Customer education has taken on new meaning as more SaaS, consulting, and impact-focused organizations leverage this strategy for scaling customer success and extending their brand beyond product features.

There are 5 types of experiences embraced by customer education leaders – each with their own benefits, challenges, and unique goals. Learn what they are and how you can implement these experiences strategically to grow and build brand through customer education.

‍Note: We’ve listed examples of each education experience type for reference. Some of these programs we have had a hand in developing while others are programs we admire and showcase great customereducation experiences.

The 5 Customer Education Experiences

Here are the 5 key experiences that you can implement to launch or scale your customer education program.

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1. Virtual Live Events

More than a webinar, virtual-live education events are the foundation of many customer education strategies. These “deep dive” sessions and events blend educational content with professional services and deliver practical information and guidance.

 Virtual-live events can take many forms whether they function as “open office hours”, workshops, or live Q/A shows streamed online.

Great examples:

• ClickUp University - This portal combines live events with recorded content and on-demand courses for an incredible library of training customer success content.
• Refine Labs - An amazing way to redefine consulting and customer success with a live Q/A show.
• Circle - Brillant platform, this showcases the power of live events in a customer community.

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2. Cohorts

Expanding on the virtual-live concept, cohorts can be an incredible customer education strategy to move groups of customers and prospects through a collaborative learning experience together.

Cohorts are an opportunity for everyone to learn from each other as peers or collaborators, instead of a traditional “expert to student” learning experience.

Cohorts can take many forms and combine virtual live events, on-demand resources or content, and peer-to-peer interaction.

From a revenue perspective, cohorts potentially offer teams generating revenue from training products a higher price-point offering, combining on-demand content with real interaction and collaboration throughout the program.

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Great examples:

• Disco - A platform for delivering live, cohort-focused experiences.
• Bersin Academy - A leader in corporate HR, the Josh Bersin Academy uses cohorts to move global workforces through new ways of thinking in an innovative platform.
• Product Led Growth - A commercial training and certification program for product teams, this showcases the power of a cohort with external client groups.

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3. On-Demand Courses

On-demand courses remain a powerful way to deliver great customer education whether it’s product onboarding or certifying clients in particular skills or disciplines.

On-demand customer education programs have a positive impact on customers’ success without scaling the overhead of the programs. It also lets customers learn when they want, where they want, and skip to resources that meet their immediate needs.

There are unique opportunities for certifications in many industries and depending on your use-case and industry, certification or continuing education credits may be a real incentive for selecting your training programs over others.

Great examples:

• Hubspot Academy - An amazing education and success platform from one of the leaders in CRM technology.
• Drift Insider - This portal is packed with incredible content to upskill B2B marketers in conversational marketing strategies and tech.
• Reveal Data - An AI-powered eDiscovery platform, this team uses persona-based certifications to drive product success and reduce support overhead.

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4. Customer Communities

Communities are taking the world of customer success,education, and brand by storm these days with more and more community platformsentering the market with the intent to help brands engage audiences andbuilding meaningful places on the internet for people to accomplish theirgoals, and share experiences with other like-minded people.

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Great examples:

• DGMG - One of the best minds in B2B marketing, Dave's community is an excellent example that has really served a niche extremely well and built multiple revenue and growth opportunities for Dave personally and his organizations.
• SPI - Smart Passive Income, led by Pat Flynn is a brilliant example of enhancing other products and training with community.
• MakerPad - Acquired by Zapier, this platform showcases the power that online communities can have and really fills a massive void for education in the nocode development niche.

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5. Social Media Channels

It’s often easier to engage your customers where they’re at, rather than pulling them to a dedicated “learning portal” or “community platform.” One of the best places to deploy this strategy is through educational content across social channels and media – think podcasts, YouTube, or short-form content pinned in Instagram Stories.

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Great examples:

• Business Made Simple - True masters of distribution, Business Made Simple is an amazing example of education and consulting, repurposed across social channels.
• Refine Labs - This team goes where demand lives - on socials, communities, and forums, and generates an extensive amount of content that serves their audience.
• Bigger Pockets - The leader in Real Estate Investing education online, this team produces daily shows, web series, and repurposes live events strategically across channels for maximum reach.

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Scale your business with Customer Education

Customer Education is proving time and time again that it is a critical component of many growth-oriented businesses.

Our team at ThinkThru has collaborated with client in healthcare, SaaS and technology, consulting firms, non-profits, and solopreneurs to build customer education systems that generate massive ROI, create new revenues, improve onboarding, and many more benefits for a client.

These 5 customer education strategies can start the ball rolling and get you and your organization looking for opportunities to design meaningful education products, help customers solve problems no matter what stage of the journey they’re in, and out-teach your competition.

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