Saturating the Market

I had a conversation with a certification organization recently that reminded me of the basics…..you have to know your customer base and know what makes them tick. A certification program will typically have early adopters in the first few years. These are champions that have a deep commitment to the industry your program serves. These individuals will quickly give their time and energy to advance the industry and see the public benefits of your certification program before personal ones.

Certification Professionals love this audience and it is easy to forget that this group, while vocal, is small. These are your first test takers and a group that is relatively easy to attract. Consequently, the first year or two of your program has great participation and your parent organization applauds your marketing program. Then, the numbers drop off and you are caught off guard. You wonder what has happened and where you have gone off course. This is when I typically get the first call for help.

To capture the attention of early adopters, you simply have to open your doors and let them know what you are doing and, how it will benefit the industry. Okay, this may be a little oversimplified, but just a little. To capture the attention of the majority of professionals in your target industry, you have to know what makes them tick. You have to know how they will personally benefit from your certification program. And, you have to package your program’s message to target those benefits. Each certification program has at least five different audiences/customer bases and you need a marketing program that is unique for each customer base.

-Anna

Practical Customer Relationship Management – Developing and Implementing an Industry Partner Program

Certification organizations typically identify their primary customers as the individuals seeking or holding their certifications. While these customers represent occupations in an organization’s target industry, they are not the sole beneficiaries of their mission. A certification organization’s value is ultimately decided by the corporations, government agencies, and industry representatives that employee and support their certificate holders.

I encourage you to expand your customer base to include all those that benefit from and your organization? It is time to galvanize the support of potential industry partners to increase industry buy in and generate additional resources to support and expand your programs.

Potential partners for a certification organization are corporations that hire your certificate holders, associations whose members hire or hold your certificates, foundations with a focus on your niche, and government agencies that oversee workforce development. Each corporation, association, foundation, and government agency in the pool of potential partners has a mission that drives them, objectives that surround accomplishing this mission, and money that is spent to achieve the objectives followed by revenue indicating success.

It is critical for your organization’s mission and objectives to overlap and complement the mission and objectives of a potential partner. The strongest sponsors, with the largest contributions, will be found at these intersections.

Industry Partnerships are about relationships—the right relationships. Industry Partnerships are about connections—connections that result in partnership. Find the right relationships to build strong connections that result in partnership. Partnerships can provide the financial resources and industry points of view needed to update and validate existing programs. 

Partners can provide the financial resources to develop new certification programs and the industry support to drive these new programs. Partners can place value on certification programs that will result in increased applicants and certificate holders, and industry-wide recognition of an organization.

-Anna