How do you make the most out of your marketing strategy? The most obvious answer is to give your audience something they’re interested in: something that would be useful to them and would benefit them in some way.
If that’s the case, then why do so many marketing teams hesitate to include more educational content into their marketing strategies? It’s simple: because it seems counterproductive and even expensive.
It does take a lot of effort to develop high-quality educational content and the perks of it might seem too insignificant to do that. However, it’s definitely worth the time and efforts invested.
According to Hubspot’s statistics, only 29% of people are actually willing to talk to a salesperson when they want to find more information about a product or a service. This means that the majority of people find it more comfortable and effective to consult a search engine for that purpose.
Seems impressive, doesn’t it? People want to learn more about the things they intend to purchase – and you can help them with that, therefore boosting your sales. \
Educational content helps create a brand’s reputation
It takes time to become an industry expert (or at least a trustworthy brand), but it’s definitely worth the effort. Just think for yourself: would you rather purchase something from an unfamiliar brand you’ve never heard about before or would you buy something from a brand you trust?
That’s the first benefit of educational content: it helps build that trust. When you offer some valuable information to your audience (and when that information proves to be effective), they start seeing you as a credible source. They clearly benefit from what you’re doing and will trust you more.
Educational content helps to solve problems
Some people don’t purchase from your website because they change their mind or simply because they didn’t like your offer as much as you hoped they would. Some, however, don’t make the purchase not because they don’t like the product but because they face some problems in the process.
You might think that everything is clear and obvious when it comes to your website and the purchasing process in general. However, you might be surprised by the number of obstacles your audience might face.
Therefore, it’s often important to explain to the audience how to do something, even if you think that these things don’t require any extra explanation. Keep in mind: there’s always a chance that doing so will help boost your sales as well as increase the customers’ loyalty.
Educational content helps to increase traffic
We all know that the primary goal of content marketing is to generate sales and to attract more clients. The secondary goal, however, is to increase the traffic to your website, making you more visible and therefore more authoritative.
Educational content helps a lot. When it’s well-written and informative, people share it willingly. This doesn’t simply help you acquire more traffic – it also ensures that the traffic is good. People, who come to your website via those posts, appreciate the informative content and are actually interested in what you can offer, not simply driven by click bait.
Educational content can be a powerful promotional tool
Want to get more subscribers? Craft an informative eBook or great infographics and share them with your subscribers. Also, consider offering something valuable in exchange for making a purchase from your website: for example sending a PDF file with cover letter writing tips to those who had bought your online resume writing course.
Of course, this won’t always work. You need to invest in the creation of a free content first to show your audience that this extra information would really worth their time or money. However, if you already have a blog filled with high-quality educational content, this could be another perk for you.
There are different types of educational content. They might depend on your goals or on your strategy. You can try combining all of these or settle only for one or two of them. Either way, you need to know how they differ.
FAQs and explanations
It’s important to explain to your audience exactly how things are done. This is especially important when your product or service requires the installation of some additional software: like when you sell online games etc.
There are two ways to create such content: you can either create one big FAQ document or write a series of tutorials answering the most commonly asked questions from your audience. You could also encourage your audience to ask you some questions on social media, answering them in a more public forum.
Interactive content
According to Inc., 93% of marketers believe interactive content to be more effective at educating the buyer, compared to 70% for static content. So why waste an opportunity to make the most out of it?
Furthermore, today creating interactive content is easier than ever before. There are plenty of platforms (like Periscope) that allow hosting live sessions to interact with your audience. But even if you don’t like to talk live on camera, you can hold Q&A sessions on social media, answering comments for an hour (or as long as you want to).
Niche-related content
Let’s face it: it’s not always possible to create content directly related to your product or service. Doing so could eventually result in repeating yourself and potentially boring your audience, However, there’s still a great way to create content that is educational, informative, and diverse. All you need to do is to tailor it to a niche you’re working in.
Let’s assume you’re running an essay writing service. In this case, you can craft a series of posts describing the order and the writing process, the prices, etc. But it would be much more effective to create posts that could help your clients with the essay writing process. You can offer them essay topic ideas, writing tips, and much more.
Multimedia content
Knowing how many types of content are available out there, it would be a waste to limit yourself to posts only. Why not go further and surprise your audience with all kinds of content, from infographics to YouTube videos?
Doing so won’t simply make your content look more impressive – it would also make it more available to your audience. Some people prefer images, some don’t have much time to read but might really appreciate a good podcast, etc.
While educational content might not guarantee your brand instant gratification, it will definitely benefit you in the long run. So if you want to do something effective both for your business and your brand, consider investing time into educational content creation. At the very least, it will make your strategy more diverse.
Do you invest in educational content creation? If you do, which types of content do you consider the most effective and how does it benefit your brand?
Author
Conor McMahon
Conor McMahon is a writer for Zippia, with previous experience in the nonprofit, customer service, and technical support industries. He has a degree in Music Industry from Northeastern University and in his free time he plays guitar with his friends. Conor enjoys creative writing between his work doing professional content creation and technical documentation.
