How to Educate Your Customers on Why They Need Your Product

Today's consumer is a lot more pessimistic than in previous generations. Indeed, ethical consumerism is a major consideration for many customers, and the market is beginning to take notice.

Consumers don't want to be told what to want nor do they want their intelligence insulted. This is why a growing number of companies and independent professionals are incorporating education into their marketing campaigns.

Sponsored content, content marketing, and white papers are all vital extensions of this marketing process.

Why?

Because consumers value being informed instead of being talked down to or “sold.” Unfortunately, the latter approach has produced an abundance of distrust and perceptions of unscrupulous intentions. If a brand doesn't have the trust of the consumer, then it could very well be the bane of their corporate existence.

The solution to this problem is by teaching your way into your customers’ lives, hearts, and pocketbooks. Here are six steps to guide you:

1. Identify their need or problem
2. Show the consequences if the problem isn't solved
3. Create a valuable solution
4. Drive traffic to your solution
5. Follow-up with personal contact

How to Educate Your Customers

1. Identify Their Need or Problem

In any industry, getting into your customers’ hearts and pocketbooks takes more than just telling them to use your company's services, or worse, pontificating that your brand is the best. Instead, you need to identify specific problem you can solve.

Let's use an example of an accountant. You can't just say you have to use an accountant for tax purposes. A far more effective approach would be to educate potential clients about the five common mistakes when filing their taxes.

Another example is a website design firm. Rather than simply presenting an array of services, your agency should tell the customer that it has a complimentary, in-depth white paper warning prospects about the top 10 conversion rate killers. Or, the business can guide them to a blog post on the search engine optimization errors websites regularly incur.

Whatever your niche or service, begin with their needs and build free resources that clearly positions that need as the starting point for your conversation.

2. Show the Consequences If the Problem Isn't Solved

When customers are brought to these important points of information, you have to then intensify those needs by highlighting the real-world consequences of not doing anything about them. This can be done by bringing their attention to a wide spectrum of data that pinpoints with gruesome clarity those fears and concerns.

Again, the accountant can cite data highlighting audit rates that a person can receive if they make certain mistakes on their tax returns. Or, a web designer can cite statistics that show visitors ignore specific elements of their webpages, which makes advertising ineffective or destroys their buying rates.

After the data, focus on the emotional side of these fears. Does this lead to embarrassment, insecurity, helplessness, or frustration? What specific pain does not dealing with their needs produce?

3. Create a Valuable Solution

Once those needs are addressed and the fear intensified, it's time to generate a valuable solution … free of charge.

These free solutions can come in a variety of different forms, such as blog posts, emails, webinars, infographics, guides, whitepapers, or videos. Giving your prospective customers real information they can really use not only generates goodwill, particularly in niche industries, it will also establish you as an authority.

In addition, this marketing strategy doesn't only drive users to be more successful, it also helps transition your clients into brand ambassadors that bring in more prospective users.

4. Drive Traffic to Your Solution

Now that your brand has a solution to one of your market’s most painful problems, you need to attract attention. What's the use of having all this well-written and highly researched data if no one is reading it?

This can be achieved by taking advantage of or investing in these five areas:

• Conventional online advertisements, such as Google AdWords and Facebook.
• Sharing the information on other blogs, including in the comments sections.
• Posting it on social media.
• Using affiliate marking to widen your reach and generate leads.
• Offering your content through LinkedIn by joining groups your market frequents.

Once you’ve driven traffic to your free resource, create a landing page that is as simple as possible. Use the language you’ve developed from your need, fear, and solution to preview your free resource, but be sure to collect your prospect’s information before giving it away.

5. Personal Follow-Up

Finally, at the end of it all, whether the customer has purchased your product or is still mulling over the idea, you should personally follow up to find out if they have any questions or concerns, and to provide them with further information.

Just remember: keep it short and focus on the customer.

To accomplish this, you can use what the geniuses over at I Love Marketing call the “Magic 9-Word Email.” Here’s the basic format:

Subject Line: Hi [Name]

Email Body:

Hi [Name],

Are you still interested in [Niche Product]?

Thanks,

Me

You’ll be tempted to add more. Don’t. The point is to be as personal and real as you possibly can. Leave the conversation open-ended by just including the question. The results are astounding.

Putting It All Together

Education-based marketing is one of the more effective avenues into your customers’ hearts, lives, and pocketbooks.

Instead of just telling your market what they want, give them the facts. In other words, give them all the information they need to not only choose the right product, but solve their most pressing problems before the sale even takes place.

This type of marketing earns trust and loyalty. Moreover, it generates tons of goodwill and positive feedback because it's not pushy or salesy.