Challenge

Create an e-learning strategy that builds market share and improves customer loyalty in the veterinary weight management category.

Royal Canin is an industry leader in pet nutrition, providing science-based diets tailored to pets with a range of specific nutritional requirements. A key formula in their product line is Satiety Support, a veterinary-exclusive diet that addresses obesity in cats and dogs. In recent years, Royal Canin’s market leadership in the weight management category has been challenged by competitors seeking to capture market share through aggressive marketing campaigns.

Royal Canin sought to launch a market growth campaign that would not only help the company reclaim its leadership in the veterinary weight management category, but also enhance their customer experience and grow brand loyalty.

Royal Canin’s sales success depends heavily on veterinary clinic staff.  They are on the frontlines, helping pet owners make dietary decisions for their pets every day. One way Royal Canin educates veterinary professionals about nutrition is through eLearning, and they have noted that higher completion rates of their e-learning offerings per clinic are positively correlated with sales. Reimagining the organization’s e-learning strategy thus became a critical component of their growth campaign.

Dialectic was engaged to create an e-learning solution that linked Royal Canin’s business goals through to learners in order to grow their existing market share and deepen customer engagement.

Solution

Edumarketing: an integrated education-marketing strategy that combines learning goals and marketing goals to drive sales and trust in the Royal Canin brand.

We interviewed Royal Canin business leaders and internal experts to clarify their business goals and challenges. We then conducted a strategic learning needs analysis, running focus groups with Royal Canin’s target audience to better understand their needs, available resources and barriers to success. With these insights, we created an new, integrated e-learning and marketing strategy: Edumarketing.

Based on deep research on the psychology of behaviour change, as well as concepts from marketing, learning theory and communications design, edumarketing encompasses three core components:

1. The Learning Funnel is a content deployment tactic that functions much like a marketing funnel, delivering e-learning content in a way that converts new learners into avid and loyal brand champions.
2. The Learning Mix is a content design strategy mobilizes knowledge and deepens customer engagement by presenting learning experiences in convenient and accessible formats on mobile devices, offers a range of media sizes, ‘weights’ and types, and delivers knowledge through diverse learning experiences (such as reference materials, self-directed learning opportunities, community learning and formal education).
3. Hook-Pitch-Teach is a content writing principle that drives the design of memorable and share-worthy materials by making each learning object catchy, intriguing and practical to the learner.

The success of the Edumarketing model was enhanced by specifically engaging Weight Management Champions – a veterinary professional who cares passionately about weight management as a foundation of pet health, and who advocates strongly for this idea within their clinic. Equipped with new knowledge, the Champion helps to drive positive behaviour change among their colleagues and pet owners to advance Royal Canin’s impact.

Result

830% boost in engagement.

Powered by Edumarketing, Royal Canin’s campaign has increased the e-learning modules completed by clinicians by 830%, successfully driving market growth and increasing brand loyalty among Royal Canin customers.

Edumarketing is both scalable and flexible.  It is now integrated within Royal Canin’s larger sales and marketing strategy as the company builds out its market growth.