Why You Should Leverage Education Based (Content) Marketing

One time, Kemi was trying to pass a message across to our classmates back in school. She decided to shout her message at everyone due to the noise in the room. She believed that people will hear her by shouting. To her surprise, nobody paid attention to what she was saying. It was as though she didn’t exist. Eventually, she passed her message across to a few people around her who, in turn, passed it on.

Most people are like Kemi; they are intrusive (noisy). They just want to shout their message across (or sell their products), shoving it down people’s throat. Unfortunately, that pushy strategy doesn’t work. If you want to get people to really pay attention to you, educate them. Start leveraging on education-based marketing, otherwise referred to as content marketing.

These stats will interest you!

Here are a few interesting statistics to chew on.

Content marketing generates over three times as many leads as outbound marketing. It also actually costs 62% less. Demand Metrics (NB: Outbound marketing is about using promotional messages (ads) to push a brand’s products or services)

80% of business decision-makers prefer to get company information in a series of articles versus an advertisement. Content Marketing Institute

60% of consumers enjoy reading relevant content from brands. 70% of people would rather learn about a company through articles rather than an advert. Demand Metrics

In a survey conducted by Databox in 2019, 70% of respondents said that SEO is better than PPC for generating sales. (Source: Hubspot) (NB: SEO – search engine optimization; PPC – pay per click advertising)

What exactly is education-based marketing?

It is the kind of marketing that involves informing and educating your prospects, giving them relevant details, facts and figures, so they make informed buying decisions. Unlike traditional marketing where you just keep bombarding prospects with pushy sales messages, that is adverts, about your products and services, education-based marketing is void of those gimmicks and pressure.

Education-based (content) marketing is powerful because it fosters the one thing that really gets the sales in the long run, and that is trust. It builds your brand’s credibility and lowers the trust barrier in the minds of your prospects. In an article on Forbes, Steve Olenski puts it this way:

“Many consumers have had enough of traditional marketing approaches and have grown tired of hearing old and worn out sales pitches. However, when you share important information and facts that help customers make a good buying decision they listen.”

Content marketing provides value for the prospects without being intrusive. By educating your audience first before selling to them, you position yourself in the minds of the prospects as a leader, someone who truly cares about them and is capable of guiding them to the desired solution to their pains. 

By the way, if you want to boost your SEO ranking, that is, show up on one of the top spots of search results, you want to pay attention to content or education-based marketing.

How to leverage education-based marketing

Here are a few clues to leveraging education-based (content) marketing for your business.

Get into the prospect’s mind

Start by getting into the head of your prospects. What are their pains, their struggles, confusions? Do they have doubts, objections and questions they need answers to?

How can you help them when you don’t know their pain and the gaps in their lives which you are well equipped to fill?

Give value first 

With answers gathered from getting into your prospects’ minds, you now know the kind of content you need to begin to put out there. It’s about giving them value first, serving them, showing them that you truly care.

Put together rich articles, videos, reports that address one or more of the identified gaps per time. Take advantage of your different touchpoints with your audience to put out your content, like social media, blog, youtube, email, live videos, reviews, newsletter, etc.

Tie your content with your products or services

It’s okay to make relevant offers in-between or at the end of your educational piece of content. Keep in mind that the end goal of education-based (content) marketing is not just to educate them for education sake, but to convert them to buyers eventually.

So tie in your products and services with the content you are putting out. How does your product or service address the identified gaps? Tell them explicitly. Ask for the sale. Your conversion rate will be higher because you gave some form of value first and you are not being pushy about it.

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