Educating your Customers is the New Marketing Strategy

Your business has developed a competitive product. To you, it is the best in the market. However, do your customers know the full potential of the product or service you are offering? Most marketers would answer – ‘NO’.

If you know that your product or service is a solution to the customer’s problem, how do you help them discover this? The answer is customer education.

In today’s competitive marketplace where small and large enterprises thrive, a lot of brands shy away from educating their customers because they feel like when a customer ‘knows too much; they’re less likely to be loyal to the brand.

Maybe, this was the case a few years ago. The marketing landscape has changed dramatically and today customer education is more important than ever. Owing to emerging technologies and better access to resources, a customer feels more empowered today. Only talking about yourself is going to take your brand nowhere. Focus on delivering true value to your audience instead.

3 Ways to Educate Customers through Marketing

When we say ‘education’, we don’t expect you to call each and every customer and explain what you do. Educating a customer through marketing can take several forms such as ‘how-to’ and tutorials, product demonstrations and deep dives into specific subjects. Today, a lot of emerging brands are collaborating with Instagram and YouTube influencers to achieve this objective.

Use the following methods to empower your customers like never before:

1. Create a hands-on experience: Customer education can be achieved by creating a hands-on experience. If you sell your products through an online channel, create opportunities for customers to touch, feel and experience your products offline. Since most people are kinaesthetic learners, they need to get their hands on something to learn how it really works. Apple aces the games when it comes to educating its customer base through a hands-on experience. Furniture stores such as Pepperfry and Urban Ladder have also developed a strong foothold through their experience centres.
   

Product Reviews: In this social media age, product reviews are everything. A fool-proof way to take your sales up a notch is by collaborating with influencers and sending out products for them to review. The medium works particularly well if you’re targeting a millennial client. While it reinforces trust, it also enhances a customer’s knowledge about a particular product’s features. India’s largest at-home services provider UrbanClap has been generating a buzz by getting celebrities and influencers to review their services. The campaign on Instagram has managed to garner a reach of over 1.5 million with an estimated spend between Rs. 20-25 lakh.

Tutorials, Vlogs & Demonstrations: Tutorials or product demonstrations are also an excellent way to educate your customers. It’s not only a great chance for you to show off your product but also gives your customers insights into how the product will work in a real-life situation. When the benefits become clear to them, they will be more motivated to purchase the same.

As a brand, if you are seeking loyal and happy customers, education is the way to go. When customers are better informed, it paves the way for a long-term relationship.