Great design, great content, right tools … what are you missing?

A 2001 study by ASTD and Elliott Masie, “E-Learning: If We Build It, Will They Come?” explored this common myth. Contrary to many opinions, the study found that many people just didn't participate in the e-learning options offered in their organizations. The study also found that the marketing of the e-learning courses was one of the top three success factors. Six years later, both of these statements are still true.

Fact: solid design, useful content, the right tools, and cutting-edge technology are indeed necessary components of an e-learning program. But, even taken together, this is not sufficient to ensure success for your e-learning programs. Success is dependent on your ability to engage learners, motivate managers, and energize the organization.

From installation to integration

E-learning is no different then any other technology-based initiative or program. The foundation for success comes from applying a clearly defined three-phase process, following the development or selection of the specific e-learning solution.

Phase 1. Installation. During the installation phase you must do whatever it takes to ensure that the e-learning solution actually works as it was intended. You must test and pilot the solution to determine whether it is technically sound and makes sense organizationally. Also, the overall change implementation process begins in this phase with the planning and preperation of initial communication and change management activities.

Phase 2. Implementation. Following installation, the focus must be on making sure learners and their managers know what the e-learning solution is, why it has been selected, and how to use it. These activities must occur before initial roll-out of the solution, which also takes place during this phase. And, it's during the implementation phase that the majority of communications and change management activities defined in the change implementation process occur.

Phase 3. Integration. Successful companies typically put as much time and attention into the completion of this phase as the other two phases combined. They recognize that proper integration is the difference between workers viewing e-learning programs as just a "good answer" or as a "truly effective solution that meets a business need." During this phase, you do the organizational work necessary to ensure that the e-learning solution is absorbed into the organizational culture via jobs, roles, processes, and key initiatives. You want people in the organization to refer to e-learning as "‘just the way we do things around here."

Change implementation: ready, willing, and able

So, what does it take to engage learners, motivate managers, and energize your organization? What do you need to do to ensure e-learning success?

Success comes from applying a systems-based change implementation strategy founded on principles of change management, consumer marketing, and change communications. To be sure, e-learning generally represents a change to your learners, their managers, and your organization—whether it’s the replacement of an instructor-led class with an online course or an Access database with a fully functional LMS.

Learners comfortable with instructor-led courses may resent having to learn from a computer and on their own time. Likewise, traditional trainers who have been valued for their facilitation skills sometimes feel threatened by the move to online, self-paced courses. Managers who have controlled access to training opportunities and information may feel undermined when learners can access learning resources anytime, from anywhere. And, the organization as a whole often goes through an adjustment period as new norms develop and become accepted into the culture.

Change implementation is the overall process for guiding people through these developments and ensuring that change is adopted throughout the organization. Basically, it comes down to making sure that your organization and the people within it are ready, willing, and able to embrace the changes that e-learning represents.

READY: The work in this area focuses on addressing organizational environment issues and laying the foundation for success. This may include designing or redesigning core learning and support processes; redefining functions, jobs, and roles; and revising management and measurement systems for optimal performance. In addition, you need to prepare the technology and technological support systems.

WILLING: The most powerful lever for success is a motivated workforce, which is typically led by a management team and an organizational culture that is committed to high performance. The work in this area includes creating the values, behaviors, and norms necessary for the success of your e-learning solutions. This will include leadership and change management efforts, as well as effective change communications.

ABLE: The type of change required for an effective integration of e-learning solutions often requires a shift in roles, responsibilities, and jobs within the organization. The work in this area includes building the skills, knowledge, and abilities people need to use the e-learning offerings and to perform effectively in the changed workplace immediately, as well as continuously improve over time.

Consumer marketing: the power of the brand

One of the main axioms of consumer marketing is that people want to buy but not be sold. Consumer marketing techniques are used to not only attract and then retain customers, but also to build a long-term relationship with them. Your e-learning solutions will be no different. You need to attract and retain individual learners, and you need to build mutually satisfying long-term relationships with them, their managers, and the organization as a whole.

Branding is a key consumer marketing technique that you should apply to your e-learning programs. Technically, a brand is the “combination of symbols, words, or designs that differentiate one company’s product from another company’s product.” It often includes a logo, tag line, and specific fonts and colors. But branding is not about aesthetics; it’s about guiding the formation of perceptions and answering the question, “Why should I use your product?”

Think Google, think GE, think Microsoft, think Coca-Cola. Visualize their logos and tag lines. Consider your perception of each of these brands and how it was likely formed through extensive consumer marketing activities performed by these companies. According to a recent study by Millward Brown Optimor, a leading research company, the Google brand alone is worth $66.4 billion, the GE brand is worth $61.9 billion, the Microsoft brand is worth $55 billion, and the Coca-Cola brand is worth $44.1 billion!

Your brand for your e-learning—which may not come close in dollar value tot he amounts listed above—is nonetheless an important investment and critical for success. It is this branding that what will engage new learners initially, and keep them coming back for more learning. The brand will reassure managers and energize the organization. Bottom line: branding will enable you to powerfully communicate the value of your e-learning, thereby creating learner preference and generating management and organizational commitment.

Change communications: the integration of change management, consumer marketing, and more

People tend to confuse change communications and marketing communications. The purpose of marketing communications is to create and execute messages and related media to communicate with a market. It is information-based and very one-way, and often overwhelms the intended audiences. In contrast, the purpose of change communications is to develop new individual and organizational attitudes and behaviors. It is process-based, inclusive, and two-way in nature.

Change communications consists of three stages (Figure 1). But, rather than having a “start” and an “end” point, think of it as a reinforcing cycle of events and activities supported by defined processes.

Stage 1. Inform: Information and messaging activities, such as marketing communications, are an effective way to generate awareness of your e-learning offerings. Learners, managers, and the organization need to be informed about the problem the e-learning program will address, as well as specific details about the e-learning solution. Through the activities in this stage, you want to be sure that messages are broadcast widely and in ways they will be recognized, recalled and remembered. Specific activities might include newsletters and email, presentations and videos, and speeches and webcasts.

Stage 2. Involve: A change in behavior seldom happens because someone  passively receives information or trinkets. It's critical to find ways to engage learners and managers. Get them to experience the e-learning solution for themselves, ask questions, and form their own opinions. The purpose of this stage is to let them internalize and personalize the e-learning solution—and have it become theirs. Specific activities might include videos, expos and fairs, and road shows.

Stage 3. Integrate: The long-term success of your e-learning initiative is dependent on your ability to make it a part of the organizational culture, fully integrated into the work-life of your learners and managers. In this stage, it is critical to find ways to make e-learning an ongoing and central component of organizational processes, systems, and business initiatives, rather than something perceived as alien or forced. The purpose of this stage is to ensure your e-learning becomes so well accepted and integrated that, like email, it is seen as critical but also ‘invisible.’ Specific activities might include integration with the performance management process, forming the foundation for management training, and recognition as the platform-of-choice for ongoing learning and development.

Bottom line

Companies as diverse as Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, John Muir Health, and Sheetz Corporation have applied these techniques and approaches to ensure their success with e-learning. Although representing very different industries—hospitality, health care, convenience and food—they have in common an understanding that the success of their e-learning initiatives is not just about having great content, design, or technology, it’s about engaging and motivating people, and energizing an organization as a whole.