In the training industry, we are accustomed to the use of training to teach a skill that’s necessary for a vocation or an avocation. I believe that there is going to be a dramatic increase in the use of training as a sales tool. Increasingly customers are tuning out advertisments–in a sense advertisements largely serve the needs of just the advertisers and not the customer.
Teaching the customer something useful serves the need of the customer–it just might sell more product. The Secret Incredient is a videocast created by our friends at Lava Studios for Whole Foods that teaches customers how to cook some awesome dishes–I would bet that it results in sales of the ingredients featured. I was fortunate enough to attend the taping of one of the shows–Lou Lambert’s Coffee Rubbed Brisket. Truly, the best interaction with a SME I’ve had….well the tastiest. Check out the show at
http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/recipes/list_secretingredient.html
Share your thoughts about the use of training as a sales tool in the comments. If the discussion gets intense enought we might just have to move it to Lamberts.
You’re right. I used to work for a company that developed a customer site with marketing and sales in mind as part of their training approach. While customer education was certainly important, the focus was on how to deliver it in such a way to increase customer knowledge of the products and services the company offered and so that they could easily request more information and sign up for those same services. That was about 6 years ago so it’s certainly been in development for some time, though maybe not a widespread practice as of yet. Likewise, another trend is learning via games, which they added for the customer’s kids….which of course, caught the parent’s interest and made them curious about the products tagged in the games.