The Marriage of Marketing and Training: How to Make Customers Say, “I Do.” Josh Fernandez, Fresh Communications February 2010
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Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to witness the union of two wonderful business endeavors. Two age-old functions that have flourished in the past individually, but can mean so much more together—Marketing and Training.

Even without the played-out wedding metaphor, the substance that lies at the heart of the comparison is very much true. Marketing and Training are two business imperatives generally developed by sharp, results-oriented teams with plenty of knowledge and experience. So while they often really do flourish individually, they just as often really don’t reach their full potential because they are created, managed, and supported disparately.

On the one hand, you have your Marketers. Smart people who consider product positioning, competition, voice of the customer, and much more to determine the value propositions of what you’re selling and how to present your case to the end consumer.

On the other hand, you have your Training folks. More smart people determining what information needs to be presented to sales teams, distributors, and channels to help increase customer acquisition, retention, and loyalty while reducing sales cycle times.

Both Marketing and Training are responsible for creating a number of collateral and deliverables that educate, inspire, and motivate their audiences into action. Both work with the same products or services. Both even adhere to the same brand standards and have a common look and feel. But when Marketing and Training campaigns are created separately and in silos, the messages will naturally vary. As a result, the take-aways that the end consumers ultimately receive are sometimes confusing, sometimes contradictory, but always weakened than if the same messages were being delivered through your marketing collateral AND sales vehicles. In other words, what your business tells your customers directly (through marketing) should be the exact same things you’re asking your salespeople to tell your customers (through training).

Think of it this way: your customers will rarely, if ever, invest in your product or service without interacting with a salesperson AND seeing some sort of marketing collateral. Have you ever had a customer come in and tell you that she wanted to buy your goods right then and there based on one of your brochures she saw lying on a park bench? Have you ever had a person look at your Website and purchase with no interaction with you or a salesperson. If what you sell costs over $1,000, then probably not. There’s just too much competition selling too many similar-but-not-exact products/services out there for a customer to spend any substantial amount of money without questions, clarification, and frankly… receiving a sales pitch.

Conversely, have you ever had one of your salespeople sell a big-ticket item without ever giving a sales presentation? Without the customer visiting your Website or seeing a brochure? Again, probably not.

What you MIGHT have seen is a salesperson receiving the marketing-developed executive presentation and “customizing” it to his liking by removing half the slides. And why is that? Because the presentation emphasizes something that the salesperson hasn’t been trained to buy into.

Naturally, there are going to be variances between Marketing and Training materials. They may have differences in voice, format, and even information to some extent. But the core of the content—the promises your organization is making to the consumer—should remain consistent throughout all Marketing and Training material.

When Marketing and Training are developed with uniformity of message, they both benefit from a synergy that isn’t possible when created independently. Marketing material becomes more powerful because it is used at the appropriate times, in the appropriate ways, and presented more passionately—because salespeople truly believe in what it’s promising. Similarly, salespeople become more effective because they have collateral that visually and tangibly reinforces the same exact points they’re stressing in person.

With all this in mind, there are no easy answers when it comes to marrying Marketing and Training. With small and mid-sized companies, Marketing may be outsourced to one firm (or kept in-house) and training may be outsourced to another. It’s not simple to find a single, affordable vendor that staffs qualified marketers AND qualified instructional designers/curriculum developers. In large organizations, Marketing and Training functions are developed and supported internally by different teams, in different geographic locations, and often at different times. Often, egos and corporate politics get in the way of the Marketing-Training union.

Executive sponsorship is key for both large and small organizations. In other words, the leaders of the organizations must ultimately be accountable for ensuring the uniformity of message between Marketing and Training. Leaders should be adamant that if not created by the same people at the same company, there should at least be a dedicated coordinator working as a liaison between Marketing and Training groups to ensure consistency, conformity, and harmony of messaging. With executive leadership, therefore, groups that otherwise might not have worked together ARE working together for the good of the organization—kind of like a shotgun wedding.

(Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)

Josh Fernandez is President of Fresh Communications, a Rochester-based firm dedicated to reaching clients’ clearly established objectives through motivational, actionable marketing campaigns and interactive, thought-provoking training and learning programs.

Contact info@freshco.biz or visit fresh-communications.com for more insight on how to unite marketing and training in your organization, division, and/or LOB.

Email Josh Fernandez
Phone: 585-737-4074

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