Our work in the L&D field has been regularly reinvigorated and revised by borrowing concepts and practices from other disciplines.
We borrowed the Agile Project methodology from our IT colleagues; we conceptualized multi-faceted, multi-channel learning and development by adopting ideas from biological ecosystems; we expanded our understanding of curation by exploring the curator role in the museum context; we’ve adopted design thinking, and data-based decision making, and game design concepts, and much more, all of which make our work richer and more impactful.
The power of this kind of cross-domain adaptation is in playing out the nuances; not just renaming elements and actions, but looking closely at how things work in other fields and imagining what it would look like if applied in the L&D space. While it is often a mistake to simply block-copy practices from other professionals (the application spaces are too different), it is amazing to see how much we can enrich our own thinking by looking for relevant and useful connections and metaphors.
For example, we don’t need to actually design and run games to use game mechanics in teaching and learning in ways that expand engagement, support motivation, and enable practice, among other things. And learning and performance ecosystems have some important things in common with their biological siblings, even though there are important differences in the dynamics of each as well.
And now: how thinking like a marketer can help L&D
Bianca Baumann and Mike Taylor add to this rich tradition of borrowing from other fields with their book, Think Like a Marketer, Train Like an L&D Pro. In it, they extrapolate practices from marketing experts, adding interesting twists to core L&D activities, including learner needs analysis, design, content development (writing and visual design), content management, communications, and evaluation. In doing so, they have written a guide that details many elements of building learning programs enriched with a marketing spin.
The book describes whys and hows of creating personas to guide design and to segment audiences so that learning programs can be more targeted to specific needs – important in a world that values personalization and customization. The book details the use of journey maps to show how designers can think through blended learning strategies and learning campaigns to ensure they are comprehensive, well-structured, and sensitive to learner needs. There are chapters with deep-dive advice on composing clear, engaging content and creating impactful visual design – emphasizing how to effectively position learning opportunities to draw people in, how to get and keep attention, how to ensure comprehension, and how to standardize a look and feel that pulls elements together in learners’ minds.
I was particularly intrigued by the suggestion that we can use marketing technology to manage communications and distribute elements of a blended learning event. It’s likely that organizations have email tools they use for client relationship management and marketing, which indicates the tools have already been approved by IT, perhaps making it easier to explore L&D applications as well. Email is frequently being called out as a dying technology, but it’s still quite widespread as an internal communication tool, and it’s easy to use. Your LMS may also have tools that allow you to program a communication series once learners sign up for an event. Thinking like a marketer, and thereby devising eye-catching graphics and punchy writing will likely make your emails stand out from the crowd.
In providing valuable guidance, the book has many useful features, including call-outs for key concepts and terms, detailed examples, practice exercises at the end of each chapter, and a full list of recommended resources for deeper learning.
I admit that I sometimes get annoyed with efforts to make L&D more like <fill-in-the-blank>. In my mind, many of the “new” suggestions are existing practices in new packaging. But organizations regularly repackage products for a reason – it revitalizes them, it draws attention, and – most importantly – a refresh often adds features that are truly beneficial to the efficacy of the product. That’s what we most look for when we borrow from other domains. And Bianca and Mike have done a fine job teasing out marketing ideas that can make a difference in our work.
Check out Think Like a Marketer, publishing May 27, 2025. Congrats to Bianca and Mike for giving us tools for revitalizing our work.