Content Marketing Today

Business Week: Educational Marketing = Content Marketing = More $$!

Give your prospects a free education that will solve a problem. That’s the way to turn a cold call into a warm call–and accelerate your sales curve, according to a recent Businessweek.com article. We may think of it as content marketing rather than ‘educational’ marketing but the intent is the same: To become a trusted advisor to your clients by delivering content that provides benefit to them first–and to your company only later.

As Christine Comaford-Lynch explains it in the article, if you offer educational content that is precisely targeted to solving a problem that plagues your clients, you will have a much easier time getting to see them–and getting them to listen carefully to what you have to say. As she puts it,

Sales is about building rapport, not breaking it. When you sell or pitch, you’re often breaking rapport because the prospect may be skeptical—no one wants to be “sold.” When you educate, you are building rapport. Your credibility is increased significantly when you begin meetings with data that is of value to the prospect. Launch all your meetings by teaching your prospect something or by offering data that establishes that you’ve done your homework.

Although she focuses primarily on several face-to-face sales situations, it’s clear that content marketing approaches designed for sales calls are equally effective in a variety of marketing contexts. In fact, she concludes with a challenge for marketers:

What kind of a free education could you offer that would make your prospects want to meet with you, respond to your ad, or take an interest in your direct mail approach?

Be sure to read the entire BW article. Christine offers lots of examples that explain just how to work toward becoming a trusted advisor through the effective use of content marketing to educate your prospects so that they are much more likely to become your customers.