| Poised for significant growth, innovation consultancy PLAY needed an online course that would generate more leads and brand awareness. So the team leveraged its partnership with Salted Stone to deliver their big ambitions. Read on to discover how our e-learning experience built on HubLMS helped PLAY grow leads and improve its presence in the Australian market. |
After a successful brand repositioning, PLAY wanted to make bold strides toward becoming Australia’s leading authority in fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) innovation.
PLAY is a market research and product innovation consultancy. They help the country's biggest FMCG manufacturers turn consumer insights into desirable products, many of which are sold in supermarkets nationwide.
A few years ago, they launched a new service offering called PLAYHouse that improves the effectiveness of new product development. They had bigger revenue goals and plenty of ideas on how to achieve them. But it was time they put ideas into action.
PLAY teamed up with Salted Stone to deliver a lead-generating e-learning course, launched in December 2022.
The challenge
Talk to any Innovation Manager or Consumer Insights Manager, and they’ll tell you innovation is messy. Replicating the results of product launches was rare, much to the frustration of their stakeholders. Not to mention mistakes (and failures) are costly.
PLAY saw this problem as an opportunity to demystify the innovation process. They also observed a lack of accessible resources and education in the sector. ‘Where were audiences supposed to look for guidance?’, they thought.
The team envisioned a free interactive online course about the ‘what’ and ‘why’ of NPD. That meant detailing the entire product innovation process, from early-stage research to pivoting post-product launch.
The course would be a test-and-learn exercise. If well-received, a follow-up mini-MBA would establish a new revenue stream to meet PLAY’s goals.
However, leaping from dreams to reality required external technical expertise and help to build the journey. Salted Stone had previously built their inbound marketing strategy, which made us the ideal partner.
To kick off the e-learning project, Salted Stone Marketing Strategist Gabriel McCarthy, together with Strategic Account Manager Mike Marques, defined the goals as follows:
- Primary goal: Increase leads to grow and improve the quality of PLAY’s contact database.
- Secondary goal: Strengthen PLAY’s brand awareness in the Australian market.
Salted Stone’s approach
Our multi-disciplinary team helped PLAY execute an interactive 90-minute online course built on HubLMS. We provided a comprehensive induction into NPD, enabled by our systematic production process.
Salted Stone delivered the following services as part of the project:
Strategic planning
To align with PLAY’s vision of becoming an FMCG authority, we targeted Innovation Managers and Consumer Insights Managers needing an accessible means to improve their NPD.
Gabriel, who deeply understood the audiences’ pain points, workshopped the course structure and landed on:
- A ‘watch and learn’-type course spanning the eight stages of FMCG NPD
- 10 course modules, including an introduction, eight topics, and a conclusion
- Supplementary content in the form of case studies, quizzes, and summaries.
Ultimately, the FMCG Product Success Formula course would generate leads and simultaneously enhance PLAY’s position as an industry thought leader.
Content creation
In collaboration with PLAY, Content Specialist Michelle Zinko wrote webpages detailing the course and module overviews, learning outcomes, and sets of key takeaways.
Videos were agreed on as the most engaging medium to deliver the content and we produced 11 scripts. PLAY’s Managing Director Becky Mead presented the whole course over a two-day video shoot directed by Gabriel at our Sydney office. He would go on to edit the footage and add finishing touches of music and client-supplied overlays.
We also promoted the upcoming course launch organically on LinkedIn and to PLAY’s email subscribers. Both audiences received video snippets addressing common NPD challenges as either an Innovation Manager or Consumer Insights Manager. To capture sign-ups, a landing page converted interested visitors and later invited them to start the course.
Snappy content drew audiences in and encouraged course sign-ups.
Development and integration
The hero of the project was HubLMS — a learning management system (LMS) integration purpose-built for HubSpot. Perhaps the biggest benefit was being able to collect and store course engagement data PLAY’s HubSpot instance.
At the front-end, the integration allowed users to select modules from a course library enriched with quizzes and downloadables that augmented the learning experience.
Sumit Pardeshi, Salted Stone’s Lead Developer (APAC), took HubLMS’s capabilities further, recognizing the need to optimize the UX and appearance of the page templates. Those improvements included:
- Content gating from Module 2 onward
- Calls-to-action pointing to the quizzes
- Font formatting and branding applied
- Downloadables housed in a new module.
And with a bit of help from our Solutions Team, PLAY’s HubSpot CMS Hub nurtured participants (turned MQLs) after completing the course.
Project management
The project required we work closely with points of contact at PLAY, Managing Director Becky Mead and Founder Chris Thomas, as well as their subject matter experts. Mike Marques, our Strategic Account Manager/Project Lead, held weekly meetings to keep everyone informed.
Mike also led a meticulous punch process to iron out any kinks, and ensure the course looked and worked as intended before the big go-live day.
The FMCG Product Success Formula course officially launched in December 2022.
We used HubLMS to deliver the 10-part course and feed data into HubSpot.
The outcome
Our team’s experience in content marketing and HubSpot integrations brought PLAY’s vision of becoming Australia’s leader in FMCG innovation that much closer.
Mike was thrilled we executed ‘an engaging learning experience that establishes PLAY’s authority in NPD innovation.’ He says he was proud of the lengths taken to create an optimized e-learning experience. The effort, he believes, paid off.
“By harnessing the power of HubLMS and our expertise in user-centered solutions, we delivered an interactive course that surpassed all expectations. It was an excellent opportunity to empower PLAY’s clients to navigate the dynamic FMCG landscape.”
— Mike Marques, Strategic Account Manager at Salted Stone
Thanks to the e-learning project, PLAY continued its partnership with Salted Stone into the new year. PLAY continues to test and learn from the experience and hopes to launch its mini-MBA program soon. We look forward to seeing what PLAY achieves next.
Want to create a UX-optimized e-learning experience that grows your business? Talk to us.
