It is obvious – if your company can be seen as a reliable source of information on a subject, people will turn to you when they have a question or a problem. You then have the chance to turn such enquiries into sales.
True such people who call with enquiries might, on occasion be a trifle annoying, saying, “I’m not ready to buy at the moment, but do you happen to know…” And worse you might even get a person asking your advice when it is quite clear (to you at least) that having picked your brains, the person is going to buy from someone else.
But you will become known as the source of information, and that will bring teachers to you, rather than you always having to spend money on advertising, chasing after the teachers.
So how do you do it?
The most effective way is to set up a particular type of website known as a blog, which contains an ever-growing number of varied articles on your area of specialism. Ideally these should be articles which are helpful and informative to the sort of teachers you sell to.
That is to say, not a stream of advertisements, but articles which are genuinely helpful and informative to teachers.
To get an idea of what blogs can look like, go onto Google and type in your area of interest (for example “secondary school music”) and then add the word “blog”. You should be led to a number of blogs relevant to your field.
But don’t think that a blog you could run for your company has to fit into that model. Blogs can take on any one of hundreds of styles, shapes and appearances. To give a couple of examples from my own company the blog here is based around my regular series of articles on marketing to schools (of which this is an example). It allows readers to go back and find a previous article, and ensures that anyone searching for information on marketing to schools might well find Schools.co.uk
My second example is not education related, but I mention it because its look and feel is very different from the Schools.co.uk blog, and yet it is still a blog.
What is interesting about this second blog is that although I run it on my own as a hobby, it now has writers from around the world volunteering to write for it, it has come to the attention of people very high up in the industry it caters for, and is widely used as a teaching resource in universities in the USA and Britain.
In this case, the blog’s income comes from advertising – which is simply a different way of running the show.
If you have any questions about blogs, or would like help in setting one up, please do email Stephen@schools.co.uk or call 01604 880 927. We run a number of blogs and we are very happy to offer advice and support.
