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Posts Tagged ‘Educationcal Marketing and Business Development’

Educational Marketing | Why it Works

May 18th, 2010
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Educational marketing, as we’ve gone over earlier, is a great and effective tool you can utilize to reach your audience and establish yourself as a leader while also establishing your authority in an area.

But why does educational marketing work? Because you step outside of your normal role as a seller or marketer of a company and instead act like an educational resource; as such, you are able to really establish & work to meet the needs of your buyers by providing them with useful information they are looking for & the answers to their questions.

The key to having it work: Make your educational marketing resources free to access. The goal here is to begin the sales process by first earning the buyer’s trust and by providing them something of value.

Some items to consider when attempting to implement educational marketing:

  1. Avoid talking too much.
  2. Avoid selling.
  3. Be truthful, honest, and transparent.
  4. Use contact information correctly.
  5. Offer something that is actually valuable.
These free resources and the main goal of educational marketing is to share something of value with people, not to sell to them. First, give them something they can use and are looking for; this will make them think of you next time they need help in an area since you were so kind as to give them something for free.

Don’t sell contact information and avoid spamming them yourself; this is a sure way to ruin and destroy any amount of trust that you might have created when they first came across you and your resource.

Additionally, think about things from your own standpoint and what you would consider useful as a consumer. Offering someone something for free that they don’t want or won’t use is just like you never gave them something for free. Do a little research and see what people are looking for and asking about and offer them a solution that they can actually use.

Some last things to note:

  1. Skeptical consumers can become informed buyers.
  2. Consumers appreciate assistance and become familiar with the company helping them with their homework.
  3. A relationship is developed with the prospect based on expertise and trust. That consumer is now a potential buyer.

Remember that this is a place for you to show your expertise, share answers and solutions, and be available to answer more questions; to make that more valuable to yourself and others, make a blog post out the questions you get and share it with others. The point of educational marketing is provide information for customers and buyers to use in their own decision making processes.

Author: Ashley Categories: Business Development Tags: , , ,

Educational Marketing | A Brief Defintion and Overview

May 14th, 2010
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Educational marketing is a tool available to everyone, thanks to the easy access to social media tools and platforms. What is educational marketing? Some may argue that it’s simply PR being done online, but the Internet has greatly blurred the lines between marketing and PR. The most important thing to remember, however, is that regardless of how you define it, educational marketing is a useful tool that can benefit both you and your customer.

A quick definition: it is a different way of marketing that entails the sharing of information and educational resources for buyers. Not a tactic to sell your company, but a way to share your expertise to assist buyers in their decision making.

So, why use educational marketing?

  1. Consumers no longer rely on advertising messages to make buying decisions.
  2. Educational marketing gives customers and resellers the background they need to understand your messages and appreciate your products and brand.
  3. Educational marketing also gives your sales and marketing teams the opportunity to develop deeper relationships with your customers’ marketing professionals.

Customers are skeptical. They want to do their own research, or “homework”, to gather the facts and make their own decision to buy. Plus, they have more information available to them than at any other time in history. The Internet makes it easier than ever to learn anything about any topic. As such, it complements traditional marketing, sales training and customer training, benefiting your buyers, sellers and brand.


The key to successful educational marketing: Make your educational marketing resources free to access. The goal here is to begin the sales process by first earning the buyer’s trust by providing them something of value.


This post is part of the Educational Marketing series; check back for part two!

Author: Ashley Categories: Business Development, Marketing Tags: , , , ,