Three Key Steps to Driving Certification Completions

In the prior blog, we looked at why certification completions matter. In this follow-up blog, we will look at three key steps to drive adoption, in other words, your users are completing their certifications. We’ll end this blog with a video showing very concrete tactics we at Appinium and our clients have implemented.

Step 1: Know your audience

Before we delve into the possible strategies to drive certification completions, it is important that you really know your audience.

• Who are these users? 
• What’s in it for them to get certified? 
• What might happen to them if they don’t? 
• What areas of resistance might you have?

For example, 

• if your audience is a technology partner, in other words, they resell your product and this person is SELLING your product, your product might be their only focus or they might sell hundreds of products. 
• Do they get preferential treatment (like more leads, or a bigger discount) if they are certified. That might be a good WIIFM.
• If they don’t get certified, they might get fewer leads and not make their numbers or they might not close the business because they aren’t positioning the value correctly.

That’s just an example. If the user is a client (they use your product, their WIIFM’s and risks for not getting certified will be different.)

Step 2: Determine why adoption isn’t happening

Now let’s explore some key reasons why certifications aren’t being awarded?

1. Low Awareness – Clients/partners may not even know the certification exists or understand its value.
2. Unclear Value Proposition – If the certification doesn’t clearly benefit their business, resume, or credibility, they won’t prioritize it.
3. High Effort vs. Reward – If the process is time-consuming, costly, or complex, and the benefit isn’t clear, people won’t bother.
4. Limited Incentives – Some companies offer certifications, but they don’t tie it to partner tiers, discounts, or sales advantages.
5. Poor Marketing / Communication – Certifications might be buried on your website or mentioned passively without promotion.
6. Poor content– Maybe the content for passing the certification is boring or poorly organized. Maybe it is too long and needs to be streamlined or chunked.
7. Irrelevance – The certification content might not align closely with what partners/clients actually need to succeed in their roles.

Step 3: Plan and Execute your Adoption Strategy

So what can you do to fix all this? Here are some top tips to increase your certificate uptake.

1. Promote the Value
   1. Position certifications as a badge of credibility: “Our certified partners win more business” or “Clients with certified staff achieve 20% higher ROI.”
2. Integrate into Partner Tiers
   1. Require or reward certifications for higher partnership levels.
   2. Example: Gold partners must have at least 3 certified staff.
3. Incentivize Completion
   1. Offer discounts, co-marketing opportunities, or access to beta programs for certified partners.
   2. Recognize certified partners (including individuals) on your website, newsletters or at events.
4. Make It Easy & Accessible
   1. Shorten the process into modular steps (micro-certifications or badges).
   2. Make it fun, fresh and easy to follow. Keep content updated often to keep them coming back. 
   3. Offer multiple paths to certification. Some might prefer face to face training or others might want to work through materials online.  Offer equivalencies for learners so they can choose their own adventure.
5. Actively Market Certifications
   1. Run campaigns: newsletters, partner webinars, sales reps reminding clients.
   2. Share success stories of companies (or individual salesperson)  who benefited from certification.
6. Tie Certification to Business Outcomes
   1. Show how being certified improves sales, client retention, product adoption, or compliance.

Finally, you might want concrete examples of how Appinium and our clients are doing this.