In December 2011, I reported, “typical corporate training departments only have a 15% success rate for participants applying what they learned to the job.” This information came from The Six Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning by Calhoun Wick, Roy Pollock, and Andrew Jefferson. Additionally, the authors explained 75% of learning transfer fails in post-training. What if there were a tool to help learners in post-training? Mailchimp can be the perfect tool to follow up with post-training advice.
Supporting learners post-training is critical to helping learning transfer and this can be facilitated with a program called MailChimp. However, I believe it can help manage learners from pre-training through post-training. Here are my thoughts:
Pre-Training
- Create a form – You can create a form and associate it with a group specific to that training event. Each event should have its own group. One email address can belong to multiple groups. This will help manage your sending quota.
- Registration – Have new learners register through the form you created for the event.
- Autoresponder – You can set up automatic messages to go out to learners on a schedule or the actions they take.
- Pre-event assignments – With MailChimp, you can send out information, assignments, or instructions.
Training Event
- Course Updates – During the event, you can provide learners with updates throughout multi-day courses with MailChimp.
Post-Training
In The Six Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning methodology, learners are required to complete a final assignment months after the training session. MailChimp is a great way to provide continuous learning support.
- Regular follow-up – Following the course, you can provide learners with job aids and performance support.
- Check on status – You can send a simple email to check on their status.
The best part of MailChimp is that you can measure the success of your outreach efforts. With great analytic reports, you can determine which messages were opened and what items were clicked on.
Is anyone using MailChimp to manage their training messaging? If so, what tips can you provide? I am going to be exploring this in more depth over the next year, and I will report back on what I have learned.
