It may seem obvious that the younger generations prefer not to read training materials, but they do love to watch videos on their smart phones. Many organizations persist in using written training and product materials that may never get read, or may fail to achieve their educational or informational goals.

We recently worked on a very interesting project that provides a perfect example of how to achieve significant improvement in the delivery of information and at the same time make life for trainers and document professionals considerably easier.

The Starting Point

A national food service organization had a monthly distribution of materials to franchise stores that were intended to introduce staff to new products, services and campaigns. With over 6,000 outlets and a large number of 18-26 year old employees, there was a genuine tension between cramming enough information into the monthly “packets” and getting the staff to read the materials.

The Solution

Staff break rooms are, of course, filled with folks on break or at lunch. This is the ideal time to get employees to absorb some training, with no impact on day-to-day operations. The idea of putting up a poster that attracts attention and has a QR code is demographically a natural fit.
Younger staff constantly carry their smart phones and use break times to check email and Facebook. It is easy to see how simple encouragement to scan a QR code and get some information in the form of a video that will help them to do their job better is going to work.
Once they scan the code they are immediately taken to a phone optimized landing page and engaged with a high-quality and interesting video that swiftly communicates the training message in a digestible and entertaining way.

The Outcome

Now learning is fun for younger staff. They provide the viewing platform and watch the training on their own time. The “packets” of materials becomes redundant (or at least is saved for important information that is not suitable for video).

Benefits

  • Video based learning is effective and users report an enjoyable experience.
  • Landing pages can include comments, feed back and surveys for real time data gathering.
  • The material contained in the videos can be withdrawn and modified as needed.
  • Time frames for production match most printing projects, but there’s no waiting on postage.
  • Detailed analytics as to number of views, time watched and percent watched provide actionable feedback data.
  • The production effort can be moved from harassed marketing staff to a production company.
  • Over time a “library” of marketing information can be offered to new staff and others.
  • Overall costs are reasonable and the ROI numbers stack up.

Conclusion

This technique is effective, has measurable results and is only marginally more expensive than ineffective mailings. Once the delivery mechanism is established it can be used for a broad range of communication and enhance an organization’s ability to deliver messages quickly, efficiently and effectively. Oh, and the employees welcome the self serve nature of the programs as well as enjoying watching far more than they do reading.

This is only one of the ways that we can help create programs from concept to delivery. Please request a free video assessment for more details, examples and a discussion about how to implement these techniques for your next project.