Let’s take a trip down memory lane and back to school.
Everyone remembers that one ‘cool teacher’. Why do we remember them? Firstly, they were more memorable than the other teachers. Of course, you also probably remember a particularly mean teacher. So why do we remember them in a good way? Not only were they memorable, but they also made their classes enjoyable. They were laid back, entertaining, they treated you as a friend and created a fun learning environment. You looked forward to their class and as a result, you learned more.
As Content Marketers, we must channel our inner ‘cool teacher’
We’re going to look at why the role of an educator is so important in content marketing. We’re also going to discuss how to be an effective educator and what common mistakes to avoid. While we explore this topic, continue to ask yourself:
- How can I teach this in a way that stands out?
- How would a cool teacher make my subject fun?
Teaching your audience is important but being the ‘cool teacher’ makes you memorable and being memorable is the goal of content marketing. Keep this analogy in mind because we’ll touch on it again in later articles.
Why the role of an educator is so important?
Content marketing 101 – The basic idea of content marketing is to give as much as you possibly can and in return, your audience will reward you by being your loyal customers.
Think in terms of Newton’s Third Law “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”. The more you give, the happier your audience is, the more they love you and the more they will reward you.
Obviously, we can’t give away money, expensive products or service. We still need to run a profitable business. Fortunately for us, the most valuable gift doesn’t cost anything. That is the gift of knowledge.
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world” – Nelson Mandela
In my humble opinion, the role of an educator is probably the most important role we play because it is the most direct way in which we can improve the lives of our audience.
You probably have your own example of this already. Can you think of a time when you were really stuck with something? Maybe your website wasn’t working, maybe you were studying for an exam or you needed to fix something around the house. You couldn’t figure it out for the life of you! Eventually, you did some Googling and found a random guy on the internet whose content helped you out.
Problem solved, relief! Think about how thankful you were to ‘Mr. Random Guy’. Maybe you kept returning to Mr. Random Guy’s website or YouTube channel and before you knew it, you were a fan!
This happened to me recently. I had a persistent hamstring injury that just would not heal. It went on for almost a year. I went to a doctor and several physiotherapists, but it wasn’t getting any better. Then one day I found the YouTube channel of Bob and Brad “the two most famous physical therapists on the internet”. I started practicing their excises and started making a recovery. While I’m not fully healed, I’m much better than I was before and as a result, I now recommend their channel to everyone I know.
An educated customer is an excellent customer
The main benefit you’ll receive from educating your audience is that educated customers make the best customers. They understand how you can help them. They’re less likely to cause problems and they’re loyal. They know what they’re buying and understand the value in what you offer. It’s much easier to sell to an existing customer than it is to capture a new one. It’s also much easier to retain customers is they understand the value in your product or service.
Common mistakes to avoid
Now we’ve covered the importance of educating our audience, we need to do it effectively. Be the cool teacher, think about ways to make what you’re teaching interesting, different, exciting and fun. But beware, there are some common mistakes to avoid. I have selected some mistakes that I regularly notice in content published online.
The deadliest mistake I see is the attempt to disguise a sales pitch as educational content. Many businesses do this without realising. Perhaps they truly believe that pitching their product is the best way to help their audience (businesses selling educational courses are particularly guilty of this). Resist this urge at all costs. You will lose the trust of a new reader the moment that they suspect your sole aim is to sell them something. You can link to your website at the end of the content but do not push for a sale. If you’ve impressed them enough, they’ll come looking by themselves.
Important note: you can release sales-related content provided you are upfront about it and you don’t try to disguise it as something else. Ensure you have built significant trust with your audience before doing this. This will be covered in the article on the role of the promoter.
The next mistake is writing articles that are so long that the reader rarely finishes them. Yes, long articles are better for SEO and I understand that some people like reading them but not everybody. In my experience, people on the internet have short attention spans. What is the perfect article length? Just long enough to teach your audience what they need to know without touching irrelevant details or repeating itself. Avoid this trap by asking yourself some simple questions:
- Does every paragraph add value?
- Is every paragraph a unique point?
- Am I repeating myself?
- Can I make this point with fewer words?
Obviously, you’ve got to find a balance. A bullet point list is not as enjoyable to read as an article full of interesting content and examples.
On the other hand, avoid writing articles that are so short that they fail to teach real actionable steps. Writing a short piece of generic advice without substance is not educating your audience. It’s also a good idea to include at least one resource such as a checklist or template. This gives your audience a tangible benefit. Also, they will remember you every time they use that resource.
Another common mistake is overestimating your audience’s understanding of your subject. You’re the expert, chances are that your audience is not. Unless you’re writing for a very specific niche (like a professional journal), your content should be comprehensible to anyone. Ask a friend or family member with little knowledge of the subject matter to check it. They can tell you what they couldn’t understand. This allows you to add clarifications to the content based on their feedback.
Another mistake is not actually solving a problem. This is a planning issue as much as a content creation issue.
From the planning perspective, you need to make sure you’re teaching something that people will benefit from. There’s no point in solving a problem which nobody has. This article topic was relatively easy because plenty of people create content and I can see with my own eyes that people either miss the importance of educating their audience or make mistakes.
From the content creation perspective, you must avoid dancing around the subject and failing to give any real usable advice. Each piece of content you create should be enough in isolation to make a positive impact in the lives of your audience. There is nothing worse than an article that promises to do something and then doesn’t deliver it.
Wait, there is one thing worse.
An article that promises to give the reader something, doesn’t fulfill that promise but instead tries to sell something that will give the benefit initially promised. DO NOT BE THAT PERSON! If the only information a person had from you was the content you are currently creating, that piece of content alone should be enough to help them significantly.
Bring your subject to life
To conclude this article, I will go back to the ‘cool’ teacher example. Remember, this teach was memorable because:
- They were different
- Their class was fun
Most subjects have been taught (or at least discussed) before. This means you need to master the skill of standing out. There are many ways you can achieve this, some examples are:
- Take a different point of view from what is widely accepted
- Write from personal opinion rather than adding to the echo chamber (you could get it wrong but at least you’ll be different)
- Niche down into a subsection of a topic
- Use a new format to deliver the content
- Add your own unique examples
You also need to make sure your content is fun. You don’t need to be a stand-up comedian or professional entertainer. You can achieve this with pictures, funny examples, a unique writing style, dad jokes, anything! Just add something that brings the content to life!
Conclusion
I hope you found this article interesting and useful. In trying to practice what I preach, I have written this article based on my own observations and experiences rather than republishing widely accepted ideas. Naturally, there may be some overlap. I have included a checklist at the end which covers the key points of this article including the mistakes to avoid.
This is the second article in this series which looks at the different roles a content creator plays to their audience (the first article being the introduction). Keep an eye out for the remaining articles and remember it’s not enough to just be an educator. You need to be cool!
Checklist for creating educational content
- Choose a subject that solves a real problem that people are facing
- Remove all ‘sales material’ from your content
- Keep an eye on length
- Ensure all the content is ‘valuable’
- Ensure the content is of substance
- Ensure you teach more than generic advice
- Ask a friend to check if they can understand your content
- Ensure this piece of content in isolation can make a significant impact in someone’s life
- Provide some tangible resources like a template or checklist (see what I did here)
- Ensure your content a joy to consume
- Ensure your content is different