Educating your customers (and potential customers) about your products and services can be a great way to boost customer satisfaction and engagement with your brand. Consumers require information that is accurate, timely and readily available, to help them get the most out of your brand. Try to incorporate educational content into your marketing strategy, rather than hard-sell and catchy slogans.
Tutorials and Onboarding
A product tutorial is a powerful way to bring your product to life and are an interesting alternative to dull instruction manuals. Tutorials are particularly useful for products where assembly is required. Good tutorials should be easily accessible, concise and easy to understand. Consider using video tutorials or high quality imagery to show users how to use your products. An onboarding program is a good idea when a new customer buys your products or services. Slack uses a step-by-step onboarding process that is quick, easy-to-follow and understandable.
2. Blogs
In addition to writing blog articles about topics relevant to your industry, include product or service-specific angles that describe how your brand provides a solution. Don’t forget to include eye-catching call-to-actions (CTA’s) or use offers and discounts to track how effective each blog is. You could also create customer case studies to show how your brand is helping to solve common problems for other users. Hubspot splits its popular blog into various categories, aligning with its product offering.
3. Video content and demonstrations
Video content is arguably one of the most powerful ways to bring your products to life and explain their unique features. Not only can you help to educate your customers about your products and services, but you’ll also be able to add personality to your brand and encourage engagement.
4. Downloadable ebooks
Downloadable assets such as ebooks are a good way to educate customers on a particular topic or even to explain how your products and services work. Be sure to create a landing page for your downloadable ebook to capture valuable customer data. This will enable you to nurture and maintain the relationship moving forwards.
Download our HelpfulCrowd ebook today and start collecting more product and business reviews today.
5. Customer reviews and user-generated content
One of the best ways to educate potential consumers about your brand is by letting your existing customers do it for you. Customer reviews are a vital part of today’s eCommerce landscape and this user-generated content is often trusted more than any direct brand marketing efforts. Written reviews and video reviews typically tend to discuss your products or services in detail, showing how your brand has helped to solve a problem for the customer. This, in turn, educates others about how you can help and may even drive them to become a brand new customer for your business.
A platform like HelpfulCrowd can help your brand to generate more customer reviews and user-generated content, meaning you’ll have more content to share.
Things to consider when educating customers
- Prove that you feel and understand their pain: Customers want to know that you understand what they’re going through and can (ideally) offer a solution.
- Let customers learn from your mistakes: Share your own experiences and let customers know how you have personally overcome them. Customers respect industry leaders who can speak authoritatively on the issues they face.
- Help your customers get to know you: Showcasing your unique point of view is truly the only way to stand out from your competitors. Let them get under the skin of your brand and show them that your values align.
- Don’t act like you know it all: Be humble. While you and your brand are experts in your field, you’re always learning. Embrace that fact by inviting other industry figures to run Q&As or team up with other brands where shared values and missions align. This can add huge value for your customers and reinforce your own credibility.
