[et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ admin_label=”Top skinny IC Logo Section” fullwidth=”off” specialty=”off” transparent_background=”off” background_color=”#fce1c1″ allow_player_pause=”off” inner_shadow=”off” parallax=”off” parallax_method=”off” padding_mobile=”on” make_fullwidth=”off” use_custom_width=”off” width_unit=”on” make_equal=”off” use_custom_gutter=”off” custom_css_main_element=”@media only screen and (min-width: 1350px)||.page-id-25059 .et_pb_section_0, .page-id-25059 .et_pb_section_0 .et_pb_row_0 {||padding: 0 !important;||}” custom_padding=”0px||0px|” custom_padding_tablet=”50px|0|50px|0″ next_background_color=”#ffffff” custom_padding_last_edited=”on|desktop” global_module=”26126″][et_pb_row global_parent=”26126″ make_fullwidth=”off” use_custom_width=”off” width_unit=”on” use_custom_gutter=”off” padding_mobile=”on” allow_player_pause=”off” parallax=”on” parallax_method=”off” make_equal=”off” parallax_1=”off” parallax_method_1=”off” padding_top_1=”0px” padding_right_1=”0px” padding_bottom_1=”0px” padding_left_1=”0px” column_padding_mobile=”on” custom_padding=”0px|0px|0px|0px” custom_margin=”0px||0px|” custom_css_main_element=”@media only screen and (min-width: 1350px)||.page-id-25059 .et_pb_section_0, .page-id-25059 .et_pb_section_0 .et_pb_row_0 {||padding: 0 !important;||}” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_size=”initial”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_image admin_label=”IC logo Image” global_parent=”26126″ src=”https://iriscontent.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/IC-logo-horizontal-framed-e1468862028685.jpg” alt=”Iris Content logo” show_in_lightbox=”off” url_new_window=”off” use_overlay=”off” force_fullwidth=”off” always_center_on_mobile=”on” use_border_color=”off” custom_margin=”0px|0px|0px|0px” custom_css_main_element=”@media only screen and (min-width: 1350px)||.page-id-25059 .et_pb_section_0, .page-id-25059 .et_pb_section_0 .et_pb_row_0 {||padding: 0 !important;||}” url=”https://iriscontent.com” show_bottom_space=”on” _builder_version=”3.0.101″ align=”center” /][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section][et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ admin_label=”section” background_image=”https://iriscontent.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/bigstock-Blackboard-chalkboard-textur-15751904.jpg” transparent_background=”off” background_color=”#ffffff” parallax_method=”off” padding_mobile=”off” prev_background_color=”#fce1c1″ next_background_color=”FDF3E7″ _builder_version=”3.0.101″][et_pb_row admin_label=”row” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_size=”initial”][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”2_3″][et_pb_divider color=”#ffffff” show_divider=”off” height=”200″ divider_style=”solid” divider_position=”top” hide_on_mobile=”on” disabled_on=”on|on|off” /][et_pb_text admin_label=”Blog Post Title Text” background_layout=”light” max_width=”620px” text_font=”Cantata One||||” text_font_size=”72″ text_text_color=”#ffffff” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid” custom_margin=”0px||0px|” text_line_height=”1.1em” text_font_size_last_edited=”on|tablet” text_font_size_tablet=”52″ _builder_version=”3.0.101″]
How to Educate Without Preaching and Stay in the Frontline of Content Marketing
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Content marketing is one of the best ways to gain customers and increase interest in your product or service. Good content marketing requires that you not only give useful and interesting information but you need to provide it in a way in which your customers can relate. You need to educate your customers without talking down to them or preaching. The best content in 2018 is a unique blend of high quality information in a relatable format that keeps potential customers interested.
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Photograph by Rawpixel.com via Bigstock
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Establish Credibility
You know more about your product or service than most people and you are likely an expert in your field. Now you need to establish yourself as an expert to your customers. There are several ways you can do this but one of the best ways is by providing high quality, well-researched, informative articles. Your customers will keep coming back time and time again when they know that you can give them detailed information.
A great way to quickly elevate yourself to expert status is by writing an e-book. An e-book can go into great detail about an aspect of your industry and will immediately show that you know what you’re talking about. At the same time, an e-book can also be a great marketing tool. You can provide an e-book to people who visit your website as a free gift if they sign up for your marketing list. This gives you a way to gather targeted potential clients and will make it easier to sell to them because they have already shown an interest in your product or service.
Provide Important Details
Buyer’s guides and white papers are excellent ways to provide detailed information about your products without sounding like you are preaching. You can create a buyer’s guide for almost any product or service. The key to using it as a marketing tool is to make sure that you highlight the features of the products that are important to customers.
You will be able to give people the details of your particular product while stressing how the features help solve their problems or meet their needs. If you sell a variety of different but similar products you can rate them on their features, price and other data. Presenting the information in a guide is a professional structure that gives people the details they want to know.
Post Informative Blogs
Blogs are still a great way to educate your customers about your product or service. Choose topics that are relevant, useful and most importantly, informative. Use a style of writing that will relate most easily with your potential clients. If your product is extremely technical you may need to avoid getting into the most difficult areas so that you hold their attention and don’t give them too much data that they won’t understand.
Include links to high quality sources in your blogs. This serves a two-fold purpose. First, it helps establish that you know the details of your industry. Secondly, it helps improve your site rankings. These are instrumental in making sure that you stay in the forefront of content marketing in 2018.
Include Testimonials
Testimonials are reports about your products or services from your customers. Since testimonials come from other people they can be extremely powerful as marketing tools. Potential clients want to know about the experiences that others have had when they made a purchase. They are particularly important in industries where customer service is a big part of the experience and when selling high ticket products or services.
Customers are more likely to make a purchase from a company with good reviews and excellent testimonials from people who have already worked with your company. You can solicit testimonials by providing customers with a survey after their purchase. You will be able to choose the best comments to add to your website.
Questions and Answers
Answering important customer concerns is a way to establish rapport. Rather than talking at them you are talking with them and immediately become more accessible. This accessibility is essential when you want customers to look to you as an expert.
If you are utilizing social media sites such as Facebook you can ask people for questions and highlight one question to answer on a weekly basis. This not only gives you interaction with customers but may also improve site rankings by updating content on a regular basis. You may also want to post a tip of the day.
Teach by Example
When you want people to relate to you it is helpful to teach by example. It can be much easier to show people how something works when you have already done it yourself. Take an aspect of your product or service and discuss how you used it while offering detailed information. You can even talk about how to avoid some of the common mistakes that people make or how to prevent problems from occurring.
It is helpful to understand your target audience when you create any type of content. That way you can more easily put yourself into the shoes of your potential customers, so to speak, and have a better understanding of how they will be most receptive to the information you want to provide. Persona marketing is a way to establish your most common types of customers so you can reach them more easily with your content marketing strategy. As you create the content for your website you will want to make sure that you understand who you are trying to reach.
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Annie has over 20 years of experience as an editor and content creator and manager. With work in television and written media, she has dedicated her past 10 years to learning the ropes of online content creation, from writing to editing, from SEO to content management.
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