Producing educational content to sell your products is a concept that has gained a ton of traction in the last couple of years. And for good reason.
According to one study, educational content makes consumers a whopping 131% more likely to buy from a business. That’s more effective than most traditional marketing techniques.
So, what kind of educational content are we talking about here? Mainly, this content is produced in the form of short guides, online courses, product reviews, step by step videos, tutorials, you name it. Essentially, as a content marketer, you should write about things that help customers understand your product or service better, and encourage them to buy from you.
The goal with educational content is to teach rather than sell directly. Therefore, it draws more authentic interest from the customer. And when they’re ready to buy from you, they’ll be coming from a more informed place that’ll ensure that they buy again. To that end, you’re guiding the customer towards your products rather than selling to them directly.
If you’re not sure where to start, we’ve created this comprehensive guide to help you make a plan for creating educational content. Read on to find out more.
Advantages of using educational content for your marketing
Before we dive into the strategies you can employ to run a successful campaign involving educational content, let’s talk about what you gain from doing this.
1. Greater customer interaction
Posting educational content allows you to keep your customers in the loop and get them to engage with your business. This is because this content will likely result in people asking questions and leaving comments. This would then cause a ripple effect.
Soon, you’ll have customers discussing your products with others. They’ll be sharing their own experiences with you, leading to greater clicks on your website and increased sales.
What’s more, you can also monitor these discussions and note down your customers’ needs and complaints. This will allow you to improve and drive greater customer satisfaction.
Ultimately, this will lead to a better customer experience overall. If people feel like they’re heard, they’ll give more input and keep coming back. According to Forbes, 84% of companies that work on customer experience report higher sales. So in the end, you benefit from listening to your customers too.
2. Better brand recognition
Posting education content is a great way to make a name for yourself in your industry. When you write content, you’re establishing yourself as an authority on the subject. This means people can come to you if they have any questions about your industry.
Ultimately, this will make you a noteworthy competitor in the eyes of other leaders in your industry. And as you provide more useful information, you’ll become a credible authority on the subject.
72% of marketers claim that branded content is much more effective than putting out an ad in a magazine. This is because once you become a brand people can trust, you will have customers who will keep coming back to you.
3. More website traffic
Written content allows your website to come up in search results organically. The more this happens, the greater the chances of people clicking on your site.
If you can get people on your site through real, informative content, people will go through what you have to offer. As a result, sales will go up.
Generally, brands who focus on content generation see 16 times the search traffic of those who don’t. That’s significant. If people see your website in search results more often, they will be more inclined to buy from you as well.
4. Lead generation
This is perhaps the biggest advantage of writing educational content. Imagine someone goes to your website and sees a pop-up asking them to provide their email. The tendency would be to close the window and continue strolling. This happens because you haven’t really given the person a reason to want emails from you.
This changes when you ask for emails via the educational content you put up. Now you’ve given the person a reason to want to engage with you. They know you have valuable insight that could help them and so they’ll want more.
In fact, people don’t even trust online ads anymore unless they feel they’re getting something in return. According to one study, clicking on ads that appear as top searches has gone down to 20% from 70% a few years ago. This should tell you something about the importance customers place on authenticity. Ultimately, authenticity is what drives engagement.
Strategies to integrate educational content in your marketing
Now that you know how important educational content can be in marketing, let’s dive into the top educational content marketing strategies.
1. Create bite-sized infographics
Infographics are a great way to get your message across in a short and snappy way.
These are ideal for sharing fun facts or how to’s. 40% of content creators say visual infographics drive the most engagement. Hence, make sure to add as many images, colors, and graphics to your posts to keep things interesting.
Share your infographics on social media, especially Instagram. Here, you’ll see a bigger chance of your infographic being shared as stories. Make sure the information you give is something everyone can benefit from. To that end, think of a more general audience. This will increase your reach, and bring more people to your page.
If you’re not super amazing at making infographics, worry not. PosterMyWall’s Instagram post templates allow you to pick and customize various designs seamlessly. These templates are also sized perfectly for your grid.
And with our outline border effect that you can place around your photos and graphics, you can make your infographics look more sleek and professional than ever before.
Make sure to also add links to your website or your products in your posts. It’s also important that you don’t market anything directly to the consumer. Keep the focus on the information you’re providing. And let the customer decide the rest.
Take inspiration from Coca Cola. The company used infographics on social media to educate their customers about the background of their product’s development and production. In the past, they’ve also used infographics to outline their sustainability goals for the new decade.
2. Write blog posts
Blog posts are the most likely to pop up in Google’s search results when someone types in a relevant question in the search bar. They’re also a great way to get important information across to your customers.
Blog posts give you the ability to combine text, videos, and images and create valuable, educational content for people.
However, there are some SEO guidelines that you need to follow when writing blog posts. SEO allows your content to show up at the top of the search results. This means more clicks, and subsequently, more engagement.
Blog posts are a great way to engage with your audience while providing them with useful information. Through this, they also allow you to build your brand and become a credible authority on a subject. A good blogpost will attract significant traffic to your site while answering a potential customer’s query.
If people have a good understanding of your product, they’ll be more likely to buy it. And the more you’re able to convince the customer of the usefulness of your product, the more likely it is that they’ll browse through their options. So the blog post is your way of pitching to your customers, without it seeming too direct.
57% of marketers say that they’ve gained customers through blogging alone. This is because customers are more convinced regarding buying a product if they feel like they’ve made an education decision.
Upload your blog posts immediately or schedule them for a particular time. According to a study by Kissmetrics, Mondays and Thursdays are the best times to post on your blog. For maximum engagement, upload your blog post around 7 am on these days.
Also, promote your blog posts on social media to get more traction. The best times to post on social media are as follows:
- Facebook: Tuesdays and Thursdays – 8 am to 12 pm
- Instagram: Wednesdays – 11 am
- Twitter: Mondays and Thursdays – 8 am
3. Send out newsletters via email
Direct marketing through email guarantees that your content reaches your customer. This is incredible because it means that no one misses out on your content.
First, take the emails you have and segment them into lists based on who’s interested in what. Then, send your content to each list, with special focus on your recipient’s area of interest.
For instance, let’s say you’re a clothing brand and you have two customer lists – one consisting of a younger audience and one of an older one. Compile weekly or monthly newsletters for both (slight variations to one main newsletter is also fine because it will save time), and send them in.
These newsletters will have information about how to style certain products, different ways to wear a particular item, and other topics of this kind.
Feel free to use a PosterMyWall newsletter template to make your newsletter. This will save you a lot of time and effort. Before you start, get some advice on how to write amazing and informative newsletters.
Take inspiration from ModCloth, a clothing company that focuses its promotion on education content via newsletters. Their newsletters are engaging, fun, and most of all, relevant to their target audience.
4. Make educational videos
YouTube has over 2 billion users and you need to capitalize on this as a business. 61% of marketers see video as a very important part of their marketing strategy. And for good reason. Video drives a lot of engagement on social media.
Use YouTube to share informative videos with people. For instance, if you’re a tech company, teach people how to use a new product. Or add reviews and comparisons for similar products.
You can even follow Lenovo’s example and hire influencers to speak in a video for you. Lenovo promoted their new laptop by getting influencer Amy Tangerine to give people a fun graphic design tutorial.
Watch PosterMyWall’s live class on making engaging videos to promote your brand to learn more about how you can optimize this strategy.
Final thoughts
As you can see, the possibilities are endless with content marketing. Not only is it a great promotional tool, it also allows you to unleash your creativity in fun and exciting ways.
Here are some main takeaways to keep in mind. Your educational content should:
- Help your audience do more with your products and services
- Increase engagement with your site
- Teach your customers something valuable about what you offer
- Help your customers make more informed purchases
- Resolve any queries or concerns people might have about your product/service
New to PosterMyWall? Simplify your graphic design and publishing experience by trying the solutions you need to make great educational content.
Content creator at PosterMyWall.
