Knowledge Is Power Part 2: 4 Tips to Ace Your Education-Centric Marketing Strategy

Opening your first joint checking account. 

Applying for a small business loan. 

Purchasing a new home.  

If you’ve made any of these transactions, you probably remember them as the major milestones in your life.  

They are for most people. The difference between you and your customers is that most of them probably don’t work in the financial services industry. These major milestones can quickly turn into unnavigable nightmares. And if you can’t ease their burden, they’re likely to pause their endeavors, or worse, turn to someone who can. 

In part one of the mini-series, we gave you the solution: Education-centric marketing. In this post, we’ll explore the four best practices that stand out when it comes to ensuring the success of your education-centric marketing efforts. 

  1. Consistency is Key
    As you start sharing your knowledge across channels, you’ll want people to easily associate content with you and your brand. Determine some basic guidelines around your written and visual communications. Specifically for education-centric marketing, it’s a good idea to create an editable list of industry terms and agree to a standard, companywide definition for each one to avoid confusing your target audience. Encourage your marketers to keep an eye out for new or interchangeable terms, and don’t hesitate to include brief explanations within your content – or even full-blown posts – to provide clarity and understanding. 

  2. Embrace Transparency
    Today’s customers have more choices than ever before and prefer doing business with companies that are honest and transparent. When you tell them something, they can – and will – verify its veracity. One false statement is enough to destroy your relationship and send them straight into the arms of their competitors.

    How can you get the most of out of your technology stack – in record time?

    What kind of data should you be collecting as you develop an education-centric marketing strategy?  Listen to Expert Strategies #36 with Joe Welu, “Education-Centric Marketing: Why It’s Critical.”

  3. Cut the Jargon
    People will come to you with varying degrees of knowledge. Remember: Everything you write competes with everything that is out there. You can measure the attention span of your audience in mere seconds – your goal is to humanize and resonate with readers. To make your content as accessible as possible, keep it clear, concise and consistent.

  4. Provide Options
    While many of your ideal customers may need a longer buying cycle to fully understand how your products and services can facilitate their lives, don’t forget about the ones who don’t. Offer advanced content or even self-directed services for segments that want it

Lesson Learned

From the very start of the project, ensure you have the right stakeholders involved. Oftentimes, projects get too far down the line before realizing that critical voices are missing from the conversation, inevitably delaying the project, creating frustration or re-work and costing money. When it comes to marketing and sales technology, there are the usual suspects, including Sales, Marketing, Compliance and Technology, but think outside these boxes too.  

It’s also critical to identify project champions or super users who can promote the initiative within your organization to their peers. It’s much more effective to implement technology from the trenches using champions within the organization, instead of forcing adoption from the top down.

Want More?

You’ve probably got data that can help you develop a winning education-centric marketing strategy. Discover how you can maximize it while avoiding fatal compliance mistakes.