Think Like a Marketer, Act Like an L&D Leader with Barry Ryan

The Assembly

In this excellent interview, Brigid sits down with Barry Ryan of Thirst.

Barry is a seasoned marketer turned L&D advocate and is the Head of Marketing at Thirst, the learning platform built for SMEs. With a deep background in B2B marketing, Barry is on a mission to help L&D teams think more like marketers to drive real impact and boost learner engagement.

In this episode, Barry talks Brigid through how to apply marketing principles to L&D.

Barry covers the core challenges L&D professionals face and how to overcome them, including:

1. Know your audience: How to create and use learner personas to ensure you’re not "shooting in the dark."
2. Content is king, but relevance is queen: Why great content is useless if it doesn't solve a problem for your learners.
3. Engagement funnels equal learning journeys: Practical tips on how to build campaign momentum using hooks, segmentation, strong visuals, and repurposed content.
4. Social proof and internal advocacy: Using testimonials, success stories, and internal influencers to build trust, credibility, and a fear of missing out (FOMO).
5. Measure what matters: Moving beyond completion rates to track metrics like engagement, behaviour change, and long-term retention to prove and increase L&D's value.

Barry gives practical advice on how to build and manage learning campaigns and highlights the commonalities between marketing and L&D. If you are looking to drive engagement with your learning, this is a must-listen-to episode.

Connect with Barry on LinkedIn: Barry Ryan

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