Educate for better marketing results

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Education based marketing, EBM, is another aspect of inbound marketing. There are two classes of marketing:

•  Sales based marketing, in which you take the role of a salesperson and deliver a sales message.
• Education based marketing, where you take the role of an expert or educator to help prospects understand their problems and the solutions to them.

Sales based marketing is based on a sales pitch or selling message. It is used to help a salesperson reach out to prospective customers, such as cold calling, telephone solicitation, and direct mail, .

These kinds of activities today are called interruption marketing. We are inundated with Emails, television commercials, junk mail, and telephone solicitors. There is so much noise generated by sales based activities that the average prospect no longer listens. My personal method when watching my favorite hockey team is the mute button. I just don’t listen. I also use SPAM blockers, junk mail folders and any other method I can to cut down the volume.

So how do you get through the massive amount of “noise” being generated by millions of companies and directed at your prospect?

Simply put you don’t. Even if a prospect likes your product and your message most won’t take the time to sift through the pile to see what’s worth looking at.

Most prospects today don’t look or read much of anything sent to them, if they have a need or want they do an Internet search, find the product or service they are interested in and learn about it.

What do they learn? In a word everything. They can find shopping services that compare features and price. They can find consumer driven quality reviews.  They can study head-to-head comparisons between competitors.

For example is there a more sales driven industry than auto sales? How do the majority or people buy a car today?  Speaking for myself, I research what I want on-line. I go to Kelly Blue book and price the vehicle with the options I want and print the summary. I then use Kelly again to get a realistic value for my trade and print that. I go to the dealer armed with my information knowing what I want, what it will cost me and what I am willing to pay. The traditional back room haggling is eliminated, if it starts in that direction I get up to leave. The last three vehicles we’ve purchased no one has allowed me to walk out the door. I got my deal because I educated myself.

So education based marketing simply put is educating your customs that you understand their wants or needs, and that your solution is the beat value for their money. Better marketing results today mean getting your message heard because prospects seek you out as a subject matter expert.

We need to acknowledge the fact that marketing has changed. They are going to look for the information somewhere, it’s readily available, how much can you gain if they get it from you?

I have an entire chapter in my book, “Bottom Line Focus” on education for better marketing results.

What is inbound marketing?

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I’m not sure if the term itself is new, but I first heard it used about six months ago. Whether the term is new is irrelevant the concept is not.

The most effective marketing strategy has always been one of educating the customer as to why your product or service is the best value for them. Notice I didn’t say lowest cost, but best value, it provides the best return on their investment.

In my book, Bottom Line Focus, I talk about marketing as providing useful information to your customer base that let’s them know you understand their needs or problems and provide them options for solutions.

But you can't help them understand your products or services and how they will benefit from them unless you understand their needs. You can't start building your branding and marketing strategy around a sales pitch about why your new "turbo widget" is the sexiest thing on the market. You must first understand why people buy turbo widgets.

What are they trying to achieve? Do they want to look younger, prettier, thinner, or more successful? Do they simply want to go faster? What do they want and why? 

Once you pinpoint your prospective customers' problems and needs, you must understand why your widget is the best solution available. If it isn't, you need to determine what you must do to make it the best.

Now, here comes the tough part. You need to convince your prospects to agree with you that your turbo widgets are the best. I say it's the tough part because in this age of the Internet and proliferating channels of communication, traditional marketing approaches – radio, TV, print advertisements, sales literature, and celebrity statements – are all becoming less effective. 

But actually, that's good news for small and mid-size companies. The Internet has leveled the playing field. Big companies used to be able to buy very influential testimonials. Today, Internet blogs and forums are the equalizers. Take any product or any brand and do a blog search on it. You will find dozens, if not hundreds, of comments indicating the marketplace perception of that brand. 

By employing Web 2.0 techniques strategically, you can make a big splash on a limited budget. With the rise of social media marketing, ingenuity is becoming more important than dollars. And it's been proven that consumers respond better to engaging dialogue than to expensive broadcasting. 

So what is inbound marketing? It’s providing enough useful information to your prospective customer base that they seek you out. Your company becomes the recognized expert in your field. Inbound marketing can be viewed as welcome marketing, providing free and useful information about their issue or need and offering great solutions. Traditional marketing can be called invasive marketing, blaring out price, or product features at a mass audience hoping some of the noise finds it’s mark.

While traditional marketing was once the accepted practice it never worked really well. A great direct mail program is one that gets 2% response. Now with the never ending array of TV commercials, Emails, newspaper and magazine ads, you need to find a way of reaching your customer that isn’t “lost in the noise”. Having them seek you out is by far the best return on your investment. You may have less traffic to your website or office, but the traffic you do receive will be much better qualified and knowledgeable about your product or service.