How to Choose Optimal Content and Delivery Formats for Customer Education Programs

Any business offering unique products and solutions should be actively ( and proactively ) educating their customers. Customer education, as this discipline is typically called, refers to any program that aims to improve the customer experience via education. This includes onboarding training, on-going webinars, tutorials, product certifications, partner enablement, knowledge-base articles, and resource centers. With so many different options for developing and delivering content, how can you determine the best approach for your programs that will provide a positive ROI? Let’s dive in to find out.

Common Content Formats

Before we discuss which formats to use when, we should first outline some common formats that you’ll see in scaled customer education programs.

Webinars provide an overview of information. They are usually not interactive except for Q&As. Webinars are well suited to introduce a new product feature or UI update. They can also be used for change management when process or workflows will change. They shouldn’t be used as a primary method of teaching complex concepts since they don’t provide an opportunity for feedback. However, webinars can introduce a complex concept and then point the audience to another format for interactive learning.

Workshops provide live, guided instruction intended to teach specific learning objectives around one topic. A workshop may be offered virtually, in-person, or a hybrid of both. They shouldn’t be confused with webinars if offered virtually, as a workshop should be delivered to a smaller audience, offer opportunities for hands-on exercises, and provide individual feedback. Workshops are a great choice for teaching more complex topics, but they do require a facilitator and thus are harder to scale.

E-learning courses are structured learning experiences comprised of interactive learning elements ( text, videos, graphs, quizzes ) intended to drive specific learning objectives. An e-learning course is best suited to provide proactive education around foundational concepts. If simulations are used within the e-learning, they can effectively teach complex topics as well.

Tutorials are how-to guides that enable the learner to complete a task. Essentially, they provide step-by-step instructions for attaining specific results. They may be embedded in the product as pop-up guides or accessed separately in a help center. They are best suited to answer specific questions and help end users get unstuck.

Technical articles provide detailed context on how things work. They are generally written for a more technical audience, such as developers or software admins. They serve a similar purpose to tutorials in that they typically provide answers around how something specific should be implemented. They often include code or other technical instructions.

Start with a Purpose

The first step in designing a customer education program is to define its purpose. Every decision made from that point forward should be about executing toward that purpose. What do we mean by “purpose” in this case? It’s the “why” behind the reason you’re educating your audience. Why do we need to train customers? There are likely many answers: to increase the value they receive from your products, to increase product adoption, to reduce support requests, to improve satisfaction and loyalty, and so on.

Once you identify the possible purposes for your program, you’ll want to prioritize them. For example, you may have learned that education can both reduce support tickets and increase product adoption. Which of these is more urgent to solve? Which would have a greater impact on the bottom line? ( You may also discover that multiple problems stem from a common root cause. More on that later. )

It can be tempting to think that you can address several of these needs with one solution, therefore having multiple purposes to your program. While one solution could potentially impact more than one purpose, you run the risk of investing heavily in a program that’s not targeted to any specific need and does a poor job of solving any one problem effectively. Additionally, it becomes nearly impossible to measure the ROI of an education program that’s not addressing a specific problem.

As an illustration, let’s say you were tending to a garden that had three problems: poor soil, pests, and weeds. Now, you could use a general spray that would potentially help improve the garden, but that spray is not a targeted solution to any of those issues. Instead of spending money on that, you could solve each of the problems with a solution fitted for the purpose. Of course, you may not be able to solve them all at once, and that’s where prioritization comes in – which is most important and most impactful to solve today?

The simplest way to demonstrate ROI from education is to provide a solution to a known problem.

Identify Root Causes

Once you’ve aligned with your stakeholders on the overall purpose behind your customer education program ( and of course, you can have multiple programs! ), you’ll conduct an analysis of the problem so you have a basis for designing the learning solution. Let’s use the example of low product adoption. You’ll want to learn everything you can about what obstacles are in the customers way. Are they lacking foundational knowledge that will motivate them to adopt the product? Are they getting stuck on a technical step? Maybe it’s both and other factors as well. Once you have this information, you can design a solution that targets the problem effectively.

Design the Optimal Solution

Remember, the “why” behind your program is your north star. It becomes the measure of success and the way to proving ROI down the line. To address the “why”, you’ll need to know “what” skills and knowledge is needed by the audience. You’ll then design the “how,” which is a combination of content format and delivery method.

For some examples of how to think about this, consider: A webinar would not solve a technical knowledge gap as well as a technical article would. An e-learning course would not be an effective way to help customers get unstuck in the middle of their set up, but an embedded tutorial would work well.  A list of tutorials wouldn’t effectively replace an onboarding process, but a learning path with e-learning courses and webinars could.

Ultimately, it’s important that you choose the most optimal formats to address the specific purpose of your program. Not only will this set you up for success in demonstrating a positive ROI, but it will ensure that you’re maximizing the impact of education.  Of course, it’s possible that you’ll see positive effects of your program on other areas of the business, which is great, but targeting your program to a specific purpose allows you and your team to make data-driven decisions around future growth.

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