You have two choices when you select a marketing message.
You can choose selling-based marketing, in which you take on the role of a salesperson and deliver a sales message, often called a sales pitch. We see selling-based marketing most often in cold-call telephone sales and car dealerships.
Or, you can choose Education-Based Marketing — a discipline and method I created in the 1970s and named in the early 1980s. In this specialized field, you take on the role of a trusted advisor and educate prospective clients about their problems and the solutions you can provide.
You deliver your educational message to prospective clients through educational methods. These include written materials, media publicity, advertising, seminars, newsletters, audio and video messages, websites, and social media. In fact, you can educate your prospective clients using any method by which they can receive your information and advice.
Typically, your Education-Based Marketing program works like this:
You create an educational message, which you first put into the form of written materials. Then you offer your educational materials by putting your message in front of your prospects. You do this through paid advertising, articles in newspapers and magazines, interviews on radio and TV, broadcast commercials, DVDs, newsletters and websites. In addition, you offer to send your new materials to clients and referral sources on your mailing list.
When prospects see your offer, they call your office to request your free information. You respond by sending your materials by hard copy or email — and inviting prospects to take the next step. This may be to attend a free seminar, request a phone consultation, schedule an appointment in your office, or whatever you’d like them to do. In addition, you keep prospects educated long into the future through your educational materials, such as your newsletters and your website.
The more you educate your prospects, the more they grow to trust you, and the more aware they are of how you can help them. This, then, results in their asking you to help them solve their problems.