What's in it for me

“What’s in it for me?” (WIIFM) is a phrase you’d have heard a lot if you’ve followed A on LinkedIn for any length of time. And that’s because I believe it is one of crucial elements of marketing strategies that is not applied often in a learning context – but if you want to instigate real behavioural change, you need to answer this question.

It sounds simple, really. What we’re trying to do is talk to our audience like human beings, and understand who they are, what their drivers are, what their wants and needs are, what they like and dislike, and what benefits they’ll receive by giving you one of their most equitable resources: their time. It’s not enough to think that because your business wants your employees to learn, that your learners will want to do it. Because your learners aren’t motivated by the same things as your business. You’re not going to get any level of engagement from your people if you’re constantly pushing business agendas through learning – and trying to use these agendas as a motivating factor for your learners. Instead you need to answer: what’s in it for me?

One of the best ways to answer this question is by using a value proposition canvas. This canvas will help you to decipher what you’re delivering to your learners, versus what they want and need. What’s going to make them move? What’s going to light the fires with your audience? Because it’s not enough to just focus on the business agendas any more. You are fighting for your learners attention – you’re fighting against the entirety of the internet. So you must focus on what motivates them to take action, and understand how you can best communicate that to them. And if you’re not – you’re doing yourself a disservice.

In this podcast I explore the WIIFM in much more detail, giving you tons of tips on how you can adopt a marketing mindset and answer this question effectively. Happy listening!