Why you need to educate your audience through marketing

And why you should never assume people know what you do

Have you ever heard the saying ‘people don’t know what they don’t know’? When you think about it, it’s pretty accurate, yeah? If you don’t know about something, you genuinely don’t know!

I think it’s one of the best sayings you can keep in mind when you’re working out any form of a marketing strategy for your business. It’s easy to fall into the trap of knowing what you do or what you sell so well, that you assume your audience do too.

But it’s when you get questions that ask what you thought was about something obvious (e.g. how do you always post to social media at the same time?), that you realise people may not know what you do.

This is a great way to come up with blog ideas! What questions have you been asked about what you do that you thought was obvious?

And it’s also one of the best ways to hear straight from your customers what they don’t understand about your business, so you can refocus your marketing to explain better what you do.

Why you should educate your audience

Customer training generates trust from your target audience. It helps them to see you like the brand who shares knowledge freely, who helps them understand what they don’t know, and who is open to answering all the ‘silly’ questions that people may have.

When you openly share your knowledge and educate your audience, they’re more likely to buy from you. You may also open up your audience to a broader range of people as your audience share links to your content to help their networks and so on. Becoming known as the go-to expert is always good for business!

You’ll find that when you educate your audience through marketing that:

• You’ll have increased customer engagement and satisfaction

• You’ll have stronger customer loyalty

• You’ll become a market leader as you’re seen as the expert

How to educate your audience

If you go for the hard sell in marketing, it’s not going to work. You are dealing with complicated humans, so you need to tap into their emotions, building rapport and educating them.

Educating your audience isn’t a waste of time. It’s during this phase of buying that you’re helping your audience understand your product and giving them value through your high-quality content.

You set yourself up as the authority.

For example, I’m a social media and content manager. I could go out there and sell, sell, sell. But who wants that? So, I spend some time writing content that helps my audience and create giveaways such as my content calendar, so my audience knows I’m here to help them.

Education is all about showing your audience how you change their business, lives, the way they do things etc. And the best ways to educate your audience is through:

• Blog posts, eBooks or podcasts

• Case studies

• Webinars or video tutorials

• Group or personal meetings

Is there anything else you’d like to know about social media/content management?

I try and produce a variety of content to help you. If there’s anything in particular you’d love to hear about, drop me a line and let me know. If not, stay tuned!

If you’ve got any other ideas about how to educate your audience, or you’ve put measures in place that wow your audience, I’d love to hear about it. Please feel free to comment below.

Remember, if your customer is unclear on what you offer or how your product helps you, they are less likely to buy from you. So, get out there and answer their questions (even answer questions they may not have thought of yet!).

Create educational content, and you’ll be onto a winning marketing strategy.