A long, long time ago, in high school, I had a huge crush on a boy in my class. He was a musician and an artist. I really, really wanted him to like me. I picked up a book on “how make men fall in love with you”. The book suggested that people fall in love with folks that communicate the same way they do… it suggested mimicking the person you were trying to influence.
I took the books advice… and it was creepy. Luckily, said boy had a sense of humor and we ended up dating for a while despite my efforts J That was my very first exposure to “learning styles” theory.
Fast forward too many years to mention… I still use learning styles in my marketing, but in a much more subtle way.
Everyone has a preferred way of getting and processing information. If you get information in the way that you process best – you are more likely to remember and act on it.
Visual learners need to see the information. They like videos, pictures and even blog posts like this one.
Auditory learners like to hear information and discuss it. They love teleseminars and podcasts.
Kinesthetic learners learn by “doing” – they need concrete examples and exercises.
I am very definitely an auditory person – I have been known to start playing videos and then change to a different browser tab so I can hear them (and also so I can be doing something else while the video is playing).
Most people are can learn in all three modes, but are more likely to respond favorably if you present the information in the format that works best for them. People are even more likely to learn if you can present the information so they can process it in multiple ways.
Here are some quick hints to make your content friendly to people no matter their learning style.
For Visual learners:
- Include lots of pictures and illustrations
- Consider recording your blog post as a video
For Auditory learners:
- Record your blog post and post to your blog
- Consider lumping a few related posts together in a regular podcast.
- Include audio download links to your videos
For Kinesthetic learners:
- Use lots of examples
- Have concrete assignments, exercises and calls to action that your audience can do to learn your material better.
Fortunately, re-using the same content in different formats is easily systematized. You also get additional exposure via social media as each platform pings your submission.
What are you doing to make your marketing (and your VA practice) friendly to different learning styles?
Contributed by:
Meredith Eisenberg
www.tametheinternetmonster.com