It is a common understanding amongst society that the main purpose of a business is to provide value to its consumers through their products and services. In the 21st century economy, there are a multitude of ways in which a business can achieve this, mostly via modern marketing and communications strategies. But did you know that there is another approach to build value that also brings long-term advantages to a business?
Educational content creation is an undeniably impactful way of bringing value to customers. Today, we are entrenched in the age of information where people go online to search for answers. This has rendered educational content imperative for businesses as it helps attract interested prospects to generate leads and convert them into future customers.
In an article published by the Content Marketing Institute, Joe Pulizzi writes that he believes “the brands that place a priority on educating their prospects and customers through the creation of remarkable content are wisely choosing the road less traveled.”
If you’re looking for a way to improve your business’ overall brand image and build a community of happy and informed customers, then check out these five tips on how to create impactful educational content.
- Write blog posts
A series of blog entries is an easy method to offer educational knowledge. You may educate your audience with useful information by combining text, videos, and graphics.
The advantage of employing blog articles is that you may boost your SEO, increase traffic, and visitors will be able to digest these content at their own leisure.
You may write your posts ahead of time and plan when you want to publish them. These postings are appropriate for resolving small difficulties. You may use social media, email marketing, and other means to promote your material and assist individuals in reaching their goals.
- Go live!
Nowadays social media users can, quite literally, receive information tout de suite. Apart from the usual format of written posts, there is now a Live feature that is available on almost every popular social media platform like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat.
Live streaming is a great way to connect with your audience as it allows you to answer any questions that they might have in real-time. After the end of each session, you can save these videos and post them on your pages so that people can refer to them again for when they need to see how to do something.
According to a Forrester report published in 2018, brands spent $90 billion on video content and that number is expected to rise to more than $100 billion by 2023.
This just goes to show that brands today are aware that consumers are veering towards video content and it’s the responsibility of each business to create educational online experiences for interested prospects so that they may in turn become well-informed customers.
- Create personalized, emotional journeys for customers
Did you know that emotion is what really drives purchasing decisions? In his latest book How Customers Think: Essential Insights into the Mind of the Market, Harvard Business School professor Gerald Zaltman says that 95 percent of our purchase decision making occurs in the subconscious mind.
It’s important for businesses to keep this in mind because it has significant implications in the sales, branding, and marketing landscapes.
If you were to only market the attributes of your products or services without engaging with the customers and evoking emotion from them, you will likely be met with disappointing results. And just because it’s emotional, doesn’t mean it’s not educational.
Take Petronas’ yearly festive TV ads, for example. It’s safe to say that a large portion of Malaysians look forward to watching those ads. They’re well-made, and always teach us the value of family, life, and love.
This is not to say that you shouldn’t be focusing on the features of the product, but rather you should also place an emphasis on the emotional response a customer would experience by using your service or product.
- Create quality content
While this is nothing new, there is still a lot of content available that is neither educational nor useful. Always ask yourself: is this content impactful or valuable? If you find that the answer is no, then don’t waste precious time creating it!
When you produce content with a clear purpose in mind (and in this case, that purpose is to educate your audience), you will acquire the confidence of those who are conducting their research online. Prospects are heavily influenced by the content that they consume.
Think of it this way: your prospects are on a solution-seeking journey, and your content is the map responsible for taking them to their destination and making sure they reach there safely.
Educational content that brings impacts to the lives of customers or interested prospects is a vital aspect of any business, especially if you intend to stay in the game long-term.
