What is Educational Content Marketing?

What An Education-Based Marketing Plan Adds to Your Business

Every day, millions of consumers online turn to the internet to get information. We are looking for the answers to our questions, and we want quick, digestible facts. In a world that revolves so heavily around digital platforms, it only makes sense that users are turning to the internet to learn new things in an easy-to-comprehend language. 

But for many brands, this can be a daunting challenge. It can be exceptionally hard to communicate in a clear, concise manner on a digital platform. This is where educational content can come in handy.
 

 

What Is Educational Content?

Simply put, educational content is based on the idea that businesses should teach their audience before trying to sell them something.

Think about it this way. When consumers are at the top of the marketing funnel, they don’t necessarily care what company they choose, as long as the brand in question answers their queries and gives them what they need. Even for leads in the middle of the funnel, it is important to use educational content to establish your brand as a thought leader. With this in mind, companies need to create the majority of their digital content around the consumer’s needs, rather than promoting themselves.

Providing blog posts and marketing copy that is informative and educational enables any brand to target consumers right throughout their customer journey. In fact, immediately after reading content, consumers were 131 percent more likely to convert than those who did not consume the content. Additionally, when comparing four brands, prospects were 83.6 percent more likely to make a purchase from the company that provided educational content. The results are clear. With educational content, you’ll bring in new audiences, nurture leads who want to learn more and eventually convince them to buy your product.

 

What is Educational Content Marketing?

Educational content marketing aims to provide value to your audience by educating them on specific topics. Its goal is to provide valuable insights and establish credibility with the intended audience.

 

What are the Goals of Educational Content?

Engage Users

When you create content that users online feel something about, it encourages customer interaction. This may include highly creative ideas, something happy, something thought-provoking or else wise. Building and developing content like this increases the shareability of the piece, which gets users more involved.
 

Increase Brand Awareness

Educational content is used by companies to educate users on your brand. This allows for materials and resources to be built around specific topics related to what you do. Being able to recognize a brand leads to customer retention and trust.
 

Improve Online Sales & Generate Leads

Educational content that works will drive more traffic to your website. When your traffic increases, your users will become more interactive with your site, which can increase the chances of conversion on site. The more you utilize valuable information in order to educate your users, the more you improve the chance of making sales online.
 

Increase Customer Retention Rates

Customer retention is often overlooked by marketers in favor of flashier metrics such as leads generated or new sale opportunities. However, it is much more expensive to generate a new customer over maintaining an existing customer. Providing educational content helps to create customer loyalty, which leads to customer retention. This increases your opportunity of turning one-time buyers into longer-term customers.

Even small increases in customer retention rates can mean big wins for your company. According to one study, conducted by Bain & Company and Earl Sasser of Harvard Business School, a 5% improvement in retaining customers can improve profits between 25%-95%.
 

What Makes Educational Content Important?

Industries are constantly changing and shifting, whether that be health care, finance or law. With the emergence of new technologies, customers need to stay at the forefront of the news in order to remain competitive. To quench the need for information, people look to experts in specific fields who can break down these complicated concepts into something that is tangible and sensible. This educational content can include an analysis of business news, curated content from a trusted source or licensed content from a thought leader. 
 

Additionally, 40 percent of buyers are parsing through three to five pieces of content before they even interact with a sales person. As the customer journey becomes more digitized, educational content becomes increasingly important. Once a consumer knows that a brand can provide them topically relevant information, chances are, they’ll keep going back for more. This leads to building both brand awareness and brand authority, plus conversions.
 

Types of Educational Content

Blog Posts

Blog posts are very versatile, shareable, and great for improving traffic to your site. Finding creative topics that you can build out based on what users are searching for drives them in your direction.
 

Videos

Video content is a highly effective way to engage users. They are an interactive way to teach and educate an audience in a different format from the traditional blog. You could potentially produce how-to tutorial videos, create different playlists, and more. Alternatively, you can license video content from industry leaders or thought leaders.
 

Newsletters

Newsletters can be an important way to remind your customers about new products, how to use your product and more. They can also ease non-customers into becoming users of your product. By sending educational content via newsletter, you can keep users engaged with your brand.

When creating emails for your audience, consider leveraging curated newsletters and emails. According to some reports, curated content leads to 33% more clicks than in-house content. By featuring a mix of types of content, you can ensure you are delivering value to your audience that will lead to more engagement.
 

Infographics & High-Quality Images

Infographics can help make it easier for audiences to understand more complex narratives through a data-driven perspective. Things like charts, graphs, maps and illustrations that are held to the same journalistic standards as written content can be as effective.
 

Licensed Content

Licensed content from reputable publications can be a great tool to generate leads, while engaging your audience. By partnering with reputable publications, you can rest assured that you are providing your audience with educational and credible content. Additionally, most publishers are adding paywalls, making it harder to access this material. Since only 20% of Americans pay for online news and even fewer pay for a second subscription, you’ll be able to offer your audience unique content.
 

Webinars

Webinars are a popular way to generate leads while educating audiences. Consider leveraging a thought leader or a customer to discuss challenges that may be facing your target audience’s industry.
 

7 Reasons to Use Education-Based Marketing

1. It Addresses the Challenges of Your Customers

Consumers want to know that they are being heard. When you address the challenges of your customers and create content that interests, engages and educates them, customers are provided with tools and solutions that address their specific challenges. As your team develops content, have conversations with customers on what they are struggling with. Incorporate feedback from sales, since they interact with both clients and prospects. And as a result, consumers would feel heard and respected, and will want to come back for more. 
 

2. It Adds Value to Your Brand

Educational content creates something that cannot be replicated: value. Any business in your industry that does what you do can quickly address the challenge of your consumer with their products and services. You most likely aren’t the only business doing what you do, so you’ll need to find a way to extract value from the content marketing strategy.
 

Educational-based marketing creates something that cannot be replicated: value.
 

3. It Breaks Down Complicated Concepts

Educational blog posts, infographics and videos can break down confusing topics in a way that is engaging and easy for an audience to understand. Not everyone is an expert in what you do, and if you create a piece of content that can be understood by both a beginner and a pro, you can capture a much larger audience.

For example, depending on the format of content you create, you can have a very high-level post that provides an overview of a complicated topic but is broken down into digestible chunks. Or, you can create a post that gets into nitty-gritty details if you think this will be helpful for your readers to know and will positively affect their buyer journey.
 

4. It Provides New Information on Topics of Interest

If your audience is already familiar with and interested in your topic, don’t worry. You can easily capture those who are more experienced in your line of work by showcasing new trends on specific topics of interest. For example, if your company is a fintech company, including financial news in your content strategy can help build trust with customers and educate your audience.

Your target audience will be more likely to continue learning new information through your content, and if you keep up this cadence, they will look at your content as a source for up-to-date industry information.
 

5. It Establishes You as a Thought Leader

Not all content is considered equal, and if you have knowledge of a specific something in your industry, you need to showcase it. Creating educational, yet distinct, information is a surefire way to establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry. As long as the content you produce is consistent and credible, you’ll soon have a great marketing asset on your hands. Plus, having this highly valuable and relevant information for your readers will allow you to stand out from competitors; your information will speak for itself.

 

6. It Nurtures Leads

You will want to capture leads, no matter where the consumer stands in the marketing funnel, and a strong educational content strategy allows this to happen. As you educate your potential users, they will continue to learn the value of your product or solution, and the more likely they’ll be to eventually request a demo or a phone call, and convert.

Additionally, about one in every two B2B buyers is relying more on content when making final purchase decisions. Seventy-one percent of buyers are consuming blog content prior to making a purchase. Educational content is a vital component in nurturing leads, ultimately prompting a purchase and improving your content ROI. 

 

7. It Creates Trust With Your Target Audience

Even a week after reading educational content, there was a 9 percent increase in perceived trustworthiness. Additionally, there was an 8 percent increase in how positive consumers felt about a brand. Educational content can have long-term effects in establishing trust with consumers and increasing credibility.
 

8. It Increases Traffic to Your Site

Content marketing can be used to increase traffic to your website. Since educational content will focus on the challenges and questions your target audience has, blog posts dedicated to education can bring in new leads and visits to your website. Educational marketing can be a core cornerstone in any successful blog strategy.

 

Getting Started with an Educational Strategy

Create Personas

The first step in getting started in an educational strategy is to create personas. Your team should have a good understanding of their pain points and their goals. Content marketing teams should work together with business development, sales, and product to get more insight into your target market. 

 

Create Content in a Wide Variety of Formats

Consider the customer journey and how your personas interact with content. If they are on social media or reading certain industry pubs, your team will need assets to engage with them there. Consider testing different formats such as blog posts, emails, and webinars to see what is most profitable. 

 

Provide Value

The most important component of educational content is providing value. This content is not promotional and seeks to educate the target audience on a specific issue. The goal is to build credibility and authority within the marketplace.

 

Create Content at Regular Intervals

Quality and quantity both matter in a content marketing program. It’s important to deliver valuable insights. However, to develop more meaningful relationships, it’s also important to engage with users regularly. Consider outsourcing content development or licensing content to add additional perspectives and more content to your editorial calendar.

 

Create Goals

As with all marketing initiatives, your team should create goals and KPIs. Consider the business goals and how this strategy can align with these goals. 

 

Build Customer Trust

When customers educate themselves, they typically educate themselves by sifting through all the noise online. They usually look for the most relevant information that can help them make the most educated decision. Nearly 7 out of 10 decision makers agree that the pandemic resulted in a large increase in thought leadership content being developed. However, most of these decision-makers also think that less than 50% of what they read delivers value. By focusing on educational content, marketers can build trust with these thought leaders while delivering value.
 

How to Create Better Educational Content 

There are a few ways any business, regardless of marketing experience, can create educational content. Here are some ideas that will help elevate your content creation to the next level. 
 

1. Focus on the Consumer and Not the Product

As mentioned before, educational content is not meant to be a sales pitch. Focus on your clients, whether by homing in on their pain points or educating them on a particular topic area. Doing so makes a consumer feel that you are speaking directly to them and their concerns.

 

2. Leverage Thought Leadership

Thought leadership content can be a great way to provide insights from industry experts. And you may be an expert in your industry without even noticing it! But if you’re looking for additional content to supplement your content strategy, consider licensing content from world-class writers and experts to show a variety of perspectives. The New York Times Licensing Group provides multiple content licensing opportunities that empower companies to connect with their audiences, while harnessing the strength of world-class journalism.

 

3. License Content From Industry Experts

Licensed content can help your team establish credibility with your audience. By showcasing outside perspectives and voices, you can provide a more comprehensive view of trends happening inside your clients’ industries. In fact, 94 percent of survey respondents frequently or occasionally find content created by a third party more credible. Including content from outside sources can help build trust, since it will be seen as more authentic.

 

4. Showcase Industry Insights or News

By curating news or offering insights on industry trends, you’ll increase your credibility with different prospects and clients visiting your website. You only have one chance to make a first impression, and showcasing news from a trusted source will go far toward promoting your brand as a whole.

 

5. Make Relevant Content

Brand owners sometimes assume that the content they think of creating is also the content their customers will want or need to consume. When this is the case, business owners are often left not understanding why they aren’t getting results. Educational content marketing helps ease pain points and gives users the answers they are out there looking for. 

 

6. Create a Consistent Brand

Brands have the ability to be whoever they want when curating their voices and tone. Each piece of content should reflect how you want your brand to be perceived. You’ll want to remain consistent across your content pieces as well as your sharing channels.

 

7. Choose Unique Topics 

It’s true that most topics have been written about in the large world of content creation. However, there is always another perspective from which you can analyze. 

When an audience is searching for a specific solution, they are probably going to end up in a sea of the same information. Having a unique approach is crucial to users sitting up and taking notice. Consider partnering with thought leaders, industry experts, or customers to showcase a new idea on old topics or themes. 

 

8. Repurpose Content

A great educational resource does not need to have a one-time use. Almost all content can be repurposed in a lot of different ways, such as a series of blogs, a video related to the topic being explained further.. Repurposing your content makes it so that you’re doing less work while also getting as many forms of a similar resource out as possible. You can also consider repurposing content from other thought leaders or industry experts.

 

9. Create High-Quality Material at Consistent Intervals

Both quality and quantity matter when connecting with consumers. It’s important to showcase content at regular intervals to build that relationship with customers. However, this information must also be high-quality or you risk becoming part of the noise. 

 

10. Leverage Journalism

There are numerous reasons to leverage journalism in your content marketing strategy. Journalism seeks to convey an objective truth while educating audiences. In order to leverage journalism in your content marketing, consider the following steps:

• Hiring former journalists as content writers
• Following journalistic best practices when creating new content pieces
• Leveraging storytelling techniques across your content
• Licensing content from reputable publications

 

Examples of an Educational Content Strategy 

Looking at other brands’ success with their educational content strategy can help you craft your own. Here are some great content marketing examples from brands that have seen success by leveraging educational material in their strategy. 
 

Moz Educates Users on SEO Best Practices

Moz is an SEO software and data analytics company that brings information on digital marketing to a wide audience. In order to explain these sometimes complex concepts, Moz leverages a service called White Board Fridays to educate its audiences on SEO best practices. 

Moz first started creating these informative videos when it was a small company that didn’t even sell SEO software yet. Now, the White Board Fridays concept has become so popular that the videos have amassed millions of views and have gone on to train thousands of marketers of all backgrounds.

 

Google Offers Free Trainings

As the king of all search engines, Google provides a wealth of free information to its users. Its goal is to make training available on all of its software products, so everything is accessible to the public. To do this, Google offers free classes and certifications for its tools through its Academy for the Ads, and the company’s classes all feature trained instructors, videos and product tutorials.

 

AdvisorStream Leverages Licensed Content to Expand Its Content Offerings

AdvisorStream is an award-winning digital marketing platform that uses licensed content from reputable publications to help financial advisors turn clicks into conversions. AdvisorStream worked with NYTLicensing solutions to help build trust and credibility with consumers through compelling and relevant content. 

AdvisorStream seeks to expand its overall content offerings through editorial content and licensed content from NYTLicensing. Because creating a cross-platform content strategy — and creating and executing content — can be costly, a partnership with NYTLicensing provided an effective solution. Through one copyright license, AdvisorStream delivered high-quality, licensed content and succeeded in both improving relationships with customers and boosting conversions with new consumers. Its platform used content from both The New York Times and the Harvard Business Review. 

As a result of this partnership, the licensed content gave AdvisorStream’s clients an authoritative advantage, allowing them to stand out amid the clutter and noise of other brands. From January to June 2020, AdvisorStream saw a 200 percent increase in views from its licensed content and a 260 percent increase in lead capture from its platform.

 

Industries that Can Benefit from Educational Marketing

Below are some industries that can benefit from educational content marketing:
 

Fintech & Financial Services

Fintech and financial service content marketing has garnered a reputation for being dry and difficult to digest.  By leveraging educational marketing, you can focus on the end-user and their concerns. For example: Betterment has a resource section of its site dedicated to questions users may have about money. By making content digestible and easy to understand, companies can better connect with audiences. 

 

Banking

Content marketers in the banking industry should concentrate on educational materials to help their audiences. Consumers will often have questions regarding savings rates, retirement, and how economic trends may impact finances. By focusing on an educational marketing strategy, banks can better connect with consumers and become a trusted source for news and updates. 

 

Pharmaceutical

In an age of misinformation, it can be difficult for consumers to discern what is true and what is false. For pharmaceutical content marketers, content marketing must be educational and easy to understand. By providing clear and concise information, content marketers can become a trusted source of information for doctors and patients. 

 

Healthcare

Healthcare content marketing should focus at least part of its strategy on creating credible and educational resources for consumers. 52% of consumers are concerned that healthcare content is not credible or accurate. 47% of those surveyed are also concerned that the information being presented is trying to sell a product or a service. Healthcare marketers can combat these concerns by presenting unbiased and accurate information.

 

Medical Device

Connect with healthcare professionals by showcasing important content that delivers value and provides insight. When your team focuses your medical device content marketing on high-value and newsworthy information, you can create better relationships with your target audience.

 

Biotech Companies

In an age of misinformation, biotech content marketing teams can build trust through high-quality materials and resources. Consider showcasing information from thought leaders, medical journals, and world class journalists.

 

 

Final Thoughts 

When executed consistently, educational content can work to improve your brand visibility and customer loyalty. By creating quality content that focuses on the needs and wants of your consumers, you can effectively build a brand well-positioned to be a thought leader in your industry. 

Amplify your content strategy by using licensed content from the NYTLicensing Solutions Group. Streamline your existing communications, supplement your ongoing marketing campaigns, and appeal to prospective and returning consumers by partnering with us. Learn more about our content licensing offerings here. 
 

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Educational Marketing?

Educational marketing leverages educational materials to both entertain and educate audiences. Educational marketing focuses on the challenges a target audience may face or trends in the industry, instead of the product. It can include thought leadership, research studies, and educational webinars.  This tactic is a great way to improve customer retention rates and generate leads.
 

What is the Purpose of Educational Content?

Education content serves to provide value to end-users by providing high-quality information, instead of promoting a product. This kind of content can build trust with end-users and establish authority in the marketplace.
 

How Do You Create Educational Content?

Educational content should be created with the end-user in mind, instead of the product or service your team can provide. To create educational content, it’s first important to identify what challenges your target audience may face and how to address these obstacles. Your team should also be open to testing various formats, such as webinars, online courses, videos, blog posts, and social media to better understand what resonates with your audience. Finally, your team will need to determine who and how the content will be created. Consider leveraging a mix of in-house content, thought leadership, and licensed content for the best results. 
 

How Do You Educate a B2B Customer?

Educational content is a practical and effective way to educate B2B customers, since it’s providing valuable insights and information. However, before creating this kind of content,  it’s important to consider the following:

• Thought leaders and content creators: Are there specific thought leaders you can leverage to provide value? Can you outsource some of your content development efforts to industry leaders to provide new and exciting insights?
• Formats: What formats does your target audience like to consume?
• KPIs: What are the goals of your educational content?
   

Why Do You Want to Educate Your Consumer Through Content Marketing?

Content marketing and business development can work together, to drive customer loyalty and sales. By educating consumers, you can establish credibility with your target market while building valuable relationships with customers and consumers. In fact, 53% of decision-makers increased the amount of business they did with a company after reading their thought leadership. 54% also noted that they had purchased a product or service from a company, which had not been previously considered prior to them engaging with the thought leadership.

How Do You Promote Educational Content?

You can promote educational content in the following ways:

• Emails to your database
• CTA banners on your blog
• Blog posts
• Social media posts
• Content syndication