Focus Your Marketing on Educating Customers

In today's social-centric world, one of the most powerful ways to make a marketing impact is to integrate an educational approach into overall web marketing, a strategic approach I call "MarkEDing." Here are three tips to help you do this

1. Stop Selling -- Start Serving and Supporting

Most of us feel a resistance to selling, wishing that web leads would come to the door pre-sold. You may be relieved to learn that today's best sales approach doesn't require used car salesman tactics, but rather being helpful on the web via educating. Website visitors don't want to be sold; they want to feel empowered so they know, like, and trust us -- then they buy! Sales come when you serve and support visitors by empowering them with education, so they decide without being pushed that they want to work with your organization.

To get started, go to your home page. Put your education marketing hat on and make sure the gateway to your website educates visitors on who you are, what you do, and whom you serve. This can be done with copy, a tagline and even images. My alma mater, Antioch University, Santa Barbara, has a great statement on the home page of their website that illustrates the idea:

Make sure you are educating new and returning visitors in a clear, concise way when they enter the front door of your site.

Next, look critically at your marketing messaging. Do you have a clear tagline or unique selling proposition? Investing time in a central marketing message that helps educate current and prospective customers can make a big marketing difference. Paul Foster, The Business Therapist, clearly educates via his tagline of "Advice and Support for Business Health and Wealth." This marketing message appears on the website, business cards, and sales collateral, and is mentioned when he speaks at events. Marketing messaging is a small step that makes a big difference.

Dust off your "about us" page. Stanford University studied what makes a site inspire confidence and came up with their Web Credibility Guidelines. They found that educating website visitors on the expertise and credentials of the people behind the organization was a big credibility factor. Telling your story is going to sell your story. Make sure people reading your "about us" page understand values that motivate your organization. Educate readers on the history of your organization, the people behind it, your credentials, mission statement, team bios, why you got into business, and your distinctives. Photos of the founders and team speak a thousand words.

Your FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page is another opportunity to educate. Taking the time to pull all your FAQs together into a webpage, adding new questions and answers to your FAQ page, or making an FAQ section on your blog show people your competence and help overcome any sales objections -- and could help boost search visibility.

2. Content is Still King -- If the Content is Educational

Content not only builds credibility, but when written with key phrases that you want to be searched and found on, it can also help boost search visibility. But content must offer value to your reader, so focus on educational content.

If you blog, tweet, do Facebook posts, publish articles, or share on LinkedIn, whether you use article marketing sites, push out press releases, or buy ads, the content needs to be relevant to your end user. Educational content doesn't need to be dry; it just needs to help someone get a new insight. You don't need to write all the content yourself. You can become a hub of great information by simply finding and sharing helpful content. I like to call this "being a web gemologist." A Facebook post or tweet can say:

"Great article on ... written by USA Today"

A blog post can say:

"I found a great article on ... written by.... Here are some of the things I liked about this post, but you can read the whole article by clicking here."

Content that helps a reader creates a connection to you and your organization. It's okay to tie things in once in a while to selling your product and/or services, just be sure to start by offering something of value to the reader.

3. Education Doesn't Stop at the Sale

Your best customers are your current customers, so the education marketing process isn't over when the sale occurs. Keep the love alive. Think of your organization as Batman (the superhero) and web marketing as Robin (the trusty sidekick who has your back). Put the web to work as your sidekick by leveraging it as an educational tool to optimize customer service, build sales, and retain sales as an ongoing relationship tool! You'll find educating your customers rewarding in more ways than you can imagine.