Developing Engaging Content in Your Learning Management System
The million-dollar question on the minds of many of our clients is, “How do we increase adoption of our Learning Management System (LMS) and create engaging content to drive activity?” Hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars are invested in either building or licensing Learning Management Systems. And applying an “If we build it, they will come” strategy always falls flat.
You must develop engaging content that causes members of your organization (home office and field) to craze to consume the content. If you’re able to develop highly engaging content, they will come back for more and more. So how do you go about doing this?
Listen to What Your Stakeholders Want
Many times, organizations will develop content to check off the corporate list of gaps to fill in their LMS. There are definitely proprietary products and processes where training content will need to be created to check off the list. However, when was the last time you surveyed the field to determine what they would prefer as far as content goes? What are your most popular main platform or breakout sessions at your conferences and have you captured those topics on video to distribute as content?
Developing Contemporary Content
In today’s fast-paced and ever-changing world, content needs updating on a regular basis. Since most training departments’ role is not solely on developing content, it becomes a huge challenge to continuously develop content that is contemporary. Especially with today’s compliance standards and the Department of Labor issues.
Therefore, strategically partnering with third party content providers will ensure you are bringing the most up-to-date content to your key stakeholders. Contemporary content will increase engagement, especially among Millennials. And this allows the home office to focus on developing proprietary content for products and processes that don’t need to be updated as often since they’re considered more “evergreen.”
Functionality Designed to Drive Adoption
The Hoopis Performance Network has solicited feedback from our 50,000+ subscribers over the years to learn how they want to consume content. These are field managers and advisors telling us directly what would drive adoption. Therefore, we’ve developed functionality in our learning platforms based on this feedback.
For example, managers want the ability to subscribe content to advisors and easily verify consumption of that content. Advisors want access to a dashboard customized to their learning experience where they can save specific content much like an iTunes playlist. Strategically partnering with content providers who offer nimble platform functionality greatly increases the value of an existing LMS through increased adoption.
Organizations have two choices: either incorporate an LMS that provides this contemporary, nimble functionality (which most are considered very cumbersome). Or not be concerned attaching a third-party content platform that’s private labeled and allows for seamless access to certain content and functionality designed to drive adoption.
Conclusion
With short attention spans and busy schedules, getting stakeholders to consume content on your LMS has become a major challenge. By soliciting feedback on what content your advisors are looking to consume, keeping content contemporary, up to date, and developing functionality that makes it easy to consume the content, companies are more likely to increase adoption within their LMS.
Joey is President of the Hoopis Performance Network in Chicago. He has over twenty years of experience in the financial services industry as a producer, manager, entrepreneur, and international speaker. His organization, the Hoopis Performance Network, was recognized for the 3rd year in a row by Inc. 5000 as one of the fastest-growing privately-held businesses in the U.S.