations in individual business units differ from one another?

  • What are the businesses goals and objectives? And what time frame is set to those goals? (Most organisations will have a 3 or 5 year plan, this is what you’re looking for here!)

• Chats with your sales, marketing or customer success team(s). These people are more often than not the ‘face’ of your business. Which means they typically know a great deal about your businesses offering. Try to find out more about your offering, and your position in the market. Are you working for an award-winning, trailblazer of your industry? Or are you a smaller player in the field? See what these teams have to say on the matter!

• A good ol’ Google! See what’s said about your business online – from both internal sources and external! Check out websites such as TrustPilot, Glassdoor and Google Reviews, and see what you can understand about your organisation.

L&D’S AUDIENCE

I am a huge advocate of L&D ditching the term ‘learner’. Instead, I want you to think about your target audience as your consumers. They are the people consuming your learning offering, and you have to persuade them to do so! And to persuade them, you have to understand them deeply. This goes beyond basic demographics; it requires a nuanced view of your audiences’ needs, preferences, challenges, and motivations.

You may have heard the word ‘persona’ bouncing around the L&D space quite a bit lately. But trust me when I say: this is not a ‘buzzword’. In fact, personas are hugely important for understanding your audience, and enable you to develop the aforementioned nuanced view of your audience.

In fact, personas are so incredibly important that we created a foolproof guide to creating personas for L&D. But for you eager beavers that want the answers NOW, let’s dig into how we can find out more about our audience…

HOW TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT YOUR AUDIENCE

The answer to this question is incredibly simple, talk to them. But how do you talk to them to ensure you get the answers you’re looking for, while not taking up too much of their time? Here’s some tips:

• Conduct focus groups: This way you are grouping together 10 - 15 employees and speaking to them all at once. In some ways, this provides ‘safety in numbers’, and people are more confident in speaking up. However at other times, people can keep schtum because they're scared about repercussions of their opinions. This is why focus groups shouldn’t be your sole research approach!

• Interview managers: Managers hear and see it all. They know what’s going on in the business. They know how people are feeling. And for that reason, they’re a great resource for market research. However, it’s important to remember that:

  • Managers are also likely to be your target audience, so get their personal opinions and pain points too.

  • They may have their own biases and assumptions – and they could pass these on to you as fact!

• Anonymous surveys: Anonymous surveys are one of the best ways to get the truth out of people! It removes all threats of repercussions, and allows them the time to think about their responses. However, the downside is that you can’t ask for clarification on answers, so sometimes surveys are harder to get value from.

Wondering what questions you should ask? Our market research podcast episode might help!

L&D’S COMPETITION

A lot of L&D professionals I speak to assume that competition is something they do not need to think about. They are the sole L&D team within the organisation; who could compete with that?! But the truth is, L&D has more competition than ever before. You are not just competing with other learning providers (think LinkedIn Learning and so on…). You’re competing with learning from Google (hello instant answers), YouTube, social media platforms, Netflix, and so on. And then on top of that… you’re competing with non-learning demands on your audience's time (their phones, their children, their day job and so much more).

To be able to grab your audience’s attention effectively, you must know what’s competing for their time and attention. It’s only then that you can cut through the noise and motivate your audience to get involved with your learning offering.

HOW TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT YOUR COMPETITION

The first step is identifying what competition you’re up against. And the best way of doing this is by talking to your audience. Ask your audience questions like:

• When you’re stuck or facing a challenge, what do you do? Where do you go?

• When you want to learn something new, where do you go?

• During your working day, what’s your biggest distraction?

• How often do you access social media sites/apps?

• When was the last time you learnt something new? What resources did you use?

These questions will result in a clear understanding of the platforms, tools and resources your people are using instead of engaging with your learning offering. But it’s not good enough to just know about your competition, you must use this insight to tailor your communications with your audience. For example:

• If your audience are frequent users of social media and have told you they’ve learnt loads from TikTok - maybe short, snappy adverts are the way to get their attention.

• If your audience tells you they spend a lot of time reading to learn new things, then highlight any resources you have that might fall into this wheelhouse.

• If your audience tells you they go to friends or colleagues when they’re facing a challenge, consider how you can use that collaborative nature to your advantage, in both your learning & your marketing!

YOU HAVE A LOT OF INFORMATION… NOW WHAT?

The information and insights you uncover in your market research is there to help you make more informed decisions about your marketing for learning efforts – and in many cases it can help improve your learning offering too! So my recommended next steps are:

1. Develop a value proposition canvas for your function. This will give you a snapshot of all of the research you have done so far – and is a great foundation for your marketing efforts.

2. Create learner personas, if you haven’t already. Having a clear picture of your audience will be a game changer for both your learning and marketing!

3. Bring all of your hard work together and create some kick-ass campaigns to finally grab your audience’s attention and get you the engagement you deserve.

Many L&D practitioners will jump straight to step three. They’ll dive straight in with creating campaigns in a hope it’ll quickly solve their learning engagement challenges. And although this will help you boost engagement; it won’t be as impactful as if you do all the groundwork. There’s a lot that influences your audience and we have to go out of our way to understand what those influencers are. Without completing thorough market research, as outlined above, your marketing will only ever scratch the surface. So if you want to create deep, lasting change within your organisation, you know what to do. Hop to it!