a best practices guide develop a marketing communication ... · pdf filea best practices guide...

A Best Practices Guide

Develop a Marketing Communication Plan to Launch

Your LMS Key Steps for Success

ePath Learning, Inc. | Making the Case for an LMS | ©2016 2

Introduction

If your organization is considering a Learning Management System

(LMS), finding one that best meets your organization’s needs may not

be easy. There are hundreds of LMS products available. The

investment in time to find the right solution is significant, but given

what’s at stake, it’s well worth the effort.

You stand a much better chance of being successful if you follow best

practices for:

- Developing your case for an LMS to gain your organization’s

approval;

- Evaluating and selecting an LMS that best meets your

organization’s needs;

- Marketing the launch of your new LMS and subsequent

training initiatives.

To help guide you through this process, we’ve consolidated the best

practices that we’ve learned from our own clients throughout the

years. Our step by step guide, Develop a Marketing Communication

Plan to Launch Your LMS, is the last eBook in a series that should

help to jump start your research efforts, and ultimately help you speed

up your LMS selection and implementation process altogether. Follow

these best practices and you’ll be well on your way to LMS success!

http://www.epathlearning.com/

http://www.epathlearning.com/making-the-case-for-an-lms/


http://www.epathlearning.com/download-new-ebook-evaluating-selecting-right-lms/

http://www.epathlearning.com/download-new-ebook-evaluating-selecting-right-lms/


Congratulations on your investment in a learning management system!

Soon you’ll be well on your way to configuring your LMS based on

your organization’s unique criteria, with the ultimate goal of

“launching” the system to all of your learning participants.

As with any technology investment, the sooner you promote and

encourage adoption of the new system, the faster you can accelerate

your return on investment and enhance your business performance.

The key to effectively promoting your new LMS for user adoption is

through strategic marketing communications.

This comprehensive eBook will assist you in your efforts of developing

your own marketing communications plan to support user adoption.

Marketing Your New LMS

Quick Fact:

System adoption is more about people

factors and effective communication

than about the technology!



Analysis: First, you must determine your target audience,

those internal or external users that will use your LMS. During

the analysis phase you are tasked with defining your

organization’s culture, identifying key stakeholders, target

audience groups and understanding each group’s unique

needs. If you followed our recommendations in our first

eBook, you should have a lot of this work already completed.

Strategy Development: Once you’ve identified your target

audience, you can start developing

marketing objectives, messaging, and identifying the

appropriate communication channels in which to distribute

your messages.

Implementation: Upon completion of your marketing

communications strategy you’ll be able to create an

implementation plan. This covers the tactical aspects that put

your plan in motion.

Monitoring: Setting benchmarks is an important part of your

plan. Ultimately, initiating feedback and two-way

communication will be really useful in monitoring your plan’s

success.

Your marketing communications plan is a customized roadmap that you

can follow to promote and launch your new LMS. Developing your plan is

a comprehensive process that, at a quick glance, includes analysis, strategy

development, implementation and monitoring the overall success of your

plan.

Marketing Communications Plan Overview

1

2

3

4





6 Steps to Launch Your Plan

Step 1.

Identify and

Understand Your

Target Audiences

<Analysis>

Step 2.

Identify Appropriate

Communication

Channels

<Strategy>

Step 3.

Identify Support

Initiatives

<Strategy>

Step 4.

Develop Global &

Key Messaging

<Strategy>

Step 5.

Plan and Schedule

Communications

<Implementation>

Step 6.

Encourage Two-Way

Communication and

Monitor Progress

<Monitoring>



LMS users are typically segmented into 4 categories: Administrators (for the

purposes of marketing communications planning – we assume whoever is

reading this is part of the Administrator team) Builders, Instructors, and

Learners. Each of these user groups has different needs and require

customized target messages based on those needs. When developing your

needs analysis you should have an understanding of how implementing the

new system will impact each user group so that you can develop messaging

that is simple yet impactful and relevant to their needs.

Another target audience group is made up of your Key Influencers. Key

influencers are the thought leaders or managers in your organization that

have influence over others and that can assist you in spreading your

message; particularly when brought on board early in your communication

process.

It’s also important to have an understanding of your organization’s culture,

particularly as it relates to learning and development. Focusing in on

“cultural change” as part of your user adoption communication plan can be

beneficial. Users are more apt to adopt their new LMS when their

organization’s culture supports and promotes professional development.

STEP 1. Identify and Understand Your Target

Audiences



Target Audiences Need Assessment Example

The matrix below presents examples of implementation needs per target

audience.

Target Audience Implementation Needs

Administrators

o Implementation planning/set-up expectations

o Detailed system training

o Access to technical help

o System benefits as opposed to current process–

Administrator level

Builders

o Implementation plans/design expectations



o Compatibility with existing content

o High level functionality description

o Blended learning options

Instructors

o Implementation plans/instructor expectations



o High level functionality pertaining to Instructor-led

courses

o System benefits as opposed to current process –

Instructor level

Learners

o Launch date/training expectations

o System training


o Accessibility options

o Confidence in system

o Ease of use

o System benefits as opposed to current process –

Learner level

Key Influencers

o Implementation plans/expectations

o System training

o Business value of system

o Role in adoption process



What will be the best way to deliver your marketing communications?

There are so many options available these days, consider what will work

best for your organization. The path of least resistance will be to use the

channels that your organization currently has available – and we

recommend a multi-channel approach. Some communication channels are

obvious like email or your corporate intranet, but perhaps the following list

will provide you with some additional ideas!

STEP 2. Identify Appropriate Communication

Channels

Email

Mass email distribution allows you to tailor your

messaging to your specific target audience

groups. Make them informative, fun and visually

appealing to generate excitement about your

initiative.

Intranet

Intranets can be used to communicate your

initiative globally throughout your organization.

If your organization has different intranet sites

for different divisions, etc. then you can

customize your messaging even further.



STEP 2. Identify Appropriate Communication

Channels

Screensavers

Developing visually appealing corporate

screensavers/wallpaper/signage generates awareness and

reinforces your messaging without interrupting your staff.

It’s a great way to get your point across – it’s repetitive and

subtle.

Newsletters

Do you have an internal newsletter? Newsletters are

another channel to get your message across while

effectively engaging your staff. Not only would they help

during the pre-launch of your system, but newsletters can

be used to communicate system updates and success

stories after the fact!

Corporate Blog

Got blog? Not only can you get your messaging out there

but you’ll get feedback! Blogs are collaborative in nature –

you can post a message about the launch and employees

can respond with questions, comments, or concerns. You

can respond in kind, and organically support your adoption

process. Another advantage to the blog….what a great way

to develop additional launch collateral, such as an FAQ list –

you can base it on your employees’ feedback. Remember –

if one person asks a question there are ten more employees

that have the same question on their mind but might be

afraid to ask it.

Face-to-Face

Meetings

Let’s “face” it – the face-to-face meeting allows you to

engage your employees and get your message across while

soliciting questions and feedback. You can read your

audience, they, and you, can ask open ended questions, and

you can provide immediate answers, support, etc.



Your team will be working steadfast to ensure that your LMS is implemented

appropriately. Your implementation can take anywhere from 2 – 8 weeks

depending on the size of your organization and the number of Learners that

will be added to your system. There are a variety of steps that need to take

place to implement your system; from customization to loading content and

scheduling activities to adding Learners to your LMS. Although there’s work

ahead for your team – there won’t be a lot of time to get your messages out

there so “time will be of the essence.” The better prepared you are in

advance, the quicker you can put your plan into action.

To help prepare you for the next step, developing key messages, we’ve

created a “Support Initiatives Checklist.” Most organizations find it

beneficial to develop a tiered training schedule. This means that your

Administrators, Instructors and Builders need to be trained prior to your

Learners. You know that once you let your staff know that they will have a

new system to work with their first question will be – when will I be trained

on it? The following Support Initiatives Checklist will walk you through what

should be considered for support (aka – training) in advance of the launch.

STEP 3. Identify Support Initiatives



Support Initiatives Checklist

Name of LMS (ex. Brand U)

What is the name that you’re using to brand your

LMS

Initial Launch Date

What is the “Official Launch Date” for access to

the LMS

Initial Launch Department

Will you be launching the LMS to a department,

division, or your entire organization all at once?

Follow-up Launch Dates per Departments (if

applicable)

Launch Date (s) Department

Orientation Training Schedule Administrators

Builders/Instructors Learners

Frequency

Days /Dates

Times

Locations

Advance Prep Requirements (if applicable,

i.e. kickoff meeting for key stakeholders)

Key Contact Information

Key Contact Information – LMS vendor



STEP 4. Develop Global and Key Messaging

Global Messaging

Depending on the size of your organization, you may need to first develop

some general global messaging before moving on to your key messages.

This is the only part of your campaign where you should take the “one size

fits all” approach. Your messaging should be generic and cover high-level

points about your LMS launch. Below is a scenario-based example of the

questions you should be asking yourself in order to develop your global

messaging.

Industry: Aeronautics

Corporate Goals: We are an organization focused on excellence in design and manufacturing. Within the next 3 years we want to increase our market share and our profitability by X amount.

1. What’s your goal(s) for implementing your LMS? (the goal should align with your corporate goals)

Our goal for implementing this new Aeronautics LMS is to expand our focus of excellence to include learning & development. We need to empower our employees with the tools and knowledge they need in order to meet our goals of increasing market share and profitability. We will ensure our success if we speed up our design and development cycles to bring products to market faster. We will need a knowledgeable and well trained staff to achieve this.

2. What are some high-level benefits associated with implementing the new system?

The new Aeronautics LMS provides an engaging and learning-rich environment that can be accessed anytime and anywhere through the Internet. It’s easy-to-use and is customized to meet each of our employees’ learning & development needs. We’ll be converting most of our existing instructor-led courses into online courses so our employees will spend less time away from their families and their offices! All of our training and reference materials will be stored in a centralized area so we can ensure our employees have the most up-to-date information at all times.

3. How do you want your users to react? Incorporate those feelings into some “feel good” messages.

We’re really excited to launch this new training & development initiative and we’re here to support you every step of the way!

Aeronautics LMS – raising the bar for your professional development and growth!

We’re invested in giving you the tools that empower you to achieve great things!




Key Messaging

Your key messaging will be the focus throughout the rest of your marketing

communications. These messages are critical in support of user adoption.

Key messaging is your “elevator pitch” and it should answer the question

“what do you really want your employees to know?” Clearly define your

objectives and tailor your messaging according to your target audience

groups. You should be acutely aware of how they will receive and perceive

the information. Only then will you truly be effective in getting your

message across. It sounds fairly simple, however there are a few guidelines

that you should follow when developing your key messages.

Key Messaging Guidelines:

Consistency – Consistency in your messaging will help to put your

employees at ease during your University launch. Consistent messages help

to build trust, solicit buy-in, and adoption of your new LMS. Be sure that

your messaging is consistent across all materials that you distribute, to each

target audience, and within each communication channel.



Concise – Concise messages are short, sweet, and to the point. Key

messages should be easy to understand and limited in nature – don’t over

explain anything. Additionally, when developing your strategy keep in mind

that less is more – key messaging should be limited to 3-4 messages per

target audience group. Too much will be overwhelming, and too little may

be too confusing – it’s a fine line that needs to be balanced.

Relevant – Relevant key messages are engaging and informative. They

connect with the target audience group, capture their interest and have

great appeal. Ultimately, the messaging needs to resonate well and be

relevant with your target audience or it may be ignored. Besides, you don’t

want to overwhelm your employees with irrelevant information.

Tailored – This guideline cannot be stressed enough – if you haven’t picked

up on it already, it’s been a common theme throughout this toolkit.

Tailoring your messages based on your target audience needs is extremely

important – it’s all about the audience!

Strategic – Your key messaging should be strategically deployed. Think

timely and often. It’s just as important to begin communicating your LMS

launch upon signature of the contract as it is up to and throughout the

launch.




STEP 4. Key Messaging - Example

Now that you’re familiar with the guidelines, let’s move on to developing some

key messages for your target audience groups. We’ve gone ahead and created

some generic key messaging for our “Administrators” target audience group

based upon the needs that we identified back in Step 1. The italicized text reflects

fictitious training, launch dates, etc. and is used just to add some perspective.

Administrators:

Implementation Needs Example Key Messages

- Implementation planning/set-

up expectations

- Detailed system training

- Access to technical help

- System benefits as opposed to

current process– Administrator

level

Tactical Messages:

- Administrators are responsible for defining

requirements and adding users to the system for

their respective departments prior to the launch

date.

- Administrators will receive training on the system via

webinar on April 3rd and 5th.

- Each webinar is scheduled for a 2-hour timeframe

and is hosted by our vendor, ePath Learning. 9:00

a.m. start.

- The official launch of our new University is May 1st.

- Administrators are responsible for distributing user

names and passwords prior to the system launch.

- Mr. White is the key contact for our organization.

Please feel free to contact him if you have any

questions.

- Our LMS vendor will provide us with a dedicated

Client Service Representative. They will handle our

account and any questions that we may have

moving forward.

Value-added Messages:

- No longer will you have to spend time tracking your

employees’ training manually.

- The system is scalable – it’s quite simple to add or

delete users. If your groups are large we can discuss

a batch upload option.

- Easy to build curriculum ensure your employees are

participating in the courses that they need.



By now you’ve identified your target audience groups, developed key

messaging for each group, and have decided upon which communication

channels best suit your organizational needs. The next step is to plan for

and schedule your communications. Again, it’s important to emphasize that

the earlier you begin your communications, the more apt you are to

increase user adoption rates. Establishing a weekly schedule based on pre

and post launch communications is ideal. Plotting your activities on a

spreadsheet can be quite helpful. For example:

STEP 5. Plan and Schedule Communications

Week Ending 3/29 Week Ending 4/5 Week Ending 4/12

Administrators Distribute Key

Messaging Email -

Administrators

Distribute Training

Reminder Email -

April 1st

Distribute Training

Follow-up Email

Instructors Distribute Key

Messaging Email -

Instructors

Distribute Training

Reminder Email -

April 1st

Distribute Training

Follow-up Email

Builders Distribute Key

Messaging Email -

Builders

Distribute Training

Reminder Email -

April 1st

Distribute Training

Follow-up Email

Key

Stakeholders Distribute Key

Messaging Email -

Key Stakeholders

Reminder

Distribution of Key

Messaging Email -

Key Stakeholders

1. Distribute Kick-off

meeting Reminder

Email

2. Distribute Meeting

Follow-up Email

Learners Distribute Key

Messaging Email -

Learners



Congratulations - you’ve finally launched your new LMS! Just when you

think your job is over – it really isn’t. This is where you can really make a

difference. It’s very important that you offer a solid support system during

system adoption. That means encouraging feedback and monitoring

participation levels within the system. If you see that participation is not at

the level you think it should be, you need to find out why. You need to

reach out to your users to see what might be the problem. Do they require

training? Are they having problems setting the time aside to start their

courses? Is there a technical problem?

Once you’ve started to receive feedback it’s an ideal time to brag! Heck

you’ve earned it and your users have earned it. Share success stories from

different departments; facilitate positive communications between system

adopters. Host a post-launch get together, start a competition to

encourage faster adoption rates. Share positive comments about the

system and make it fun.

More importantly – embrace negative comments! Take them head on and

work with your users to resolve any issues that they may have. You CAN

accelerate user adoption rates through promoting the efficiency and

effectiveness of the system – you just have to put it in context for your

users. Good luck!

STEP 6. Encourage Two-Way Communication &

Monitor Progress



ePath Learning’s cloud-based learning management system, ASAP, enables

your organization to manage training and create learning opportunities

that improves training and human performance for business. ASAP is easy

to use and provides everything you need for an online training program. It

enables you to author content, manage and deliver training, track ILT,

support social learning, create assessments, run meaningful reports, and

more. To round out your training needs, ePath Learning also offers custom

course development and off-the-shelf content libraries.

Would you like to learn more about how implementing LMS technology can

benefit your company? Perhaps you would like to see a live

demonstration of our LMS platform? Feel free to contact us at 860-444-

8090, via email [email protected], or visit our website at

www.ePathLearning.com.

About ePath Learning, Inc.


http://www.epathlearning.com/about-us/live-demo/



mailto:[email protected]


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