You may have noticed that most outbound marketing efforts are no longer as effective as they once were. Buyers want more.
61% of consumers believe that custom content positively influences their purchasing decision. Traditional marketing alone won’t be enough. It’s time to shift to becoming a strategic marketer.
Education-based marketing, from the word itself, is all about providing educational content to your prospects. It can be e-books, case studies, video clips, free webinars or even better with online workshops if you want to set a buying criteria into your favor. Anytime you can educate them on the need for your unique selling proposition helps set a buying criteria into your favor while positioning yourself as the expert in the industry you serve.
So why is this important?
42% of people do not trust brands. They no longer believe claims provided on ads.
Before the Internet, companies increased sales by simply appearing on commercials and billboards. Marketing was more focused on publicity stunts. That was back then. Today, this process became a lot more complicated.
When a typical consumer wants something, they will consult the Internet first. They will Google their concerns, maybe watch a YouTube tutorial, and find content that can help them solve their problems.
They are all hungry for more than just information, they are seeking wisdom. So, the best thing you can do is be the voice guiding them through those decisions.
Providing educational content is very useful during the initial part of your marketing funnel and has proven to be crucial in lead conversions for both B2B and B2C companies… however their is a secret to how it triple your closing ratio when used in your sales cycle as well. (But that is another blog post.)
According to ABGEssentials, content marketing was observed to produce a 6x higher lead conversion rate than traditional marketing. It’s also proven to increase lead quality, establish consumer loyalty, and improve organic search traffic.
Your goal is to help your audience figure out what exactly they need. Let me share how I learned this. You see, before partnering with Chet Holmes, I was 1st his client. I was selling health supplements to chiropractors. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t grow my profits to explosive levels.
That was until I began to implement educational-based marketing.
Although health for their patients was important to them, they were concerned about growing their practice. Medical insurance companies were leaving them with bad debt instead of cash for services rendered.
These folks want growth and that’s when it hit me.
Although selling health supplements was my primary business, they needed me to teach them how to grow their practice.
So, that’s what I began to educate them on, how to grow their practice, NOT my supplements.
All of a sudden they could see how to increase their sales. They would logically asked me how else I could help them grow in their practice and that’s when I told them about my health supplements.
The process changed a bit over time but the goal always stayed intact. Educate them. Whether it is done digitally, in person or virtually, find ways to help them.
Stop focusing on selling, start adding value 1st … the most effective way to do so = education.
Leave your information below and I’ll share the absolute BEST thing I ever learned from my late partner and mentor Chet Holmes. We spent a decade working together and generated $100MM in sales all through an educational marketing & sales model.
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