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using Education as marketing

Using Education as Marketing
By James Brann
Founder of Brannmart

Traditional marketing techniques are great for large corporations pushing billions in sales world wide but for the small business and startup business, standing out among all the glitz and glitter is harder and more expensive then ever before. Traditional methods use 7 contacts to acquire a sale or client, who can afford that kind of media saturation when you’re a small business? The 7 contacts are used to build brand recognition and trust. So the question is how can you reduce costs and effectively market to your target market? The answer is by using Education as Marketing.

Using Education as Marketing makes you the expert thus building trust. Trust – “in which confidence is placed” (1) usually takes time to build. Education Marketing builds that trust in a compressed time frame. Education Marketing creates creditability as who customers go to, to ask questions. This trust and creditability builds brand loyalty with your customers and clients. The best part of Education Marketing is it is FREE to your customers!

Why give the Education away for free? Because the value is not the information you are providing but rather the information your customer is going to give you. Their contact information and approval to market to them.

Author David Frey has accurately pointed out how the average customer has learned to ignore the everyday sales pitch. He also outlines the underlying goals and techniques of Education Marketing. Your goal, is to change your current script and way of thinking and to focus on the questions and concerns of your customers and target market rather than the hype and sensation of the typical sales pitch.

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Next, you need to figure out what information you will provide for your Education Marketing campaign. “Imagine stepping into the mind of your prospect and listening to their mental conversation at the very moment they decide to begin shopping for a spa or pool. What questions are they asking themselves? “(2)

Author Andrew Bordeaux expressed it beautifully with the following example for an Oil Change:

“Say you were the owner of an oil change store. A standard approach to market your business would be to place ads that say:

“Get Your Oil Changed Here for Just $14.95!”

By integrating educational marketing into your marketing arsenal, you might instead try:

“A new study finds that changing your oil every three months adds $1,437.81 to the resale value of your automobile. Come in to find out the effect of oil changes on the resale value of YOUR automobile.”

The information and help you can provide your customer is the new hype. The emphasis of such techniques revolves around the establishment of trust. By assisting in the open sharing of information, you become an ally to your consumer, rather than the oft-avoided vacuum cleaner salesman. “(3)

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Now your ready to give away the information to become the expert and gain the trust and confidence of your target market but how do you give it away? Well that depends on your product or service. The cheapest and easiest is to build a web site and give it away as an E-book. If you do this method be sure to require their contact info (email address) in exchange for the Free Education.

Frey continues about the packaging of one's educational message through multimedia options such as video tapes, email courses, and seminars which can create the 7 contacts of traditional marketing. These long-term, or “drip” campaigns will have an impact on shorting the duration to build trust and value to your prospective customers.

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By giving a helpful education, you establish yourself or business as an authority because your prospects will see you as a reliable and trusted source of information. Take care not to include a sales pitch with your free education. This will only erode the confidence you established and you will be viewed as the same as your competitors with your prospective customers.

1. Education-Based Marketing: How to Make Business Come to You- David Frey

2. Merriam Webster’s Dictionary-Tenth Edition

3. The Importance of Educational Marketing- Andrew Bordeaux

By James Brann

By Brann Mart Networking

using Education as marketing