One of our favorite tools for helping learning businesses hone their product strategy is the Value Ramp™ (view on Tagoras site).
If you aren’t already familiar with it, the Value Ramp is a tool we developed that highlights the relationship between price and value, the importance of momentum, and the impact of brand.
Because many organizations haven’t taken the time to really reflect on the relationships between their products, using this tool can certainly be an eye-opening experience.
In this episode of the Leading Learning podcast, we discuss eight tips for filling out your Value Ramp and how to effectively manage the value offered along it.
To tune in, just click below. To make sure you catch all of the future episodes, be sure to subscribe by RSS or on iTunes. And, if you like the podcast, be sure to give it a tweet!
Listen to the Show
Read the Show Notes
[00:18] – A preview of what will be covered in this podcast where we discuss eight ways you can optimize your Value Ramp – a tool for helping learning businesses with product strategy.
[00:38] – Our sponsor this quarter is ReviewMyLMS, a collaboration between our company, Tagoras, and 100Reviews, the company that is behind the very successful ReviewMyAMS site. As the name suggests, ReviewMyLMS is a site where users can share and access reviews of learning management systems, but in this case, the focus is specifically on systems that are a good fit for learning businesses, meaning organizations that market and sell lifelong learning. Contribute a review and you will get access to all existing and future reviews—there are already more than 100 on the site. And, if you don’t have review to contribute, there is also a subscription option. Just go to reviewmylms.com to get all the details.
[01:26]– Highlighted Resource of the Week – A page with additional information related to the Value Ramp – includes both text and video as well as helpful visuals to help you make use of the tool.
The Value Ramp
[02:03] – A brief description of the Value Ramp. As simple as it is, a meeting or two focused on it can often be one of the more eye-opening things an organization has done in years.
There are typically two problems that become clear once an organization starts to look at its Value Ramp:
- There are either few or no items at the low and high ends of the curve. The impact in the first case is to limit initial momentum. The impact in the second is to bring things to a screeching halt just as the prospective learner enters the highest priced, highest value areas of engagement.
- There are often significant gaps along the curve. Like potholes on a highway, these gaps will slow down your educational engagement with members or even create the risk of losing them entirely.
It was with these problems in mind that we came up with eight tips for making sure you do fill out your Value Ramp completely and that you effectively manage the value offered along it.
Before moving on to the eight tips for optimizing your Value Ramp, check out the below videos were we talk about how you can use the tool to look at your overall portfolio, and then how you can also use it to look at particular product line within your portfolio.
The Value Ramp As Tool to Examine Your Education Portfolio
The Value Ramp Applied to a Specific Product Line
8 Tips for Optimizing Your Value Ramp
[05:39] –
1. Make It A Conversation
Involve multiple people across your organization in examining, discussing, and plotting out your Value Ramp.
While it can be helpful to have an outside party facilitate the discussion, we’ve heard from plenty of organizations that have used the tool effectively on their own.
Just get the right people in the room for an hour, maybe over lunch. You may be surprised what an eye-opening experience it can be.
[07:18] –
2. Set Them Free
Set free any lower value items (e.g., white papers, video clips, e-newsletters) you may currently have trapped in members-only areas of your Web site or other places that require logging in.
You want them to help you attract prospective members and customers and demonstrate the value you can offer. As part of that effort, you also want search engines to be able to find them and index them.
So, don’t charge for them, and don’t put them behind a log-in wall.
[08:33] –
3. Social + Learning = Value
Embrace social media as a way to create new value. Tweets, posts to LinkedIn and Facebook, blog posts—all of these and a variety of other social media tools represent possibilities for providing nuggets of value in the form of links to valuable knowledge assets (articles, video clips, etc.), brief how-tos and advice, examples, breaking news for which you have relevant educational offerings, etc.
Note: You don’t have to—indeed shouldn’t—use all of the major social media channels. Find the one or two where you can really provide some value and focus on those.
[09:53] –
4. Re-Use It, Don’t Lose It
Use versioning and re-purposing to help smooth out potholes along the curve of your Value Ramp.
Large online courses can be broken down into smaller chunks, for example. Or a podcast or Webinar can easily be transcribed and converted into articles or an attractive e-book.
Similarly, video captured at a conference can be packaged up with a workbook and an assessment. Remember everything is a production event!
[11:27] –
5. Don’t Get Stuck in the Middle
Don’t get bogged down in the middle of the curve on your Value Ramp.
Many organizations are obsessive about their moderately priced offerings like seminars or their portfolio of events.
Often these are areas where competition is high and where you have often already maxed out your conversion rates, at least until you work on building more momentum. The mental power used up here might be better applied to figuring out compelling offerings at the upper right of the curve.
[12:50] –
6. Point the Way
Whenever possible, items on the curve should reference other items on the curve—ideally ones higher up and some come at higher price but offer more value.
A blog post might reference a related online course. A Webinar might highlight your annual conference or opportunities for onsite training.
This kind of cross-referencing requires a bit of coordination, but the effort is well worth it.
[15:02] –
7. Focus on Return on Learning
In the upper right part of the curve, focus intensely on impact.
What extra value can you provide that will transform educational experience into enduring returns for your learners and their organizations?
This could include pre- and/or post-education audits, assessments, or benchmarking. It may include consultative services or facilitated learning experiences within the learners’ organizations.
It may involve access to roundtables, peer learning groups, or other special types of membership within your overall membership.
Again, having multiple people in your organization involved in the conversation will help ensure that you generate a range of ideas for high-value offerings.
[16:40] –
8. Mind Your Ps
The difference in price for products at the bottom left of the Value Ramp and the top right is usually dramatic—and the difference in value should be dramatic as well.
You have to be careful to manage how these differences are perceived, however, and this typically means some level of differentiation not only in price, but also in positioning, placement, and promotion.
In other words, the classic 4 Ps of marketing should not be applied in the same way to your free white papers as they are to your consultative on-site training services. Make sure prospects and customers fully appreciate the difference.
[17:52] –
Keeping the Momentum Going
As noted at the beginning of this episode, a discussion of the Value Ramp is often one of the most eye-opening things an organization has done in years.
This is true simply because people in the organization have not stepped back to consider thoughtfully the relationships between their products. Having done it once though, don’t let years pass before you do it again—set aside time at least once a year (more often in highly dynamic markets) for re-examining and adjusting your Value Ramp.
[19:39] – Wrap Up
If you are getting value from the Leading Learning podcast, be sure to subscribe by RSS or on Apple Podcasts. We’d also appreciate if you give us a rating on Apple Podcasts by going to https://www.leadinglearning.com/apple.
And we’d be grateful if you would take a minute to visit our sponsor for this quarter, ReviewMyLMS and, if you can, contribute a review to help others find the right platform for their needs.
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[22:37] – Sign off
See Also:
Learning to Lead with Christie Berger
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