The Learning Center: Your Website's Key to More Qualified Leads [Endless Customers Podcast Ep. 53]

This transcript has been generated by AI and not checked for accuracy.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:00:00
They say 44% of buyers consume three to five pieces of content before they engage with you as a business. The best way to get them to see that content is...

Alex Winter
0:00:09
through the 16th. Over three days business owners, CEOs, and marketing and sales leaders will learn proven strategies to drive business growth.

Alex Winter
0:00:17
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Alex Winter
0:01:02
hundred dollars off. We'll see you there at Impact Live 2024 up in Hartford, October 14th through the 16th. Welcome back to Endless Customers. My name is Alex Winter and today we are joined by Janet Mendez-Latouche. She's a web strategist here at Impact. Janet, welcome to the show.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:01:18
Hey, Alex.

Alex Winter
0:01:19
What's up, everyone?

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:01:20
I'm excited to be on.

Alex Winter
0:01:22
We're excited to have you. This is your first time on the show, right?

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:01:25
First time, first time.

Alex Winter
0:01:26
First time.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:01:27
No, that's great. I'll be back, though.

Alex Winter
0:01:29
I'll be back. Yes, definitely. First, but definitely not your last. Definitely not your last. Right. Well, today we have a really important topic.

Alex Winter
0:01:35
This is something that I'm really glad that we can discuss this because I know you are a web expert. We're talking about the learning center on your website, what it is, and I think there's a misconception with a lot of people out there that a learning center's your blog, and that's where all your blogs live.

Alex Winter
0:01:49
But that's not necessarily true. So can we talk about what a learning center is, and also the differences between a blog and a learning center?

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:01:57
Yeah, man, I hear this all the time, and I see this all the time. It's kind of like this big confusion, right? But let's clear it up today. Your Learning Center is not your blog. It is so much more comprehensive than just a blog.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:02:10
And I like to think about it this way. You know, Alex, think about when you visit a blog, right? You typically see this really long list of articles in chronological order, and you're probably scrolling through all of it. And it can really be anything from, you know,

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:02:25
the latest article you posted about your product, right, to, hey, we just hired a new marketing director, right, to this, I still get this, the hello world post from when you first started your blog, right? I can't tell you how many times I still see that. Now, imagine when a potential customer

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:02:43
who wants to learn more about your product goes on your site, comes across a blog listing page, and they have to scroll through all these posts, much of which are like not even relevant to their actual questions. Or they maybe like pop in the search bar and try to find the magical keyword that's going to show up what they're looking for.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:03:02
This can be super, super frustrating and time consuming for a lot of the users who are coming to your site. And unfortunately, this is about 90% of the blog listing pages that I see.

Alex Winter
0:03:13
No, it's so true. I can, just to jump in here, I can totally relate. No, I can totally relate. And I think a lot of our listeners and viewers can relate as well. Blogs, even when they're organized well,

Alex Winter
0:03:23
it's usually like going through the filing cabinet and you're trying to find this one thing and it's like looking for a needle in a haystack and it can be overwhelming. And usually people fall off pretty quickly when you get into a situation like that.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:03:34
100%, because I mean, they're looking for the answers, right, and maybe they'll be able to click on a category tag. But imagine if after 15 years of writing content, how much you might have. And often what I see is that you have maybe 150 different tags to sort through. So it's a lot and it's overwhelming for users. And so we need a better way to organize that content so

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:03:57
that they're able to find what they're looking for really easy. And so that is essentially what a learning center is. It's different in that it organizes all of the educational content that you have, so that it's easy to sort through and really easy to navigate. And better yet, if there's something that your blog can't do, it's not just articles, it's videos, webinars, e-books, landing pages, guides,

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:04:21
all of the things that we know users want to consume before they engage with you as a business. In fact, I was looking at this one report and it said 44% of buyers typically consume about three to five pieces of content before they're engaging with a vendor, right?

Alex Winter
0:04:37
Wow, three to five pieces of content before they start reaching out to actually speak to somebody.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:04:42
Exactly. Okay. Exactly. Now, are we willing to lose about 44% of our customers to a poor experience on a blog listing page. No, right?

Alex Winter
0:04:51
No.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:04:52
It would be insane. Yeah. So the whole purpose of that learning center is to facilitate that process so that we're creating a much more user-friendly experience for people who are visiting the site

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:05:02
and who are essentially ready to buy, right? It becomes that educational hub for all the content that your visitors need to find the answers to their specific problems, specifically with your product or your service, right? And Alex, I want to hone in on those

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:05:18
because I have to say this, the educational hub for a minute, that means we don't get to throw everything in the kitchen sink in there, right? Like you've got to curate the most important content for that buyer's journey,

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:05:30
so people are able to find those answers really quickly. And the cool thing about this is, as I'm reading, as I'm consuming those three to five pieces of content, I'm becoming more educated on what you're offering. And then in turn, it actually allows me to better qualify myself, right, as a good fit or bad fit for your sales team.

Alex Winter
0:05:50
It's a win-win for everybody. Yeah.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:05:52
It's a win-win. Exactly. Your sales team will love it because people aren't going to come with the same questions that they do over and over. You're using your learning center to actually post and elevate that content so that your sales team can actually use that even in their process. Your blog really just can't do that.

Alex Winter
0:06:09
Right. A blog can't do that. That makes a ton of sense. I think the organization piece is huge just because it's great on two folds. It's great internally so you can organize and place your content in the right places, but it's also great externally for your end users that are just looking for what they're

Alex Winter
0:06:23
looking for. In a blog, when you're trying to filter through hundreds of options, it's really tough. You also said something in there that I think is really important, the education center, education hub, I love that term. What should people be thinking about

Alex Winter
0:06:36
or what should people be focusing on when we're talking about what goes into that hub, what goes in the learning center? You mentioned videos and all different kinds of cool content you can do, but what specifically is in the learning center

Alex Winter
0:06:47
or what would you recommend should be in there.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:06:49
Yeah, definitely. I mean, what I see often is that, yeah, again, we kind of try to throw a lot of company news and press releases, things like that. And to be honest, Alex, when was the last time you looked at a press release and was like,

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:07:04
man, I really want to buy their product now.

Alex Winter
0:07:07
Like, never.

Alex Winter
0:07:08
Yeah, never, never. It's all me content. Yeah, it's all like, look at us. And it's important to the company and that's great, but that's not necessarily what your potential customers are looking for.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:07:18
Exactly, exactly. When you think about even the journey as a user of how you purchase products, right? You're going online, you're searching for things. What are the top things you're looking for? You're probably looking for what, you know,

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:07:31
how the issue to solve or the pain point to solve, right? Totally. So you're looking up that. Yeah, you're looking up.

Alex Winter
0:07:37
I have this problem and I need to fix it. What do I do?

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:07:40
Yes. Exactly, exactly. Then you're gonna be looking up maybe, okay, well how much is it gonna cost me to fix it?

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:07:46
For sure.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:07:46
Right? Yep. Then you might wanna say, okay, well how do I even install this thing, right? For example, for some of our industries out there who do installations, how do I do this on my own?

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:07:56
Or how do I do this elsewhere? Are there competitors? Can I get reviews? All of those good things. Like you're looking for those topics. And so that's the kind of stuff

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:08:06
that we want in our learning center. The news, the company holiday parties, all that stuff, they can stay in your blog, but keep them in your blog, not in your learning center.

Alex Winter
0:08:17
Yeah, that makes total sense. Okay, so Janet, I'm a business owner. I'm trying to scale my business. I like the idea of this learning center. What do I need to be thinking about? Or like what are the great components

Alex Winter
0:08:29
or like the best components that I should be including in my learning center?

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:08:32
Yeah, that's great. I mean, honestly, I would say it comes down to just four main things. First thing, it's gotta be searchable, right? So visitors have to be really easily able to find what they need by just typing a few words, right?

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:08:46
Good search functionality is crucial. That's a lot of how our users are finding information today. Second, it's got to be easy to use. So what I mean by this is just the layout should be intuitive. Users should be able to sort by date and popularity. Yes, most blogs do that, but also include that in your

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:09:06
learning center as well. The third thing I would say is it's got to be segmentable. And this is like the huge part of the learning center that just really distinguishes it from your blog. Users have to be able to easily see how the content is organized, right? We were talking about that. And it's got to make sense to them. So one of the easiest ways

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:09:25
we do this is by setting up filters. And we usually recommend about three specific ones. The first one is filter by content. I'm sorry, filter by topic. So that's going to sort out different content categories. So we recommend topics to be centered around your product or your services. The next one would be filter by content type. And this one is really important because it allows users to have,

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:09:50
who have maybe different learning styles, to consume different content in the learning style that works best for them. So is your content an article? Is it a video? Is it a guide? Is it a webinar?

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:10:01
Like be specific about those things because most users, what we see, is that they'll pick specifically like, hey, I only wanna watch videos versus I only wanna watch guides. I don't see guides.

Alex Winter
0:10:12
No, totally, but everyone consumes and learns differently, so you need to be able to meet people where they are, and that makes total sense, yeah.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:10:18
Exactly.

Alex Winter
0:10:19
Yeah, and what's the fourth one?

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:10:19
And then that last filter, oh, sorry, go ahead.

Alex Winter
0:10:22
I was gonna say, what's that fourth one, that last one?

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:10:24
Yeah.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:10:25
Yeah, that last one is filter by audience. So you might have a specific persona or an industry that your products are geared towards, right? So that audience filter helps me, like as a user, to identify who I am, right? And only see the articles that are important to me.

Alex Winter
0:10:42
That makes total sense.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:10:42
So a really, yeah, a really good example of that, if you're a financial services company, right, you might segment content with topics like investing and retirement planning. Sure. Yeah, your content types might be articles,

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:10:56
calculators, that's a great one, videos and financial planning webinars, right? And then your audience could be small business owners or retirees. Each one of those filters are going to help your users choose and sort the content in a way that's relevant

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:11:11
to them and in the way that they want to consume it.

Alex Winter
0:11:13
Gotcha, gotcha. So now, this has got me thinking, because this is exciting. This makes total sense. I'm picking up what you're putting down. But then the next piece is like,

Alex Winter
0:11:19
okay, so now I know what components need to be part of this learning center, but now my brain's like, how do I build this? Like, do I need to create a site? Do we need to hire a web strategist or web specialist? So what's that next step of like, okay, cool,

Alex Winter
0:11:33
I'm starting to get the framework or like the foundation built, now I need to actually build the thing. What do I do?

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:11:39
Yeah, I mean, even if you have a simple site, like building that learning center is gonna be still possible, right? So I've seen some learning centers where they just segment the content manually by category. So each section is like,

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:11:50
hey, this is our financial planning section versus our investment section, right? We have an example of this on our HubSpot trust theme. And that's usually good for a short amount of time if you are just starting out writing content.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:12:03
You don't have millions of blogs, you just have a few and you want to start on your learning center. Now if you are ready to build a little bit more of a robust learning center, to make sure that you're hitting all of those components, depending on how your site is built, then you're likely gonna need that web developer

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:12:20
just to help with some of the more custom areas of the build.

Alex Winter
0:12:24
That makes total sense, yeah. And I guess it just really depends on your industry and your website and what situation you're in. So there's options. And that's a good segue too, because I know we do this with our web team

Alex Winter
0:12:34
and you guys do this on a regular basis, but how long does it typically take or what should business owners be expecting it to take as far as building it out? And then maybe a little idea of cost too as far as what it'll expense.

Alex Winter
0:12:47
Yeah.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:12:48
So at Impact, we build learning centers in just a few weeks. So it takes a few weeks to develop. Our team is actually developing the learning center. I'm usually working with you on the front end to teach you how to brainstorm filters, right? So what filters are we gonna use for our learning center?

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:13:04
How to prepare your content that you have and sort through it. And then we'll train you actually on how to manage your learning center over time. And the great thing is, it's really not an expensive build. A learning center will probably cost about $5,000, usually just for the learning center itself. Now if you are working with a different agency that maybe requires

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:13:24
custom coding or you need something a little bit more complex, it could be a little bit more expensive. But generally it shouldn't take more than a month max. The key I think is to really start with that clear plan and that strategy. That

Alex Winter
0:13:36
makes total sense and I'm gonna go a little off script here because it's got me thinking, right? So it doesn't take that long. It's not a huge expense. It seems like there's a lot of ROI to do something like this if you're a business owner.

Alex Winter
0:13:47
Do you have any clients or any stories maybe that you could share with us of somebody that you implemented a learning center and it's just helped their business or changed the way that they're doing business?

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:13:56
Yeah, I mean, I can think of a few clients already that have implemented these learning centers and have seen a lot of different change within their stats. Now, we're not talking about, hey, if we implement a learning center, we're going to get huge amounts of traffic to the blog.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:14:10
No, it's really a router to get to those three to five articles that 44 percent of your buyers are looking through, before they engage with you. It's really about the user experience. What we've seen on these pages in relation to the data,

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:14:26
is that people are spending more time on page, right, on blogs, because they're getting to them. People are actually seeing more related blogs and actually exploring the site a bit longer. So it's really about that user engagement and getting them to engage even further and deeper

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:14:41
into your site until they become that customer.

Alex Winter
0:14:43
That makes total sense, and it's very, they ask, you answer, because if we think about engagement and time on page, that builds trust, and trust ultimately converts into business. So that's really cool to hear and to see. So my next question is about the learning centers in general. Do they all look the same? I know that we

Alex Winter
0:15:00
work in a lot of different industries and with a lot of different companies B2B, B2C. So are they all the same or are they all different? How does that look and what should business owners be thinking about as they start to focus on implementing their own and customizing their own?

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:15:15
Yeah, that's a great question. I don't think all learning centers need to look the same. I know that at Impact ourselves, we are constantly optimizing our learning center design based on that user data and best practices, so it has looked different over time.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:15:30
I think as long as you're hitting those four main components and designing around that best user experience, I would say it's good to test out different layouts, right? It's always about optimization, not just cookie-cuttering things, but making sure that we are keeping those best practices

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:15:45
at the forefront and then pulling that out into the UX or the design. I would just say, keep in mind that the more complex the design or experience, then the more expensive the build might be.

Alex Winter
0:15:56
Yeah, that makes sense. Obviously, the more time involved to design something, yeah, the price goes up. That makes total sense. So this is just fascinating to me because it seems so simple,

Alex Winter
0:16:08
but there's beauty in its simplicity. And I think that's the part that I love the most about it. And when we talk about raising awareness, that's the name of the game here. So my last question for you is really more around when you work with companies that are maybe thinking

Alex Winter
0:16:21
about implementing a learning center, what's that conversation look like? Or maybe there's times where people don't even know what a learning center is and you have to explain this to them and get them to see, maybe you thought you had a sales problem,

Alex Winter
0:16:31
but really you have an awareness problem. Have you had any experience with that and could you share some of that with us, if possible?

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:16:38
Yeah, I think a lot of it is really just asking the right questions, right? So maybe we take a look at the data and see how people are using the blog, but even before that, like you said, it's very simple. Sometimes we just have to think like the user.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:16:53
A lot of times we're so used to seeing the same site, the same content, and we think, yeah, it's working great, it's performing well. But if you look at the data, your content is not performing well or they're not getting through that buyer's journey that easily.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:17:07
If you are having a problem with conversions, if you are having a problem with time on page, or getting people to click in deeper to the site, that might be the first little flag that I'll say, hey guys, we might have something here that we need to look into,

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:17:22
that a learning center might help with. The other thing I would try to look into, and I encourage our clients to look into is just doing a content audit. So look at your content right now on the site and think about how you can

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:17:35
organize it for a better user experience. You want to ask questions like, do you have a good amount of content that actually helps users to answer the questions that they're asking about your offerings, right? Or is there a lot of fluff content? Are you doing a lot of the news and the me stories, right?

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:17:52
Figure out what needs to stay, what needs to go, or what still needs to be written. You might find that you have so many more content gaps. So what I like to do is just encourage people to take a look at some other learning centers that we've created and get just inspired by what people are doing so that you can in turn start brainstorming what you might be missing or need to just reorganize on your site for

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:18:17
a better user experience.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:18:18
Well said.

Alex Winter
0:18:19
No, well said. I like the term content audit, too. I love that. That's something that a lot of businesses need to do more of, and we do all the time here at Impact. It's a never-ending thing, but we talked about that too,

Alex Winter
0:18:30
where your website, just like your learning center, all these pieces, they're living and breathing parts of your business, so you can't just set them and forget them and do the shiny, like, hey, look at, our team is the difference, and maybe your team's amazing,

Alex Winter
0:18:43
but how do you actually get people to see that in a meaningful way and not just tell them, and not just have the fluff, as you said?

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:18:50
Yeah, in a way that matters to them, and I think the whole reason why we write content is to build trust, and so if you're just writing about yourself, you kind of just sound, you know, you sound biased, right? It's kind of tooting your own horn,

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:19:04
but if you are putting out good content that is actually answering their questions, helping them to get to the answer quicker, faster, easier, and helping them to ultimately resolve their pain point, like that's the thing that builds trust. And that is the thing that draws them to you

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:19:19
to actually become customers.

Alex Winter
0:19:21
I couldn't agree with you more, well said. So for people that are out there watching and listening, I'm sure there's gonna be a lot of questions about learning centers and what we talked about in general. How can they get in touch with you? What's the best way to pick your brain

Alex Winter
0:19:32
if they wanna discuss this further?

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:19:34
Oh yeah, definitely. I mean, you can always contact us at Impact, of course. Feel free to add my email if you want, or hit me up on LinkedIn. I am definitely happy to answer any questions that you might have.

Alex Winter
0:19:47
All right, and we'll make sure to drop all your info in the show notes for everyone out there as well if they wanna get in touch with you. Any final thoughts, any, like, what's the one thing you want people to take away from this episode?

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:19:56
Yeah, I mean, you mentioned this whole set it and forget it mentality, right? And we often do that with our websites. And I'm gonna tell you, please do not do that. If you go and invest in a great learning center, don't set it and forget it, right? Like this thing needs to be optimized.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:20:12
And so there's so many great tools out there, like heat mapping tools that you can install on the site to see where people are clicking and see what content they're most interested in. This is a living and breathing thing, just like your website. So you need to be able to optimize it. So I would say, if you are getting a learning center or

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:20:28
you're in the process of building one, the build is not the end of the story, right? Optimization is. So you wanna make sure that you're taking a look at the data, setting up all of those great heat mapping tools so that you can get that data and then optimize that learning center.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:20:43
So it can continuously work for you, I think. Just sticking to these principles of constantly optimizing and updating your learning center. That's what's gonna make your learning center the most valuable resource for your users, but then also just a really powerful tool

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:20:57
for you to drive leads.

Alex Winter
0:20:58
Janet, great advice as always. Thank you so much for your time and for being on the show.

Janet Mendez-Latouche
0:21:02
Thank you.

Alex Winter
0:21:03
Yeah, we'll see you again soon.

Alex Winter
0:21:04
Yeah, and that's our show. And for everybody out there listening and watching, don't forget, if you have questions, if you have topics that you want us to talk about, if you wanna hear from great experts like Janet here, make sure to drop some comments on social media, make sure to

Alex Winter
0:21:15
hit us up on LinkedIn, make sure to send us an email. We'd love to hear from you and we want to get your topics on the show so that we can help create content that's going to ultimately help you. So thank you for watching Endless Customers. I'm Alex Winter. I'm Alex Winter.

Alex Winter
0:21:27
We'll see you on the next episode.




Transcribed with Cockatoo