A CHALLENGING TIME

Sales and Marketing Director for Blustream, Phil Davis, assesses the changing face of training in the AV and smart building sector.

The COVID-19 pandemic was (and still is) a major challenge for most industries - it intensified the challenge of communication in the workplace. From leaders in various industries to health workers, getting a message across during times of social distancing has been a major challenge.

Prior to COVID-19, most manufacturers will have had a pattern of training and communication initiatives, allowing them to keep their partners up to speed with product development, offering and shifts in new technologies. When we were unable to see our partners face-to-face, learning formats had to evolve to ensure that momentum was not lost to these new restrictions.

Those manufacturers with online learning facilities would have, by default, been one step ahead of the rest. With a host of education available in a format which customers of all types could work towards, be it during furlough, or at times where work was not as plentiful as before the start of the pandemic. A manufacturers’ reach was already easily attainable for new and prospective customers. The number of new registrations for the Blustream Advanced Learning Portal went up by nearly 160% in the first four weeks of the first lockdown, with a total of 27 days’ worth of training being delivered in that first month – that’s over 600 hours of training we delivered at a time when we weren’t allowed in front of our partners.

Webinars have been viewed as a widely used communication tool for years, but recently have proved their worth. Marketing activities of businesses shifted to online platforms. They came to the limelight during the lockdown. As business activities could not be shut down completely, companies started conducting webinar platforms not just for internal meetings, but for connecting with their audience. The number of webinars being ran by manufacturers and distributors during the height of the pandemic increased multiple times over, in a bid to keep their products fresh in the minds of their customers. As an example, Blustream were hosting two webinars daily throughout the lockdown, but used some of those quieter times to produce new content for the future.

Having to cast the ‘advertising’ net wider has brought a requirement for diversity to the ways in which we interact with our target audiences. Social media has played a central role to drawing in existing and new customers alike, as well as communicating important information. The creation of rich video content and striking advertising graphics posted across multiple platforms has now also become a dedicated role within most companies. Blustream are lucky to have a very talented graphics team who produce brochures, imagery, adverts, product launch videos, and - new for 2022 – a selection of tutorial videos aimed at bringing another way in which we can continue to technically support our customers.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Blustream embarked on annual roadshow training events at various locations around the UK and Europe. The format was always centred around learning, not just for our partners, but for us too. We are truly looking forward to re-establishing these later in 2022, getting to spend some quality time with our partners face-to-face!

Whilst we all hope for a very different 2022, the shifts in the way we have been learning may not change massively. Blustream will be continuing with our series of bite-sized webinars, allowing our partners to tune-in to a short but informative nugget of training twice per day, across the month. Our Advanced Learning Portal has been completely redesigned over the last six months to include all the new technology and products we now work with since originally released back in 2018. This new content is richer and will be available from the end of January 2022.