Episode 60 - Educate With Your Content

It's very hard for a business owner, or, you know, somebody who is so involved in the business, like managing the social media or the content strategy, to kind of take a step back and look at things from the point of view of the customer.

So last week we talked about overcoming those different sales objections when selling. Today we're going to kind of flip the gears here and talk about more of, of how to leverage education in your content, which is absolutely the right way to go. Wouldn't you agree?

Absolutely, definitely. Um, especially nowadays where there's resources everywhere you look, you know, people can look up YouTube videos, blogs, anything you need to be Certain that you're adding value to your customers and your viewers' lives with your content, otherwise it's essentially useless.

So yeah, I mean, people are not going online to look you up. They're going online to find a solution to a problem, right? So if you can put content out there that is providing that solution, video, blogs, whatever it is, you know, you're going to get recognized.

So, and that's really when it comes down to trying to come up in search, is trying to leverage your headlines that way, your video titles, your thumbnails, to really kind of stand out, to be like, "Oh, this is, I think, a solution to what I'm looking for." Yeah, exactly, and it all comes down to that value, how you're going to give them value with your content, because so many people, their strategy is just making sure that they're posting once a day or, you know, hitting that benchmark of posts, but it really needs to be about the value. And I think a misconception, too, is that there's different ways to educate. So it's, it's not necessarily all education about your product. That's, that's one kind area, like brand-specific, so that's like product info and features and how to use your product. But there's also like practical, so that's your how-tos and your tutorials, and that can be something that's not directly relevant to your product or your brand, but more so to the pain point of the customer. And then there's also the theoretical, so that's more so your subject expertise and industry knowledge or news that you want to share, so educational in that sense.

For sure. I mean, there's a lot of people searching YouTube on how to fix problems around the house, and you know, if you're looking for how to fix a plumbing problem or electrical issue, most of the people that are actually doing those videos are electricians or plumbers or even, you know, supply companies or like, you know, big hardware stores are putting out this educational content.

Yeah, definitely. And, you know, in that sense, you're also establishing your expertise. So it's building that social proof and the trust and the confidence in you as a— for your offer. So, you know, it really does have an impact on your selling. It's just not the in-your-face kind of selling.

It's indirect, right?

Yeah.

So I guess, how do we go about this, right? So if you're listening and you're like, okay, well, this all makes sense. "this is great, I do this type of business, how do I even start to think of what kind of content to create and how do I do that?

How does that all begin?" Well, I think as with anything, it starts with research, right? If you don't know what your audience wants to learn or what their interests are or, you know, what's the purpose of them even following you, then you're not really going to get far with what you're educating them on, you know, like you need to really do a deep dive You know, that can even be primary research that you're doing yourself, gathering surveys, and I mean social media has made it super easy to do that. There's interactive components on Facebook and Instagram stories that people can just answer, you know, what they want to learn about. So it really is simple, you know, doing those Q&As and surveys to gather that information and insight on what your competition is doing as well and what they aren't doing and just what exactly it is that you're offering audience is misinformed about or what they just have an interest in and want to learn.

You know, and figure out those search phrases or, you know, "How do I do this?" right? Those how-to searches are really, really great and just put yourself in, you know, behind their keyboard and start to do those searches and see are there videos out there, are there blogs, start to consume them like what is this content that is already existing that's there and, you know, when you look at that is like if it's oversaturated You know, you got to look at, you know, am I just kind of just saying the same thing? How can I put a spin on it? Or, you know, if it's something that's really truly a problem in your business that your clients are coming to you for and there's no content out there, you're really going to hit that as like the main person because there's nobody else doing it.

Mm-hmm, exactly. And speaking on that too, we just recently— you shared with me a spreadsheet that has all of the you know, like how-to or top searches that you want to be ranking for. And I think sometimes it can be overwhelming thinking like, well, oh, I'm gonna have to go look into this every single time I want to post. But, you know, doing that work ahead of time, that research ahead of time, having that list to refer back to, planning ahead is really what's going to help you. And it's also going to be that, that those marketing decisions that are based on the stats or, you know, the actual results and the metrics that you're seeing.

Yeah, and what you're referring to is, you know, we're trying to leverage more of YouTube because of its popularity and people going there looking for content is, you know, you're trying to, you know, most people will try to look to come up in a search, right, on YouTube. But we're doing this course that is put up by Brian Dean called First Page Video, and he talks about SVO, right, which is search or suggested video optimization. And he gets most traffic from the suggested videos that show up on the right-hand side after somebody searches for a main video. So really, you're kind of like the step 2. Somebody does a search, you got these high-ranking videos that are there, they watch the video 1, and then you're suggested as another one. And there's a whole strategy and process behind that which we're, we're getting into, getting into the trenches. So it's kind of a different thought process to think about. I was amazed by it because I was completely— you got to come up in search, right? So this was really cool and it makes complete sense.

Yeah, and you know what? That actually perfectly goes into my next tip, which is changing your perspective. So it might seem a little broad, but what I mean by that is it's very hard for a business owner or, you know, somebody who is so involved in the business, like managing the social media or the content strategy, to kind of take a step back and look at things from the point of view of the customer. You know, like even doing a quick audit of who your followers are or who's watching your blog posts and looking at who they're following and what their interests are and, you know, what themes are you seeing in them and then looking at it from that side of things and what, if you were that person, what would you want to see? What blog article title would you click on if you were coming from that side? Their point of view.

Absolutely, right? It's hard to kind of look through that lens from a different angle sometimes, but you just have to do it.

Yeah, and it's, it's never a bad thing to get other people's insights as well. You know, the more people that you ask their opinion of and stuff, it's, it's going to make it better. The more people that it's kind of run by, I guess you could say, even if it's just outside people that you're asking for an opinion.

For sure. So yeah, so we've talked about, you know, educating through your content, you know, the different types, how do you get started. What would you say is, in your opinion, is like the top benefit of this?

Oh, that's a hard one. I would say the top hidden benefit is the, the fact that there is the kind of added bonus of lead qualification. So When a customer does come to you and say they've already consumed a lot of your content, so videos and articles and blog posts or even just social posts, they already know a lot about what you're offering. It kind of weeds out the people in a sense that don't really fit that demographic. And you know, we all know that business owners sometimes can spend a lot of wasted time on leads that aren't quality leads. So I would answer that as my hidden, my secret benefit. A little road around the answer there. But I think the number one benefit of educational content is building the interest and building the desire. If you look at the middle section, the sandwich of the AIDA framework that we talked about in an earlier episode, There's nothing that builds interest more than learning how things work. Whenever I say something like that, I always think back to that show. I'm not sure if you ever saw, I think it was How Things Are Made or something like that. Like that just captures everyone's attention and it's like bubble gum, how bubble gum's made. Nobody actually really truly cares about that, but anyways, it grabs your attention. It builds your interest and then also building the desire because You're educating the, the consumer on what its purpose is, how you can use it, how it'll impact you, all those sorts of things.

I'm going to answer that question too.

Yeah, for sure.

So mine's kind of like twofold because I'm kind of battling between which one is more important. I'm still going to give you both because I'm going to kind of break the rules, but I think one of them is if you were doing education around your product or service and teaching people about that kind of content, you know, it's setting the frame so that when they decide to, you know, call you, contact you, come into your store, they're already kind of in that mindset about how you work, how the product works, how the service is, what the program is, whatever it is. So there's less education you need to do at the time of sale because it's already been done. And the second thing is if you're doing content that is teaching people something that's going to put value in their life, there's a level of reciprocity that happens there where, you know, when you are given something over and over of value, you feel indebted to that person to want to give back to them. So when you think of, let's say, a local plumber who's putting out all these videos on how to fix leaky taps and things like that, and suddenly you want to put in a new bathroom, who are you going to think of? Who's top of mind? You're going to want to call the one who has been in your mind helping you along the way. Versus the 5 others that are in the area, right? So it's not necessarily you're giving content in that situation to try to make the sale, because the sale may come later, not as a direct result of it.

Exactly, yeah, like really focusing on building that base relationship, the trust-based relationship, and then just counting on, you know, the process after that. If you're confident in your product or service and a customer trusts you, then, you know, nothing Only good things can really, really come of that.

Perfect. And you got something else?

Oh, I have a question for you, actually. Okay, this is the question segment.

Great.

So, um, I'm wondering what you think, or what you see, as the, the biggest mistake that, that people make in, uh, in trying to educate with their content. Um, you know, what do they do wrong, or what, even in their content strategy, are, uh are they not including that should be included?

I think the biggest thing is they still haven't given up the, the concept of not trying to sell, right? They'll still go into it saying, okay, I'm going to teach, I'm going to teach, but then I'm going to like keep throwing in there the idea of, hey, if you want to really help with this, then contact us or do this and that. You know, we had a client, or we have a client still, that has been doing information videos for 5 years now every week in her business. Not one of them has a price, a sale, a promotion, anything like that. And it actually has built her business up because she's giving people information about products. And that's just like taking the, the focus and trying not to sell. And I think that's the biggest mistake is, is people trying to tag on the end. You're going to have this hidden agenda that people are like, oh, they're only trying to sell to me, right, and not truly help me.

Absolutely, and I definitely agree with that. I think you see a lot of businesses who just try to sell with every post, which is actually going to have the opposite effect of, you know, increasing sales.

And, you know, just kind of to wrap up here, by listening to this, you're consuming our educational content. This podcast is educational, you know, in its nature. We pick topics that we feel are relevant to business owners that they may need help with. And we're not going to hit the mark every time. You know, maybe an episode where you're like, that doesn't, you know, doesn't appeal to me or is not part of my business. But we're trying to just get a broad scope of everything that's there. So podcasts are a great form of that. Blogs are a great form of that. YouTube videos are a great form of that. I mean, pretty much most content that you see coming out is that way. I mean, if you're going to somebody's YouTube channel and it's just commercials, They haven't, they haven't gotten the memo yet. Yeah, so, but yeah, so I guess my closing remarks to this is look at your content. Is there educational value in it? If there isn't, then try to get it in there. If you haven't done any content, start with that.