Hey there,
Quick question: What happens after someone completes one of your training programs?
If you're like most L&D professionals, you've got a pretty solid ending. Maybe a summary slide. A "knowledge check" quiz. Perhaps even a certificate they can print out (that'll definitely end up in a drawer somewhere).
But here's what you probably don't have: A clear instruction about what to do next.
And that's costing you everything.
The crickets problem
Let me paint a picture you've probably lived:
You spend three weeks building a course. The content is dialed in. The activities are engaging. The design is clean. You launch it, people complete it, and then...
Nothing changes.
Behaviors stay the same. Performance stays flat. And six months later, someone asks if that training actually worked, and you're stuck trying to prove ROI on something that never made it out of the LMS.
The problem isn't your content. The problem is you're asking people to figure out the "so what" on their own.
What marketers know (that we forgot)
I was reading this breakdown of call-to-action best practices and had one of those forehead-slapping moments.
Marketers obsess over CTAs. Every email, every landing page, every piece of content ends with a specific, clear instruction about what to do next. They don't assume you'll figure it out. They tell you exactly what action to take.
And we just... don't do that in L&D.
We build these incredible learning experiences and then wave goodbye at the finish line like "good luck out there!" We treat completion as the goal when completion is actually just the starting line.
Here's what that looks like in practice:
❌ What most courses end with: "Congratulations! You've completed the Customer Service Excellence training."
✅ What actually drives behavior change: "You just learned five de-escalation techniques. Pick ONE to try this week. Here's your challenge: Use it in your next difficult customer interaction, then drop a quick note in the #service-wins Slack channel about what happened."
See the difference? One celebrates that they showed up. The other gives them a concrete action that bridges learning to doing.
The action-oriented ending
In Think Like a Marketer, we break down exactly how to write CTAs that actually work (Chapter 5 gets into the specifics). But here's the crash course:
Strong CTAs are:
- Action-oriented → Use verbs that create momentum ("Try," "Schedule," "Share," not "Learn more")
- Specific → Tell them exactly what to do, not vaguely what to explore
- Benefit-driven → Make it clear what they get from taking action
- Visually prominent → Design matters—make it stand out
The best part? This isn't about adding more work to your plate. It's about adding one sentence that transforms passive learners into active practitioners.
Join the conversation
I just posted about this on LinkedIn and I'm curious what people will say. I'm asking folks to share the weakest CTAs they've seen in learning programs—or maybe confess to one of their own (no judgment, we've all been there). Sometimes the best way to get better at this stuff is to spot where we're collectively dropping the ball.
Jump into the discussion here and share:
- The weakest CTA you've encountered in a learning program
- OR a great one that actually drove behavior change
- OR just lurk and steal ideas (we won't judge)
This is exactly the kind of shift we're talking about when we say "think like a marketer"—it's not about being salesy or manipulative. It's about recognizing that if learning doesn't lead to doing, we've failed.
Keep experimenting,
Mike & Bianca
P.S. - If this resonated with you, Chapter 5 of Think Like a Marketer goes deep on writing that drives action—including headlines that actually get clicked and content that people remember. Worth a look if you're tired of your training disappearing into the void.
