Let’s be honest—the internet is littered with would-be “experts”—including training experts. All this amateur content presents a huge challenge for training companies. How do you make your content better than anyone else’s so that your learners come to you rather than watch a YouTube video? Luckily, you already have the information you need. Data can tell you which products are the most popular, how to improve learner satisfaction, and even what to write about next. It helps you make decisions about your business and customers. This blog post will look at how you can develop a data-driven learning strategy. You'll see how data can help improve the learner journey, develop content, and optimize revenue generation.

Leverage Data for Powerful Learner Journeys

Unlike employee learning, training companies often work with a young population. If your learners fail, the consequences are heartbreaking. They only have one test on one day to prove themselves. Their dream schools, sought-after careers, and even their identities, often hang in the balance. They’re looking to you to prepare them. Your data holds the key to your learners’ success. It’ll show you what successful learners do so you can unlock the powerful learner journey. Most software companies look for aha features. Facebook famously found if someone friended seven people in the first 10 days then they would stay. According to Chamath Palihapitiya, an early senior executive, this became their guiding star. BenchPrep has found something similar. The average online discussion participant is 15 times more active online.

What LMS features Will Your Data Show Matter to The Success of Your Learners’ Journey?

Once you know the most effective way to use the learning platform, you can teach your learners how to do it. It’ll become the secret sauce for learner success in your program. 🔎Find out more about using digital learning platforms by reading our case study, ACT: Taking Digital Learning to the Next Level.

Analyze Your Data for Content Development

Training companies are often at the mercy of the content. You can’t arbitrarily cut content because it bores learners. No, you need to find ways to make boring content exciting. Granular data reporting gives you information on what engages your learners . . . and what doesn’t.

Data Can Improve Your Learning Strategy in Three Key Areas

1. Individual Pieces of Content

Data analytics will reveal if individual questions are too easy or too hard. If a question is too hard, you can add easier questions building the skills required ahead of time. If it’s too easy, you can either cut it or adjust the difficulty. Either way, you want questions optimized for learners to pass the course with flying colors.

1. Content Topics

Your practice exam data will show you what topics give learners the most difficulty. Then, you can design your courses with these areas in mind. Perhaps you should build in more interactivity or quizzes in those topics. You could also make these difficult sections worth more points in gamification. You’re just aiming to help learners through these difficult topics.

1. Learner Engagement

Does every question, every video, and every interaction engage your learner? Data will show you exactly where your learner disengages. Maybe learners don’t finish a certain video or drop out on a certain topic. You can develop content to motivate them to continue in these areas.

🔎 Learn more about what your data can tell you in our on-demand webinar, “5 Storytelling Secrets to Power Your Learning Business with Data."

Optimize for Revenue Generation

With the proliferation of free training resources, pricing has become more difficult. How do you price your courses high enough to be profitable but low enough that you don’t scare away learners?

Historical data can help you determine your ideal pricing.

Here are a few considerations for pricing your courses:

1. Free online courses exist for everything. How much does your data suggest your learners are willing to pay for a premium experience?

2. Consider the ideal time of year. Since some types of training often follow cyclical patterns, can you charge more or offer discounts at certain times of the year?

3. Optimize course formats. Are courses of a certain length of time more popular than others?

Once you’ve uncovered your ideal pricing, you can optimize for more revenue through marketing. Digital marketing is just getting more expensive. Data helps you determine the best ways to leverage your marketing dollars.

Data informs your marketing strategy by allowing you to:

● Change course based on where traffic is coming from.

● Use geographic data to target your marketing efforts.

● Surface the learner journey for upselling.

Make Your Data-Driven Learning Strategy a Reality

Data-driven learning strategies don’t need to be too complex. With the right data analytics, it’ll happen effortlessly. You’ll sell more courses, and your learners will point the way. You’ll see which features help them pass the practice exams. Their actions will show you what content needs a makeover, and your historical data will pinpoint who buys your courses, for how much, and when. All you need to do is trust your learners. The rest will take care of itself. Of course, you’ll need a learning platform with granular data analytics. That’s where we can help. The BenchPrep platform has options to see data from your whole program all the way down to the individual question. No matter where you’re going off track, you’ll be able to find it with our data suite.