Hands-on workshops – live events where people learn how to use a product in a store –have emerged as an effective and compelling sales and marketing strategy for many B2C companies. These sessions not only make getting to know the product easy for potential new customers but also boost the brand loyalty of existing ones.

At Hansem Global, our expert Creative Marketing Design (CMD) team has created a hands-on workshop solution that puts a strong emphasis on driving sales and enhancing customer experience. They meticulously design and plan these consumer education sessions and also create comprehensive guides that help our customers prepare for and ensure the smooth execution of the workshops in the store—anywhere they are held. These guides include how to create the best environment for the sessions and product display areas.

Read on for how Hansem approaches these types of projects and specific details on how we executed one for a global mobile company with over 3,000 stores across 60 countries. 

First, What is a Hands-on Workshop?

Customer education is a critical part of sales and marketing because it attracts, convinces, and retains customers. Therefore, facilitating consumer learning and providing ongoing support is becoming critically important to consumer brands. These revenue-generating activities can both take place in a workshop setting. 

In these live sessions, local sellers conduct workshops at their sales outlets, in every region where they operate. The sessions aim to educate potential consumers who visit the store and ultimately guide them toward a purchase. Specifics include:

• Each class accommodates up to 6 students
• Instructors are product experts and have strong presentation and communication skills
• Sessions last 30-50 minutes

The sessions are designed to drive active participation, and provide consistent brand experiences, enjoyable learning, opportunities for practical application, and experiential learning. At Hansem, we craft these workshops with these goals at the forefront. 

First step: Understand Customer Needs & Trends

Hansem completes all the research and design required to hold effective in-store workshops, but the first step is deeply understanding the needs of the client and their end customers.

To this end, the Hansem Global Creative Marketing and Design (CMD) team starts by getting to know what potential customers are interested in and what’s trending in the specific industry in terms of user support. We keep in mind that what customers really want might not always match what product owners want to highlight about the given products/services, so we explore different scenarios to make sure that the user’s informational needs and the product owner’s promotional needs are both met.

Second: On-the-ground Insights and Data Research

Next, Hansem engages in research to understand the industry, customers, learning best practices, and the selling landscape. For example, if competitors are conducting hands-on workshops or trying out similar services or approaches in the same industry, it’s crucial for these to be assessed. We analyze what‘s working well and where there’s room for improvement in the existing educational sessions.

The Hansem Global CMD team will engage in the actual educational sessions provided by both the company and its competitors, assessing the experience from the customer’s point of view.

This stage also involves consulting various educational resources, like specialized books and papers, to find ways to make the learning experience even better.

Third: Developing an Approach to the Workshop

Once we have collected the data and developed the ideas for the approach considering the demographic of the buyer, the store layout, the products themselves, etc., we look for ways to connect them to the product. We customize the approach by applying creativity and open-mindedness, and avoiding inflexible ideas or biases. For example, if the target audience is Gen Z, then we will consider a specific and unique approach that will best appeal to them. Specifically, we identify interests of Gen Z that can be included in the workshop setting. For example, we integrated ‘YouTube Shorts” content (a very popular format for Gen Z) and the ‘travel’ keyword (a huge interest after COVID-19) to create the main storytelling themes of the session.

Topics that we plan to cover connect the product to key customer goals or top uses of the product.  For example, for the specific workshop we created for the global mobile company, topics included things like product photography at home, short form travel videos, food photography, breathtaking portraits, and using the phone to hit your health targets.

Fourth: Guide for Store Environments and In-store Operations

The Hansem team also develops comprehensive guides for planning the workshops and setting up the environments where they take place. These guides include instructions on things like:

• Selecting instructors
• Planning the schedule and cadence for sessions
• Registering participants
• Setting up the educational space for the trainings (including furniture)
• Setting up any screens that would be required for instruction
• Providing devices to participants
• Conducting the sessions
• Following up after the sessions

These guidelines can be replicated across regions to ensure the brand experience is consistent everywhere.

But what about large corporations with thousands of stores across countries? How do you create guidelines that can be universally applied to stores with varying sizes, shapes, and conditions spread over different countries and regions?

In those circumstances, we shift our focus to the most crucial element – the people themselves. We opt for an ergonomic approach, establishing guidelines based on ensuring people’s comfort and maximizing their ability to learn and retain information.

Each operations guide that we produce is backed by objective information, including architectural and interior ergonomic data, scientific studies, and expert insights.

Here are a few examples:

1. Creating a “Social Zone”

Acknowledging that sometimes the sales zone and workshop space cannot be separated, we’ve created a social zone between the workshop area and sales zone to accommodate the workshops.

2. Optimizing Usage of Space

We configure the physical space based on the needs of the people who will be attending, to make sure all customers are comfortable and have minimal distractions. 

3. Planning for Ideal Viewing Distance and Display

We provide guidance on the optimal display sizes, distances, and resolutions for each location to enhance concentration and educational effectiveness.

We also provide a .ppt for the on-site sessions, a session script to help with talking points, promotional content for the sessions, and a summary card for participants to take home with them.

Higher Sales, Better User Experience, More Brand Loyalty

Hansem’s detailed people-focused, and data-informed approach to creating user workshops has driven results for our clients such as:

• Higher sales due to an enjoyable and educational in-store experience with the product
• Better user experience and improved usage of the product features
• Fewer customer support queries post purchase
• More customer satisfaction
• Higher brand loyalty

After deploying these workshops designed by Hansem, our client received high praise for encouraging active involvement from local store managers, and for providing customers with enjoyable in-store experiences, remarkable responsiveness, and substantial support as they learned how to use the product.

This project marks another achievement that brings pride and satisfaction to our customer-focused and hardworking teams!

If you’re interested in exploring how we can design a global in-store learning experience that drives sales and customer loyalty, connect with us here.