Why Altruism and Generosity are Important in Marketing

Because this has been a challenging year for many, we wanted to share a recent win for generosity that we explored in a recent Renegade Thinkers Unite interview with Pluralsight CMO Heather Zynczak.

Pluralsight, an educational platform designed to help folks in the tech world improve their skills through online courses, recently took a big risk in the name of helping others. The campaign was called #FreeApril, and it opened up 7,000+ Tech Courses on their platform for free, for the entire month of April. It was a move driven by altruism; in an age of economic uncertainty for many, and a need to stay confined to private spaces, Pluralsight saw an opportunity for their brand’s exact value proposition to provide real help to a remarkably large swath of the population. With Pluralsight’s #FreeApril, people could learn valuable, new tech skills for free, all while remaining comfortably in their homes. The courses range from fundamental coding to advanced machine learning development to basic drawing to aid creative careers to business operations and much, much more.

Now, the altruism alone is inspiring enough, especially in an era fraught with hollow activism from brands. It’s really special. But we want to quickly touch on the response it received. In just a few days, Pluralsight received 1.1 million sign ups. Of those, over 200,000 used business emails which helped generate a tremendous amount of new, quality leads. Of those 200,000 new contacts, they ended up with 15,000 new accounts. By any standard, these are remarkable numbers. Factoring in that this business growth came from doing genuine good and helping over a million people learn new skills, that’s just fantastic.

We’d like to invite you to take a listen to the episode, where Heather explores the journey in more detail. It might just inspire your own next act of good. If you’ve got any questions about Pluralsight’s campaign or just want to say “Hi!”, don’t hesitate to reach out!