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10 Educational Based Marketing Ideas to Establishing Yourself as the Expert

by Kristin Neperud
Submitted: Friday, September 28, 2007

Have you ever attended a lecture or workshop and afterwards found you wanted to hire the speaker to help you or your business? I think we all have. But would you still want to hire him/her if you knew the speaker cost more then the guy sitting next to you who claims to do the same thing... probably!! Why? Because in our minds, the speaker is the expert. They just proved to us that they know what they are talking about (at least hopefully anyway).

When we perceive that someone is knowledgeable in an area it creates a sense of trust and reassurance with them - an invaluable trust. It tells our mind that "Hey, if I was working with that person, I know I would be doing things correctly and seeing results for my effort. As for Joe Schmoe sitting next to me - he says he knows what he is doing, but how do I know that is true? Better not risk it - it is probably smarter to spend the extra money and know it is done right by going with the expert."

So now what if YOU were that expert? Wouldn’t it be better to have people coming to you and asking YOU for help rather than you coming to them trying to prove that whatever gizmo or service you were peddling was worth the time for them to look at? And wouldn’t it be better to just name your price, vs. having to keep knocking down your price to stay competitive?

So how do you do that? How do YOU become the expert? How do you state your fee and expect to get it?

First thing - BE the expert!!
Get the education and experience you need to BE the expert. And if you can’t walk the walk, don’t even try to fake it. That old saying "Fake it till you make it" - throw it out the window. If you don’t know something let your clients or perspective clients know that.
It’s perfectly ok to say, "I’m not too sure about that. Let me look into it a bit and get back to you." I have also told clients, "You know what - that really isn’t my area. I would like to refer you to _____ for that part of the project if you don’t mind." Only to have them thank me for my honesty and give me MORE work in my own area of expertise. In my own business I have found honesty about the things I don’t know about to be a great way to reassure clients of the things I DO know about.

So once you do know what you are talking about in your chosen area of expertise you need to be KNOWN as the expert.

I have found the best way to do that is by letting people know you know what you know by letting them know what you know - better known as “Educational Based Marketing.”

EMPOWER your existing clients with your expertise. Don’t hold it over them.
I watched an IT guy lose one of his main clients by talking down to them and holding his knowledge over them. I think he thought he would be MORE valuable to them if he knew so much more then they did that they felt vulnerable without him - talk about a backfire!! He was fired as soon as my client found someone who could do the job and NOT be a jerk while doing it.

I have found the more I pass on my knowledge, the more my clients know I am there for them.

When prospective clients call me about my services they are usually nervous. I get a lot further with them with a no bullsh@t approach and by answering their questions by helping them to understand the process of web design, then I would if I try to "sell" them my services. When I empower them with my knowledge they feel more comfortable. When they feel more comfortable, they are more inclined to want to work with me.

Some great ways to empower your clients and prospective clients is by offering them knowledge - by doing educational based marketing. Here are ten proven tactics to help establish yourself as the expert through educational based marketing.

1. Do a newsletter (on the internet or in the mail)

Even if it is just a monthly list of hints and tips. Keep passing them knowledge and empowering them, and the next time they need someone with your expertise, they will remember where all their great tips come from.

But make sure you are giving them GOOD content each time. Giving them "fluff copy" or a sales pitch is the fastest way to make them lose interest in you and just delete your emails as they come in.

If you want to produce an e-newsletter and are not web-tech savvy I would recommend www.myemma.com. If you are a bit more techie, www.campaignmonitor.com or www.aweber.com are good options.

If you are not sure you can create enough content, partner with some non-competing businesses in your industry to create a theme newsletter with several experts. Ie. The real estate agent, mortgage broker and house inspector could pool their expertise to make a much more in-depth newsletter than just one on mortgages. Plus by pooling your lists you can reach a broader audience (just make sure everyone has opted-in to the lists). Insights and Lessons, www.insightsandlessons.com/main/info.aspx, offers a great way to pool your resources and create a community newsletter.

2. Become a public speaker
If you have a topic you feel you could pass on knowledge about - there is probably someone out there who is looking for that knowledge. Approach your local Chamber of Commerce or Small Business Association and see if you can give a lecture at one of their upcoming meetings. Most now offer an "Expert Luncheon" or something to that effect.
Once you do that, don’t forget to let others know that you do public speaking. List it on your website under services, or add it to your bio. If people don’t know that you do that - they probably won’t ask you.

3. Write and publish YOUR book.
The fastest way to be the expert is to have that book you wrote in your hands and be able to show people -- EVEN IF THEY NEVER READ IT! As an author, you have instant credibility on the subject. It can help you get speaking engagements. Plus once you write it and get it in print, you will also have created a potentially good source of residual income for yourself. People can buy your book after your talk, or off your website. Amazon.com will let you add it to their site for free.... and every time someone buys it you got money coming in for not a lot more work.

Finding a publisher is the best way to go, but often very difficult. But with today's technology, you don’t even need to worry about finding a publisher as self-publishing is getting easier and easier. If your book does well enough, you can then try to sell it to a publisher, or use its track record to pitch your next book.

If you decide to self-publish, you don’t even have to go through the expense of doing your own large printing and storing them in your garage hoping the roof won’t leak all over your book anymore. Companies like www.lightningsource.com and www.booksurgepages.com will do print-on-demand, and will ship them for you too!

4. Write an E-book or report.
Don’t want to go through the hassle of printing a book or don’t quite have enough content to make it look like a "real" book? Create a downloadable PDF of your book or report. If the content is good enough - charge for it! Again, great residual income. Plus there is this weird stigma that can be attached to free things - like somehow if it is free it is not as good. So charge a little something for it and somehow the info just became more legit. Paypal (www.paypal.com) is great way to collect a credit card charge without a lot of to do.

5. Write articles....
go for the printed page...
Issue a press release giving some knowledge on something you know about. You can go through companies like us.cision.com or www.prweb.com to name a few.

Or go a step further, and ask your local paper if you can do a weekly article on your area of expertise. It can’t hurt to ask. Also, don’t forget about local organizations. Many of them send notices and newsletter out to their members and are looking for content to go in them.

or submit them online....
You could try to do a press releases and hope someone notices it, or make things easy on yourself and submit them to places online that WANT to publish your work for FREE. Sites like www.insightsandlessons.com and www.ezinearticles.com are looking for good content. If you can provide it - they will publish it AND give you a link back to your website. This is great for your SEO (Search Engine Optimization). The more links you have pointing at your site, the more important the search engines will think your site is, and will rank it higher. By submitting articles that give you links back you can not only get yourself established as an expert, but you can also improve your SEO. So it is to your advantage to send multiple articles and get lots of links.

Plus by using sites like this, they are working to get more traffic to their sites. So use them to drive traffic to yourself vicariously. The more they market themselves, the more they market YOUR articles for free.

6. Offering a class on a topic you know about
If you are a large company, offer a class inviting your clients and prospective clients. Webinars or group conference calls are a good way to include your clients that are in different areas.

If you are a small consulting firm, offer to do a one-on-one with your clients. You may be wondering how that will get you more business.... well, good customer service with your existing clients can open up a lot of good word of mouth.

OR, you can offer your classes online. Online classes and tutorials are becoming more and more popular. And with the latest advances in technology can be really interesting to boot. Wink (debugmode.com/wink) is a free tool that allows you to create screencast tutorials. Or you can really fancy it up and add video and flash quizzes - though that will probably need the help of an expert.

(Sneaky little hint: If there are templates or outlines or anything useful from the lectures, put them on your website as downloadable PDFs and refer people back to your site to get them. These are often called "white papers." Be sure to put your contact info on all the pages so they don’t forget who gave them all this valuable free stuff.)

7. Do a blog or podcast
Blogs and podcasts can be a great way for you to continually update people on what is spilling out of your head. www.blogger.com or www.myspace.com are just a few of the more popular, free places you can blog.

Don’t want to write it? Well then say it with a podcast!! Of course you do need to record it and house it somewhere. You can go to www.how-to-podcast-tutorial.com to learn how to set up a free podcast. (Is anyone recalling what I mentioned about tutorials?) iTunes will even post a link to them for free.

A word of caution with Blogs and podcasts - Just make SURE it is good content. I saw a great blog fly quickly off my radar once the writer decided to add in a little "soap opera" which rumor had it was mirroring her life!! If you are going to do a blog you should be updating it daily, bi-weekly at the minimum. If you don’t think you can do that, stick with the article submissions or newsletters. Otherwise, why would people keep checking back to your blog if there is nothing new there?

8. Create an Info-Site or Micro-Sites
Info-Site
This is different from your main website. Your main website is all about your business - an info-site is all about your industry and what info your potential clients are seeking.

For example, if your business sells cooking utensils, your website probably tells people about your products, your pricing, and how they can order from you. An info site is a site that appeals to your target demographic. It might be a site called bakingforbeginners.com and have recipes and advice on how to bake the best bundt cake in the world..... of course alongside that article is an ad for your cooking utensils.

Info sites can give you the benefits of a blog by establish you as an expert in your industry. They also do not have the pressure for you to be on a schedule for updating them.

Micro-Sites
This is also different from your main website. Again, your main website is all about your business - a micro site is a niche site. It could be about a particular product of yours, instead of ALL of the products you sell.

To keep with our example, if your business sells cooking utensils, this site might be all about 1 particular widget. All of the pages on the site are about that widget and its benefits. And of course there is a link back to your main site on all of the site’s pages - which again, helps you with that SEO stuff.

9. Videos
If you’re like me, you are a visual learner. I need someone to SHOW me the best way, not just tell me. Online videos are great. Just make sure you put in the "credits" at the end and get people to know where to find out more information on you. Of course, www.youtube.com is the big giant here and is free too.

10. Don’t forget to Maintain your Identity
Make sure people know what you want them to know about you. Have you ever Googled yourself? What comes up? Creating sites and submitting articles is a great way to control what comes up about you or what your name is linked to. Register your name.com - it cost $15 or less per year depending on the site you go through - www.doter.com is a reliable site I use. If you can, create a website which tells the world about what you are an expert in. If you can’t, at least secure your name.com and park it so no one else can take it. After all, how many John Smith’s are there in the world? If your name is John Smith, wouldn’t you want people to know about what YOU are all about, vs. the traffic violation that one of the OTHER John Smith’s just got?

Are you on Facebook or Linked In? Well make sure people can see from your bio what you are about and make sure to update it and keep it professional. It is much more important to let them know that you are the expert at getting barnacles off a boat and that you also provide that service, than it is that you like sailing and moonlit walks on the beach. (Unless you are looking for dates..... then ok, fine, let the potential suitors know what you are about.)

Just get yourself and your knowledge out there.
Let people know that YOU are the expert and what you are all about.