The views expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their very own.
I worked at Hootsuite when the social media management leader launched its first paid certification program, and I’m fortunate to have witnessed the development of such industry-leading customer education. But I know revenue wasn’t the primary goal.
At the time, the purpose of the courses was to support customer acquisition and customer success initiatives, but as interest in the courses grew, the company saw the true potential of its training materials and today Hootsuite Academy is a full-fledged income-generating center.
However, for many firms, customer education does not have the same impact on the bottom line because it could. While the success statistics are undeniable — 90% of firms have experienced positive advantages from investing in customer education — The reality is that firms today need a tangible return on investment (ROI) that goes beyond positively correlated metrics like increased customer satisfaction and lifetime value. They need one other revenue stream.
Hootsuite and others prefer it Focal point AND LinkedIn paved the way for full-funnel customer education schemes. And if your organization hasn’t jumped on board to leverage customer education as a revenue stream, now’s the time. Here’s why and how.
Full funnel impact is the way forward
Since the pandemic customer turnover has reached record levelsputting pressure on marketing and customer support teams to double down on attracting, engaging and retaining customers. As businesses feel the financial squeeze caused by the economic crisis, many have sought latest revenue channels in addition to reducing costs.
Marketing and customer support teams are a goldmine here, with a wealth of customer insight and data—from understanding the customer journey to the challenges customers face after joining the team. Customer success and marketing teams can leverage the knowledge base and support resources they’ve already built and work together to package their resources into tangible offerings that customers can pay for. They can changing customer experience to self-educate and transform their approach to generate revenue, reduce time burdens and enable clients to realize their goals more independently.
In my current role, we’ve seen tremendous value in getting customers onboarded and activated as quickly as possible with self-service training software. But this strategy isn’t just for SaaS firms. I’ve seen it with customers across a wide selection of industries—from the broad public education schemes Down highly specialized training. One thing I noticed across the board? Creating the full impact of a funnel is only possible through collaboration between different business units and a unified marketing strategy.
Start with a strategy
If you’re not an educational institution, you’ll quickly discover that offering courses and certifications is different from building software or selling widgets. Treating it as a unique business will enable you to get the resources it’s essential succeed. This includes marketing support and integration with your overall product strategy.
While it might be tempting to only cobble together existing content and set a price, the reality is that you just’ll need a plan that anticipates and facilitates growth. Carefully consider what your customers can pay for and what it’s essential offer everyone. This could include creating tiers of paid access that correspond to levels of engagement, comparable to paid certification for standard customers and one-on-one coaching for top performers.
I recommend looking at least a 12 months or two ahead at potential growth and what is needed to support it. For example, once your courses are up and running, you could need to create a private community where students can collaborate and share what they’ve learned.
Part of Hootsuite’s success got here from selecting a platform that allowed it to leverage the power of its growing subscriber base. Choosing tools that may grow with you means you may add latest features when you’re ready, and you may avoid the hassle of getting to migrate your content to a more robust platform because it gains traction.
Use technology and complement it with creativity
If creating value that folks can pay for seems daunting, technology may also help with that too. Generative AI tools make it easy to rework existing assets into training materials, and your chosen delivery platform can have built-in prompts and features that may turn your vision into reality with minimal effort. For example, we were in a position to reduce a video edit from six hours to only one using AI—an impressive boost in efficiency!
And remember, you don’t necessarily have to provide dozens of high-quality videos. Figure out the way to leverage what you have, then fill the gaps with latest content that clearly addresses your customers’ pain points. And don’t be afraid to get creative. Of course, there are playbooks for the way to create training materialsbut you may all the time go your individual way.
If you would like inspiration, look at what others are doing—especially worthy competitors in other sectors. One of my favorites is Access to Cricuta paid account for Cricut crafters that provides resources, support, and project ideas. The company caters to consumers who aren’t my target market, but I find it’s all the time a source of fine food for thought.
Finally, don’t be afraid to try latest things—even if they won’t work. After all, the best technique to learn is to experiment. And learning directly with your customers could be the most authentic technique to speed up each their productivity and revenue—and yours.