Mike Taylor's Think Like a Marketer, Train Like an L&D Pro Course Review

As someone who leads customer education and internal enablement initiatives, Think Like a Marketer, Train Like an L&D Pro immediately earned a spot on my desk, not just my shelf. Too often in L&D, we focus heavily on content creation and delivery while neglecting one key truth: if no one knows the training exists or sees its value, it won’t make an impact. This book bridges that gap brilliantly. It blends timeless marketing principles with practical L&D strategies, offering frameworks for identifying learner personas, crafting campaigns, writing compelling calls to action, and driving sustained adoption. It’s approachable, actionable, and refreshingly aligned with the reality of competing for attention in today’s digital workplace. Whether you’re building internal programs or external training for customers and partners, this book helps shift your mindset from “content creator” to “experience marketer.” I’ve prepared several concepts from the book to apply in my work and anticipate seeing measurable improvements in learner engagement and program visibility. Highly recommended for L&D professionals, instructional designers, and learning leaders looking to boost the strategic visibility, and business impact, of their programs.

How-to manual for L&D professionals to apply the (simple) marketing strategies to engage our employees for more impactful learning experiences that drive behavior change and business impact. It's a more cost-effective alternative to pursuing a marketing degree, offering a more efficient and effective way to learn, apply, and develop your marketing skills for your L&D role. The book is full of activities to put the principles into practice immediately, checklists and tables to guide your program development, and more. I highly recommend this book to anyone responsible for driving employee engagement and learning!

I have an MBA in Marketing and spent the first 20 years of my career in marketing, supporting big-name brands in-house and through marketing agencies. When I transitioned to L&D over five years ago, the first thing that I noticed was the parallels between building/deploying marketing campaigns and building/deploying learning programs. The core principles are the same. We are seeking to change behavior. There is so much we can apply from each industry to make our work more impactful.

Mike and Bianca serve up specific tactics, from analysis to implementation, in an approachable and engaging way, backed by research. A great primer for designing learning that breaks through.

Exciting mail delivery yesterday! I jumped right into it, reaching chapter 3 before bedtime. Not only did it validate the work I do with clients as we craft impactful learning experiences, it also offered practical strategies that could be easily implemented to captivate learners!

This book is necessary. What I mean is that we (L&D professionals) talk a lot about students, but we design courses without them everything for the people, but without the people. Mike Taylor and Bianca Baumann explain why it is so important to put the learner in the center of any learning design, as marketers wisely do with customers. We can leverage smart insight from marketing -like attracting and engaging people- or we can keep on designing without them: with Think like a Marketer, Train Like an L&D Pro you can really design for the people with the people.