INCORPORATING EDUCATION INTO YOUR MARKETING STRATEGY
How do you approach the marketing strategy for your organization?
It’s easy to focus on brand awareness to direct your audience’s attention to your products or services.
Or, you need to promote an upcoming event and need a short-term marketing strategy to compel your target market to register for it.
How much of your marketing strategy do you dedicate to educating your clients or customers? The more they understand about your products or services, the more they can appreciate the value and the importance of what you have to offer them.
SHAPING THE LEARNING JOURNEY
When someone is considering a purchase, it’s normal for them to research the available solutions for their problem and determine the right option for their use case.
As you can see from this pipeline, understanding where your prospects are in the buying process and determining what information they need to move into the next stage is key to converting them into paying customers.
Are you wondering how you can learn more about what your customers are researching?
If you have an active following on social media, use your platforms to ask your followers questions about their pain points, frustrations, and needs by creating polls or asking outright.
Another great option is to check out Answer the Public (answerthepublic.com). This website allows you to type in a topic, brand, or product and gain access to word maps of search engine questions and terms that people have used when researching that particular series of words.
The variety of questions that Answer the Public provides is eye-opening and makes it a valuable foundational step or lifeline when you need it. It’s helpful because these are questions that people are regularly searching for on Google! Questions they want to find the answers to, and you can create content that helps them and gives them a reason to remember your company name and consider you when they need products or services related to your industry.
The one thing to keep in mind is that Answer the Public only allows you to do two searches within 24 hours before they want you to pay for additional queries. Not a deal-breaker, but worth keeping in mind when deciding on your search terms.
You can also put yourself in your customers’ shoes and conduct Google searches related to your industry or service. When exploring the search results, be on the lookout for the section labeled “People also ask” to gain some inspiration on types of questions.
This section is usually located on the first page, after the paid ads and business listings.
An SEO specialist or market researcher can also use data to pull insights on what your customers are searching for and align it with their pain points.
By creating content that helps your potential customers increase their knowledge, you are not only contributing to their research phase but can also shape what their research includes.
This is a great way to build trust with your potential clients because it establishes you as the authority on their search topic, saving time for both of you because they avoid extensive searches – and you have a better-qualified lead. It pays to be convenient.
INCREASE YOUR SEO PRESENCE, AND WHY USE VIDEO
Having educational content can also help with your website’s SEO strategy because if your potential customers are searching for information related to your product, service, or industry and they find resources on your website, then there’s a good chance that they will explore more of your website and see you as a valuable resource and someone who cares about their customers.
Video is an excellent medium for your educational content and companion to your blogs and website content. Why? Because studies have shown that 72% of people prefer to learn about a product or service through video rather than text and images.
Video is a more human form of marketing and allows you to express emotions and passion for what you’re talking about. Video also enables you to share more information that your audience will be able to retain for longer because you are connecting with them from both a visual and auditory perspective.
Video allows you to stand out from the crowd of Google’s search results. If there are videos relevant to a question or topic, you will typically see a block of them displayed prominently after the first few results.
Depending on your industry, it may be challenging to be the top search result on Google, but you have a good chance of making it into the relevant videos block, which most people are gravitating toward these days.
For search engines and YouTube to start including your videos in your audience’s search results, they need to know what your content is about. Of course, the title and description you give your videos will help with this, but if you include captions/subtitles on your videos, then the algorithms have so much more text to pull relevant keywords from.
With easy access to those keywords, your videos will appear in more search results. With longer videos, we’ve also noticed that Google has started creating chapters that allow your audience to jump to specific sections of videos to reach the information they’re looking for sooner.
AMPLIFY YOUR SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTS
Let’s face it, the people on your team know what they are talking about. They work in your industry every day, and their passion for what they do gets those around them excited.
Identify the key people within your organization who are experts in focus areas that make an impact on your clients and create opportunities to learn more about their areas of expertise. As you gain insights on specific topics, record your experts on camera explaining their perspectives and answers.
Have your subject matter experts been published or spoken anywhere? Reuse some of the best moments to share their knowledge with your audience, making sure you have permission first, of course!
Seeking every opportunity to utilize your subject matter experts in your marketing builds your company’s credibility and reputation. Since these experts tend to be very busy people in your organization, set your plan to record them during your quarterly or monthly planning sessions and give them plenty of time! If they are challenging to nail down, try other tactics like surveys or simple email prompts to access their knowledge database.
OUR APPROACH WITH MOORHEAD LAW GROUP
When you meet Steve Moorhead in the community, you’re instantly drawn in by his warm personality and kind smile. As a specialist in real estate law, Moorhead Law Group wanted to help its clients better understand the complex legal situations in real estate.
Vivid Bridge developed an educational web series branded “The Moor You Know,” featuring Steve breaking down legal concepts into easy-to-digest short explanations. A staple on their website, “The Moor You Know,” is a powerful tool for the firm to continuously explore and educate on vital legal concepts, building trust through their expertise.
TIPS FOR INCORPORATING EDUCATION INTO YOUR CONTENT MARKETING PLANNING
If you feel ready to start adding educational video content to your content marketing calendar but need some inspiration on where to focus, explore these questions during your brainstorming sessions.
- What questions do you regularly have a new customer ask about your product/service?
- What are the subject matter experts within your organization regularly explaining? Record them on video so that your customers can find the answers on their terms.
- Do your experts use a lot of jargon and complex concepts when explaining a topic? Consider developing creative metaphors to move ideas from abstract to accessible for your audience. If your analogy isn’t easily captured through video, then animation can help you move from abstract to accessible.
- What processes are unique to your business? Can you explain them in 30-90 seconds?
- What concepts take the most time to explain in your sales or onboarding process?
- Are there vital topics you want to make sure your potential customers know about to become your ideal customer?
THE VALUE OF AN FAQ ON YOUR WEBSITE
If you don’t already have one, you should consider adding a frequently asked questions section to your website. Why?
Think about the amount of time you spend answering the same questions with a new customer. If you have answers to those questions ready for your customers to access, they can receive answers on demand regardless of the time of day.
Recording your answers to the questions on video allows you to showcase your team’s friendly face(s). These evergreen answers can be consistently delivered with the confidence and passion that you want your audience to experience regardless of what kind of day your team is having when your audience is looking for the answers.
Having a video-based FAQ allows you to create a more personal experience for your audience compared to having text alone. Video enables the human connection to shine through in your customer experience.
Demonstrating your expertise throughout the process cannot be overstated. Why? Because sharing expertise provides answers and builds trust because your audience can experience the confidence and care your subject matter experts have for what they do.
How you approach a video-based FAQ is up to you. There can be value in bundling them into a single video if the answers are shorter or more related.
Another good option is to create a video for each question so that it’s easy for your audience to find a specific answer on their terms. Having individual videos for each question gives you the freedom to spend as much or as little time sharing each explanation. Individual videos should also be SEO optimized, so your videos appear in search results.
Next Steps
Do you feel inspired to incorporate an educational edge into your content marketing calendar?
Need help with adding video to your marketing efforts?
Contact us today! We’d love to help develop a solution that works for your organization.
