Incorporating Learning Styles into Your Marketing System

Marketing is an ever-evolving process. If you want your marketing efforts to stay effective and functional, you need to use an appropriate learning style. This article will tackle how to incorporate various learning styles into your very own marketing system.

What Are Learning Styles

People use different approaches to gather, sift through, interpret, organize, come to conclusions, and store new information. The strategies they use can be broadly categorized into four major ‘learning styles’ depending on whether they tend to learn best through visual, aural, verbal, or kinesthetic techniques.  

Fundamentally, the concept behind learning styles is that we all have unique approaches to absorbing new information. Understanding these styles can significantly benefit your marketing strategy as you’ll get to meet the needs of your audience more effortlessly by presenting them with messages in their ideal method of consumption.

Each person experiences life and learns about new things in his own unique way. Yet generally, one would fall under a specific learning style. Now, knowledge about the different learning styles can be helpful to a marketer like you because it gives you an insight into how to connect with your audience.

First of all, the existence of the various learning styles tells us that there are different ways that you can connect with your audience. For that reason, you must learn more about the different learning styles.

There are four learning styles that are generally recognized: 

• Visual
• Auditory
• Reading/Writing
• Kinesthetic

These four learning styles are usually referred to as the VARK model of Student Learning. The model acknowledges that each student has a preferred way of processing new information, also referred to as the preferred learning mode. 

The learning style or the preferred learning mode of a student affects his or her behavior. Information processed using the student’s preferred learning style has demonstrated an increase in comprehension and motivation.

But the preferred learning does not only apply to students. They can also be applied to adults who are no longer studying. People continue to learn new things even after they leave school, and this is where becoming familiar with learning styles can come in handy.

Visual

Visual learning is a learning mode that a person prefers to learn through images, colors, graphics, and other graphic materials. In other words, visual learners need to see information first before they can understand it. They use colors and other visual details to recall information.

In classes, visual learners can benefit from the use of diagrams, graphs, and other visual aids. In terms of digital marketing, visual learning is crucial, mainly because most of the population are visual learners. Around 65% of the population are visual learners. That means most of your audience will have this learning style, so your marketing should be geared towards them.

How do you connect with visual learners? Through videos and images. That’s why video content is very popular right now.

Auditory

Auditory learners learn best when they hear the information. These are the people who benefit best from podcasts and audiobooks. They make up around 30% of the population, so you always have to consider them when planning your marketing campaign.

Auditory learners love discussions and they soak up conversations. They tend to be the ones with plenty of questions. Lectures, presentations, and podcasts are excellent means of connecting with them.

Kinesthetic

Kinesthetics are learners who like to learn through personal experience. They don’t settle for seeing or just hearing about the information. They actually want to experience it. The best way to reach these types of learners is through interactive measures like polls and contests.

Reading/Writing

Learners who prefer this type of learning mode go for textual information. They like words and reading materials. They prefer manuals, case studies, and even testimonials.

These are the four main types of learning styles that you need to be familiar with.

Incorporating Learning Styles into Your Marketing

Now that we have gone through the various learning styles, the next thing is to understand how you can incorporate these into your marketing system before you hire a salesperson.  Here are some recommended steps that you can try.

1. Because visual learning is the most common type of preferred learning mode, you need to make sure that all of your marketing will engage visual learners. The best way to catch their attention is to use video content. Video requires very little from the audience. Even if you are not using video, you can also use graphics.
2. It’s not just through videos that you can connect with visual learners. You can also use infographics that will deliver your message. Infographics will work really well when you are delivering instructions.
3. You should always think about those who prefer auditory learning by including clear and precise audio instructions and discussions in your videos. You can also create courses where your audience can listen to the instructions, for example.
4. A podcast is arguably the best marketing channel for connecting to those who prefer the auditory learning model. Podcasts have gained popularity in the past few years, and they are perfect for long-format content. Podcasts allow for long discussions that other channels do not. They also let you deliver more messages.
5. There are fewer people who prefer the kinesthetic mode of learning than the first two, but that does not mean you should ignore them. You can include games and contests in your marketing campaigns that would allow your audience to interact.
6. For those who prefer to read, you can always prepare manuals and other written content to cater to their preferred way of learning. It shouldn’t be at the forefront of your marketing, but those reading materials should be readily available for those who need them.
7. You need to utilize social media when incorporating all the learning styles into your marketing system. The various social media platforms that you can use are ideal for posting all kinds of content. On Youtube, for example, you can post in-depth video content while you can use Instagram, LinkedIn, and even Facebook for posting infographics.

These are the various ways to integrate and incorporate the various learning styles into your marketing efforts. It helps if you can identify the primary learning style of most of your target audience, but that might not be easy to do. 

It’s enough that you are familiar with the various learning styles so you can use them when designing your marketing system. That way, you can always consider them when making your marketing collateral and formulating your plans for your business.