#63 Beyond Tutorials: How Strategic Customer Education Builds Brand Loyalty

Your customers are already learning about your product, service, method, or brand — the question is whether you are intentionally shaping that learning experience or leaving it to chance.

In this episode of The ART of Online Course Creation, Shannon Boyer expands on a presentation she recently gave at H&H Americas and explores why customer education is much more than support content, tutorials, or social media marketing. When designed strategically, education can become a powerful part of the customer experience, helping businesses build authority, improve retention, deepen loyalty, and create more meaningful connections with the people they serve.

Shannon shares why tutorials may solve immediate problems, but learning pathways build long-term confidence, capability, and trust. Whether you sell a physical product, digital product, service, membership, software, creative tool, or body of expertise, this episode will help you think differently about how education supports your customers after the sale — and why that matters for the growth of your business.

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Transcript

Shannon Boyer 0:35

I have a confession I'm a serial hobbyist If there is a craft a creative skill a tool a technique a material or some beautifully complicated little thing that can be learned there's a very good chance I have either tried it researched it bought supplies for it or lost several hours of my life trying to figure it out Paper flowers quilting jewelry-making crochet I love learning new things But because of that I also know the less glamorous side of learning something new I know what it feels like to sit at my computer pausing and rewinding a tutorial over and over again I know what it feels like to open five different videos because the first four almost answer the question but not quite I know what it feels like to think Surely this should not be this hard while also wondering whether maybe I'm the problem And the more I think about those moments those frustrating fumbling early moments with a new product or skill the more convinced I am that they matter far more than most businesses realize Because that moment when a customer is trying to use something they bought from you is not just a support moment It is a brand moment It is a trust moment It is a loyalty moment It is the moment where your customer begins to s to decide often without even realizing it how they feel about your product your business and whether they want to keep going with you And whether you have planned for it or not your customer is learning something in that moment The only question is whether you are intentionally shaping that learning or whether you are leaving it to chance Welcome to The Art of Online Course Creation, the podcast dedicated to purpose-driven entrepreneurs like you who are passionate about creating impactful online courses. I'm your host, Shannon Boyer. As an experienced educator, I understand that craft. Exceptional online courses requires more than just mastering online marketing. It demands strategic planning, dedication, and a focus on delivering real value. Each week we dive into the essentials of high quality course creation, share inspiring. Success stories and provide practical tips to help you build courses that truly make a difference. Whether you're just starting out or looking to enhance your existing courses. This is your go-to resource for creating a digital course that leaves a lasting impact. Okay, two things before we start. First, grab your notebook and second, gather your in. Because we are going to create something special together. Your journey to developing transformative online courses starts now. Welcome back to The Art of Online Course Creation My name is Shannon Boyer I am your host and I'm so glad that you're here Today's episode is a little bit different because it is adapted from a presentation I recently gave at H&H Americas If you're not familiar with H&H it is the largest trade show in the craft industry in North North America So the original version of this talk was created for an audience of craft brands manufacturers retailers designers makers influencers and creative business owners But as I started thinking about how to bring this topic to the podcast I realized the heart of the message is not limited to the craft industry at all This conversation is relevant for anyone who sells something that people need to understand use apply practice or grow with That might be a physical product It might be a digital product It could be a service a software platform a membership a method a creative process or a body of expertise It might be something that comes with a manual or it might be something that seems simple on the surface but actually becomes more valuable when the customer knows how to use it And that is what I want to talk about today I want to invite you to look at the role education plays in your business a bit differently than how you might have before Because for many businesses education is treated as something fairly narrow It gets tucked under customer support or it becomes a few how-to videos or it shows up as social media content or it gets handed off to influencers ambassadors affiliates or whoever happens to be be creating content about the product And none of those things are automatically wrong Customer support matters Tutorials can absolutely be useful Social media can introduce people to new possibilities And influencers and ambassadors can be wonderful partners But education can be much more strategic than that When it is designed intentionally education can shape how people experience your brand It can influence how much they trust your expertise It can determine whether they actually use what they bought It can affect whether they come back to you recommend you upgrade with you and stay connected to your business over time It is a much bigger role than we often give it And I wanna be clear about the lens I'm bringing to this conversation I'm not approaching this as a marketer or a brand strategist I'm not a social media guru I'm an educator For more than twenty-five years my work has been grounded in learning teaching student success and client experience Early in my career I worked for a nonprofit and the decisions we made were always shaped by what was in the best interest of the client Later when I moved into teaching at a college that same principle followed me Whether I was teaching students directly leading teams of instructors or working in student success and engagement I was always asking some version of that same question What is in the best interest of the learner And now in the online business space that question is still at the center of everything I do What is in the best interest of the student What is in the best interest of the client And what is in the best interest of the customer That question changes things because when we approach education through that lens we stop seeing it as content we need to produce and start seeing it as an experience we need to design And that distinction matters too Content can be scattered Education needs to be intentional Content can answer a question but education helps someone grow Content can get attention and education builds trust And trust is where this conversation really begins Because your customers are already learning They are searching online they are watching videos they are asking questions in communities They are skimming tutorials reading reviews opening help articles and increasingly asking AI tools to explain things to them They're not waiting for a formal training experience They're not necessarily going to your website first They're not always following the path you hoped they would follow They're trying to get unstuck in whatever way feels easiest in the moment And in that process they're learning more than just how to use the thing they bought They're also learning how supported they feel They're learning whether the product feels intuitive or frustrating They're learning whether your business understands them They're learning whether this is something they can see themselves continuing with That learning experience becomes part of their customer experience and that means that your product your service your method or your brand is being taught with or without you Someone out there is explaining it someone is demonstrating it someone is interpreting it and someone is shaping the story around it The question is whether that story is being shaped intentionally or whether you are leaving your customer to piece it together on their own Think about the last time you yourself tried to learn something new Maybe it was a craft maybe it was a piece of software maybe it was a kitchen appliance a camera a business pl platform a new app a fitness program or a tool you needed for your work At first there's usually a little excitement You have the new thing You can imagine what it is going to help you do You can picture the finished project the smoother workflow the better result the version of yourself who has figured it out And then you hit the first friction point Something does not make sense The asse instructions assume knowledge you do not have The tutorial skips a step The terminology is unfamiliar The setup takes longer than expected The quick start guide is not actually quick Or maybe you are simply staring at the thing thinking Where do I even begin That moment matters because when someone is learning especially at the beginning they are often a little more vulnerable than we give them credit for They may feel unsure They may may feel clumsy They may feel embarrassed that they don't understand something that seems obvious to someone else And if they can't find good guidance that feeling can quickly attach itself to your product or business A perfectly perfectly good product can start to feel frustrating simply because the learning experience is poor And the opposite is also true A thoughtful learning experience can make a good product feel exceptional It can make the customer feel like Okay I can do this That is the moment we want to create more often and it is why I believe education deserves a much more strategic place in the business conversation When education is designed intentionally it can do four important things It can help attract people establish authority improve retention and deepen loyalty Attraction is usually the easiest one for people to recognize We already understand that teaching can be part of how people discover us A helpful tutorial a useful workshop a demonstration a free training a behind-the-scenes explanation those things can help someone see the value of what we do Education can absolutely support marketing It can help someone make a purchasing decision especially when the purchase feels expensive complex or important If I'm going to invest hundreds or thousands of dollars into something I wanna know that I will not be completely on my own after I buy it I want to know that there's support I want to know that there's guidance that someone has thought about what happens after the transaction But attraction is only the beginning The opportunities I think are often more overlooked are the opportunities for authority retention and loyalty Let's start with authority One of the best ways to establish credibility is to teach not just to talk about your expertise not just to say that you're experienced not just to polish your messaging until it sounds impressive but to actually help someone understand something more clearly than they did before When you teach well people experience your expertise They feel different They notice that you can simplify something that felt complicated that you understand the mistakes beginners make and they notice that you can help them get from confusion to clarity That kind of authority is powerful because it's earned through usefulness And when you hand the responsibility for teaching entirely to other people without any strategy or standards around it you give away part of that opportunity Again this does not mean outside partners are a problem I'm not against influencers ambassadors affiliates guest experts or contractors Quite the opposite actually I think they can play an incredibly important role But if all of the education around your product or method is happening somewhere else in someone else's voice with someone else's structure and with no real guidance from you then your customer experience is being shaped outside of your business Your brand story is being interpreted your product is being demonstrated your customer is being taught but you may not have much influence over the quality or consistency of that experience When education is brought closer to the business even if outside partners are still involved you have the opportunity to be more intentional You can clarify what matters You can make sure the teaching reflects the values of your brand and you can decide what good learning should look like for your customers That is authority building in a much deeper way than simply producing more content Then there is retention This is where I think many businesses are leaving enormous value on the table We all know at least in theory that it is easier and less expensive to sell again to an existing customer than to constantly chase new ones But we don't always connect that idea to education If someone buys from you and never really uses what they bought the relationship stalls They might not complain they might not ask for a refund they might not even think of themselves as disa dissatisfied but they might simply drift away The product sits in the box the course remains unfinished The software subscription gets canceled because they never built it into their routine The supplies sit on the shelf because the first attempt was discouraging The method sounded wonderful but they never figured out how to apply it to their real business or life And when that happens the future value of that customer relationship disappears They're not going to upgrade something they never learned to use They're not going to buy accessories for a tool they feel intimidated by They're not going to join the next level of a program if the first one made them feel behind and they're not going to recommend something that made them feel confused even if the thing itself was good But when you help people actually use what they bought something shifts Now they've gotten value They've built confidence They begin to see possibilities And when they feel capable they are much more likely to continue That's why education is not just a nice customer experience feature It can be a real retention strategy If your product offer or method has depth your customer's relationship with it should grow over time They should not be left at the surface They should not have to discover the full value by accident Good education helps them move from I bought this to I know how to use this to I'm getting better because of this And that progression is important and it leads directly into loyalty our third point I think we sometimes talk about loyalty as if it is built mostly through brand storytelling We tell people our mission our history our values our inspiration and of course those things can matter But there's another kind of loyalty that is created when a customer associates your business with their own sense of progress when they feel proud of what they made when they feel relieved that something finally makes sense when they feel more creative more capable more confident or more empowered because of what you taught them That feeling is incredibly powerful I shared a story during my presentation about a woman at a guild meeting I'll call her Martha Martha has one of those does-everything doohickeys You know the kind of product I mean It has features upon features It can do things most people do not even realize is are possible It is impressive It is maybe expensive It's the kind of product that should open up all kinds of creative possibilities But there's a big difference between owning the does-everything doohickey and actually knowing how to use it If Martha brings it to a guild meeting and says I bought this months ago and honestly I have no idea what I'm doing with it that creates one kind of story People hear that and think Oh maybe that thing is too complicated Maybe it's not worth it Maybe it would just sit in my house too But if Martha brings it and says Look what I made I finally learned how to use this feature and then I tried this other thing and now I can't stop thinking about what else I can do with it that is a completely different story Now the product is not just a product It is connected to her excitement her confidence It's connected to the identity of becoming someone who can do more than she could do before And that is what people talk about That is what they recommend and that is what ultimately builds loyalty Not because they were marketed to more aggressively but because they were helped in a meaningful way So how do we create more of that How do we move from scattered information to intentional education One of the first shifts is to rethink what in-house education can mean When I use that phrase I don't necessarily mean that every business needs a full education department That might make sense for a large company but is not realistic or necessary for everyone A large business may have an internal team dedicated to training course development customer education and educator support But a medium-sized business might have one person responsible for guiding the education strategy while working with contractors or partners to create learning experiences And a solopreneur might simply decide to be more intentional about the way customers are onboarded supported and taught over time The structure can look different depending on the size and resources of the business What matters is not whether every piece of content is created by someone sitting at a desk inside your company What matters is that the strategy is owned the quality is monitored and the customer knows where to go The learning experience reflects the business you want to build In-house in this sense comes down to where the education is found who controls the narrative and who is responsible for the quality Because your customers do not want a scavenger hunt They do not want to wonder where which tutorial is accurate which video applies to the version they own which expert knows what they are talking about or which piece of advice they should trust They want a path and this is where we get to what I think is the real opportunity The real opportunity is not simply to create more tutorials The real opportunity is to create learning pathways Tutorials are useful I wanna be very clear about that There is absolutely a place for quick specific help Sometimes someone needs to know how to adjust a setting or troubleshoot a problem complete one step or find the button that everyone else seems to know about except them Those mo moments are important too But a tutorial usually solves a moment whereas a learning pathway builds capability and those two things are very different A pathway is designed with progression in mind It considers what someone needs to understand first what they need to practice where they are likely to struggle and what kind of confidence they need before they're ready for the next step A pathway does not simply ask What information can we give them It asks Who are they becoming as they move through this experience That question changes the design Instead of throwing a library of content at the customer and hoping they can figure out where to begin a pathway gives them a starting point It gives them a sense of direction and it makes the next step feel possible And this is where many businesses confuse volume with value They build resource vaults tutorial libraries video archives and project collections And those can be useful especially for customers who already know what they need But for a beginner or even for someone who's simply overwhelmed a giant library can feel like walking into a warehouse with no signs There may be some amazing things inside but they don't know where to go first and they don't know what is appropriate for their skill level They don't know what will help them build the foundation they need They don't know whether they're ready And when people feel that kind of uncertainty many of them stop not because they're lazy or they don't care or because they're not the right customer They stop because the learning experience has not been designed to carry them forward This is why I often encourage businesses to think skills first not projects first A project can be wonderful A tutorial can be helpful A beautiful example can be inspiring But if the goal is for customers to become more confident and capable then we have to ask what skills they are developing through the experience what they're learning that they can use again What are they beginning to understand more deeply What will they be able to do after this that they could not do before That's where the long-term value lives Let's look at this through two different kinds of products Some products come with a manual literally or figuratively machines tools software equipment feature-rich products technical system systems templates with a learning curve In these cases the need for education is usually easier to see The customer needs help getting started They need to understand the features They need to know how to solve problems They may need safety guidance setup support troubleshooting or a clear explanation of what to do first But even with these products the opportunity goes beyond basic instruction The real opportunity is helping customers move from operation to confidence I think about products like Cricut machines as a good example A product like that can do so much The possibilities are exciting But for a new user they can also be intimidating You can teach someone how to complete one project and that may be useful But if all they learn is how to follow that one set of instructions they may still feel dependent on step-by-step tutorials forever If instead you help them understand the materials the design decisions the settings the common mistakes and the logic behind the process they begin to develop judgment They begin to experiment trust themselves and develop a different level of learning Now there are also products that do not come with a manual Fabric yarn paper ingredients supplies components notions materials even some digital products and service-based tools can fall into this category At first glance these things may not seem to require education in the same way People know what fabric is They know what yarn does They know what scissors are But knowing what something is and knowing how to use it well are not the same thing You might be wondering to yourself how does a scissor company offer education Do you teach people how to use scissors Well no but you can teach them the skills that people use scissors for So you can teach them garment making You can teach them quilt making and when they begin to come to you for quality education you start to build a form of loyalty a s and a form of recognition When it is time for them to buy a new pair of sc-scissors who do you think is going to be top of mind Who do they already have an emotional connection with And who do they already depend on for high-quality support You are going to be the go-to for that next pair of scissors that they need to buy Because let's be honest nobody's watching your video about your brand story or your business's mission and vision But you can build that into training videos in a very natural way Let's look at a software company They could simply provide help docs or they could guide customers through a learning pathway that helps them build a meaningful workflow not just understand isolated features A service provider could simply deliver the service or they could educate clie-clients so they make better decisions participate more confidently in the process and ultimately get better results This is why education be can become such a strong differentiator Because when your business becomes the place people go to become better at something they care about you become more than a vendor You become part of their growth People remember that they re-appreciate it and they return to it This is also where we need to be careful about the kind of education we're creating Good brand education is not random content It's not polished production for its own sake It's not a pile of disconnected tutorials It's not borrowed reach with no alignment and it's not marketing disguised as teaching Good brand education helps customers succeed It reflects the brand well because it reflects the customer well It understands what they need It respects their learning process It builds capability over time It deepens connection because the customer feels genuinely supported And to do that quality matters But quality doesn't mean high production value This is a trap I see often Businesses think we need better education and immediately they start to think about cameras lighting editing graphics studio quality videos Those things can be lovely I have nothing against them if you can afford them But a mistake that people make is they can't afford them and so they go all or nothing and just cut the whole education department A polished video can still be confusing A gorgeous course can still be poorly sequenced High-quality curriculum is not the same as high-quality production value High-quality curriculum means the learner is guided the sequence makes sense the unders the instructor understands where people are likely to struggle the examples are chosen carefully the outcome is clear The learner is not watching but actually building understanding confidence and ability It becomes especially important if you're working with outside educators ambassadors influencers or partners If someone is going to teach your product teach them how to be a good teacher Don't just stop at brand guidelines Yes they need to know how to represent your brand They need to understand your values your messaging your voice and the promises you make to customers But they also need educational guidelines What does a good learning experience look like for your audience What does a beginner need to hear What terminology should be used consistently What formatting structure and standards should be achieved in every video and in every lesson These are the differences between co-content that merely features your product and education that actually strengthens your customer relationship And if you're an influencer ambassador or creator listening to this there's an opportunity here for you too because the brands you love do not just need reach They need customers who succeed They need people who can help their audience feel confident supported and excited to keep using what they bought That means you can move beyond promotional partnerships and actually become a strategic education partner You can offer more than visibility You can offer value And businesses if you're partnering with educators in that way please compensate them appropriately Free product is not cutting it anymore because when someone teaches well on behalf of your brand they are doing more than creating content They are shaping customer experience they're helping people succeed they're supporting retention and loyalty and that work absolutely deserves to be valued So where does this leave us I think it leaves us with a simple but important shift The brands and businesses that stand out will not necessarily be the ones producing the most content They will be the ones creating the most meaningful learning experiences not the biggest vault or the longest playlist not the most overwhelming resource library the most meaningful learning experiences Because your customers do not need to be buried in more information They need guidance context They need to understand what matters and what to do next And this is the bold idea I want you to take with you today Content can inform but education can transform the customer relationship And transformation does not always have to be in something big or dramatic Sometimes it's as simple as a customer finally opening the box finally using the feature they were avoiding finally finishing the project finally understanding the process finally feeling like they are capable of doing the thing they wanted to do when they bought from you in the first place These moments might seem small from the outside but to the customer they can be the difference between giving up and continuing They can mean the difference between a one-time purchase and a long-term relationship So I want to leave you with a few questions to think about Where is education already shaping your customer experience Because it is happening somewhere Your customers are learning from a variety of contexts Is that learning experience helping you build authority retention and loyalty Or is it something you haven't really looked at yet Are your customers following a pathway or are they wandering through disconnected content Do they know where to begin Do they know what comes next Do they feel more capable after engaging with your business And do you have someone guiding the educational strategy even if that someone is you This does not need to be complicated It doesn't have to require every business to build a massive course platform or formal training department but it does require intention It requires asking better questions not just what content should we make but what does our customer need to learn in order to succeed If this episode has you thinking differently about the role education could play in your business I would love to talk with you Maybe you know your customers are piecing together things on their own Maybe you have tutorials but they feel disconnected Or maybe you're starting to see that education is not just something you add after the sale but something that could become a much stronger part of your customer experience and business strategy You can book a call with me and we can talk through the customer education strategy together We can look at where education is already happening where the gaps are and what kind of learning experience would better support both your customers and your business Because online learning is not just for course creators It's not just for people selling flagship programs It's for any business that wants customers to feel supported successful and connected over time so this week I'd like to invite you to take a look at your own business and ask yourself where are my customers learning Who is teaching them And what would change if I became more intentional about that experience If you'd like to book a call with me you can find the link to do that in the show notes Thank you so much for being here with me today Keep learning keep growing and keep asking questions.