Expertus Announces the Bleak State of Marketing in Training Organizations

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA--(Marketwire - October 1, 2008) - Expertus (www.expertus.com), a global leader in helping companies fuel business growth by maximizing the value of training investments, today announced they have released the findings from their recent study, Internal Marketing for Corporate Training Programs. There were 73 qualified respondents, all internal corporate training and development professionals whose organizations widely varied in size, scope of resources, budget and other applicable factors. The full results report can be viewed here: http://www.trainingefficiency.com/system/files/Survey+Results_Market ing+Training+Internally_Expertus.pdf.

Expertus found that while some organizations use marketing as a means to improve training utilization, others do not place any emphasis on marketing. In fact, the lack of budget dedicated to marketing was shockingly low. The average budget was $6,660, which is around 43 cents per employee, per year -- about the price of a postage stamp. Compare this to a typical training supplier, who can spend as much as $1,000 just to get one person to register for a class. In fact, 62% of these training departments allocated $0 to marketing.

"Although organizations everywhere are watching budgets closely, we found it interesting that promoting internal programs is such a low priority," said Ramesh Ramani, Founder and CEO of Expertus. "This survey revealed quite a bit of interesting information about the lack of a formal presence of marketing in training organizations."

Other key findings include:

--  Only 15% of respondents have a formal marketing plan.
    
--  Regarding staffing, respondents did allocate an average of 60% of
    one full-time person to marketing training and 10% of an outsourced
    position. However, 38% of companies had no one at all working on marketing.
    
--  While half of the respondents use different marketing activities
    for different types of training, 45% market all training programs alike.
    The remaining 5% do not market individual training programs.
    
--  The responses indicate that regardless of the technique (email
    blasts, posters, internal website updates, etc.), HR or training
    departments are responsible for doing the majority of the marketing
    activities and external vendors are used less than 5% of the time. In
    varying degrees, internal marketing departments sometimes help support
    these marketing activities.
    
--  60% of organizations that take the initiative to market programs
    measure the effectiveness of the marketing campaigns. For those that do
    measure the effectiveness of marketing activities, surveys are a prevalent
    source of information.
    
--  73% use no incentives or rewards for participating in internal
    training programs.
    

"Training organizations are most effective when run like a full-service business," added Ramani. "The fact that marketing is a weak link in the organization could explain why program participation and company-wide knowledge about training resources are lacking in many companies."

To view the full results of the study and comprehensive charts, visit http://www.trainingefficiency.com/system/files/Survey+Results_Marketing+ Training+Internally_Expertus.pdf.

About Expertus

Expertus, a global leader in helping companies fuel business growth through maximizing the value of training investments, provides a variety of training outsourcing services for technology, administration, program management, and strategic initiatives. From implementing and managing LMS and learning-related technologies, to supporting major customer training initiatives, to seamlessly handling all aspects of training administration, Expertus has helped major companies such as NetApp, Cisco, ADP, EMC, Schlumberger, and Hyperion achieve efficiencies in corporate learning and development. Expertus employs 500 professionals across its offices in the US, UK and India. For more information, go to www.expertus.com or call (877) 827-8160.

Contact Information: Press Contact: Alicia Hassinger Communications Strategy Group ahassinger@csg-pr.com (720) 933-8119