Let’s get real for a minute.
If you design learning content, you probably spend a lot of time thinking about what people need to know.
Objectives. Outcomes. Assessments.
All good things. Necessary things.
But here’s the rub: knowing doesn’t equal doing.
And that’s where learning often falls flat.
Meanwhile, marketing professionals are out there working with a different assumption entirely:
- Nobody cares.
- Nobody is paying attention.
- And if we don’t persuade them to act, we’ve wasted our time.
Now flip that. What if we in L&D took a page from the marketing playbook?
What Marketing Gets Right
Marketers don’t wait for an audience to show up.
They go out and get it.
They obsess over:
- What catches someone’s eye
- What emotions drive action
- How to earn attention in five seconds or less
They earn engagement before they ever try to deliver value.
Contrast that with L&D:
- We assume we already have their attention
- We lean on assigned training and required modules
- We hope completion = comprehension = behavior change
Spoiler: it doesn’t.
Same Goal. Different Game.
Here’s the irony:
L&D and marketing want the same outcome — behavior change.
But they use totally different strategies to get there.
| L&D | Marketing |
| Instructs | Persuades |
| Shares knowledge | Sparks desire |
| Focuses on objectives | Focuses on emotions |
| Builds courses | Builds campaigns |
L&D is about what to learn.
Marketing is about why it matters — right now, to me.
And in a noisy, overloaded world, that difference is everything.
Let’s Talk About McDonald’s
Think about your last trip to McDonald’s.
Was it the nutritional value that got you in the drive-thru?
The learning module you once took on saturated fats?
Of course not.
It was the golden fries. The smell. The memory of comfort food. The feeling.
Marketing made you feel something.
That’s what changed your behavior. Not information — emotion.
So What Can L&D Steal (Responsibly) From Marketing?
A lot, honestly. But here are three powerful shifts:
1. Think in Campaigns, Not Courses
Training shouldn’t be a one-time event.
Use a marketing-style campaign: tease, launch, remind, follow-up.
Build a journey.
2. Write Like a Copywriter
Ditch the dry. Ditch the jargon.
Use headlines. Emotion. Urgency. Curiosity.
What would this sound like in a billboard? A tweet? A trailer?
3. Design for the Intuitive Brain
Marketers understand that emotion drives action.
We talk a lot about System 1 and System 2 thinking — but most L&D still designs for System 2 (the rational brain).
Start with the gut. Make it visual. Make it fast. Make it personal.
This Isn’t Just About Flash. It’s About Impact.
This isn’t a call to turn training into clickbait.
It’s a call to stop designing learning like we have a captive audience — because we don’t.
People are busy. Distracted. Overwhelmed.
If we want them to learn — really learn — we have to capture their attention, earn their trust, and make them care.
And that means embracing what marketers already know:
If you want behavior change, you have to persuade before you teach.
Want More?
This idea is the heart of our new book,
Think Like a Marketer. Learn Like an L&D Pro.
Want More?
This idea is the heart of our new book,
? Think Like a Marketer. Learn Like an L&D Pro.
It’s a how-to manual for bringing marketing mindsets into the world of instructional design — without losing your soul (or your learning objectives).
If this post made you pause, rethink, or scribble a note… we wrote this book for you.
Your Move
Next time you sit down to design a course, stop for a second and ask:
Would I click on this? Would I care? Would I remember it a week later?
If not, it’s not a learning problem.
It’s a marketing one.