After all, these are your customers, and not people you’re trying to scare away. Give them what they need to succeed.
Here’s our best tips for making your learning content the best it can be.
1. Do a little research
It’s important to really know your customers. From a marketing standpoint, that’s easy stuff. But how do they actually want to learn? Are these people who will be learning about the latest revisions to network security protocol? Okay, so you know the material, but go one step further.
Take the time to find out who they are at work, where they read about their industry, and put in some effort to make your learning content relevant to their interests. Likewise, package your content appropriately for your audience. Don’t just shove a .pdf at them and expect them to absorb every detail.
It may be possible — we’ve all done it — but it’s not pleasant. Does your group’s favorite work-related website produce killer video content? Emulate it. Is there a popular industry forum you know your customers frequent? Incorporate a social aspect to your course material to encourage Q&A.
You don’t have to do a lot, but you should do something.
2. Write like you mean it
Just as you would want your customers to take a genuine interest in your course, so should you have a stake in their success. This means writing about a subject you love, and if you don’t actually love the topic, find a parallel that gets you jazzed up about the material.
For instance, you may not care much about the origins of color psychology, but maybe you find an interesting analogy to a topic you’re passionate about. Run with it! Even the heaviest data has its charm. You have the creative power to connect with your customers like never before, so use it.
Start with a catchy course title. Use allitirations. Make it contextual to your learner’s life or work. Use a pop culture reference, or don’t. Then, give the course a theme. Make it funny, melodramatic, or different. Whatever you do, don’t allow boredom to seep into your content creation process. It’ll show in your end result.
3. Get to know your inner journalist
I can’t say enough about brevity (see what I did there?). Journalists are taught, near the top of every syllabi, about word economy. If a word doesn’t serve a purpose, cut it. Focus on the 5 W’s: Answer the questions of who, what, when, where and why.
Write your lede (or introduction), then present your main evidence and important facts first. When it comes to the overall weight of your content, it should resemble the inverted pyramid. The best, most important information goes at the top, where it’s most likely to grab the reader’s attention. Anything else plays a supporting role. Look for sentences or phrases that can be replaced with a single word. Cut 1,500 words to 1,000, then cut 1,000 words to 800.
Once you’ve stated your case in a convincing and insightful manner, wrap up the content in a nice little bow and send your customer on their way to success.
If you’re lucky, they’ll come back next time you invite them. But with clear, compelling and simple ideas at their fingertips, they’ll walk away with a better chance of understanding (and retaining) what you’ve given them.Docebo makes it incredibly easy to create well-organized content, and it takes less than a minute to set up a platform in the cloud. Try it for two weeks, risk-free.