Given traditional notions of "training content," it might seem strange that anyone, let alone brand- and image-sensitive marketing folks, would voluntarily ask for it. But that is exactly what we are starting to see when it comes to online video training content. And, in retrospect, it makes perfect sense.
Take the example of an energy company we worked with that implemented streaming to deliver training and workplace safety content to 20,000+ employees. Over time, they amassed an impressive library of content, as well as the statistics to demonstrate high attendance rates and overall satisfaction with the initiative.
End of story, you'd think . . . until a succession of high profile accidents placed the entire industry under scrutiny for providing inadequate training. With virtually every company in the sector scrambling to "tell" the street and its customers how it dealt with workplace safety issues, this company decided to "show" them. It opened its training portal to the public, displayed the catalogues of training content it had created, and even incorporated sections of videos into its quarterly shareholder presentation. It was somewhat remarkable to see - here was a harmless piece of training content being used to prove a company's thought leadership and commitment to employees and the environment.
Another client, a U.K. law firm, similarly has leveraged training content to produce a market-facing advantage. Their motivation for using streaming was to provide professional training for more than 5,000 attorneys worldwide. The firm created the content internally, using in-house subject matter experts to lecture in front of a camera on a wide array of legal topics. The goals of the program included: ensuring that attorneys stay on top of the latest developments in their practice areas; enabling attorneys and legal staff to meet professional certification requirements; and minimizing travel required to attend training sessions so attorneys could maximize billable client time.
As they rolled out the training, attendance grew incrementally with viewing sessions averaging a substantial 15 to 20 minutes. However, after about six months, the viewing duration went down significantly - even as a higher percentage of attorneys visited the portal. Turns out, the short visits were lawyers tapping the training portal for their own marketing and client development efforts using the pre-recorded content to demonstrate not just the firm's proficiency - but its mastery - with various legal issues.
Marketers work tirelessly to spin a story about industry leadership and the quality of a company's people, products and services. However, as our clients are starting to show us, maybe the best way to tell that story is to expose some of the thinking that got the company there in the first place.