Most small businesses that I consult with think that marketing’s most important function is to sell products and services. Your marketing system should establish within the mind of your prospect that you are knowledgeable and credible.

Consumers will not do business with people they don’t trust. Even if you have the lowest prices, if your prospect doesn’t trust you it will be difficult to close the sale. This is the foundation for Education-Based Marketing.

Education-Based Marketing is a powerful marketing strategy that establishes trust and credibility using educational messages. It is the direct opposite of traditional advertising which uses selling-based branding.

Prospects are tired of hearing sales pitches. In contrast, people sit up and listen when you share important facts and expert information that help them make a good buying decision.

Put yourself in the prospects shoes. What questions would you ask, what problems would you have, and who do you trust?

The secret to attracting qualified prospects early in the sales cycle is to find out the answers to those questions and use them for your educational marketing message.

Once you have created your educational message you need to offer it in exchange for your prospect’s contact information. This is critical. Successful marketing is not just a matter of getting the word out but more importantly, getting a response back. You can package your educational message in many different formats – a special report, an audio CD, a DVD, a checklist, or a brochure.

The most important part of making your educational message enticing is to give it a great name or headline. Give your educational messages exciting titles and they will attract many qualified prospects.

Next you need to develop strategies and processes to give it away. To do this you must first identify all the customer contact areas in your business and offer your educational message at each one of those areas, such as your business phone, website, advertising, publicity, networking conversations, trade shows, etc.

For example, instead of ending your phone conversations with:

“Well Mr. Smith, thanks so much for calling and I hope you come by and visit us.” End your call with an offer like this, “Well Mr. Smith, thanks so much for calling. By the way, we’ve just developed a special report that contains the top 10 common mistakes that people make when buying blinds for your home. If you’ll give me your address I’ll send it to you for FREE. Would that be okay?”

Now what have you just accomplished with this telephone strategy?

1. You’ve generated goodwill by offering a valuable free gift
2. You were able to get your prospect’s contact information so that you can continue to market to him
3. You now have a reason to follow up after he receives and has read the special report

By offering helpful advice, you establish yourself as an authority or expert because prospects see you as a reliable source of information. Be careful not to give in to the urge to include a sales pitch with your educational message. This will only erode the trust you have established and make you the same as your competitors in the eyes of your prospect.

Instead, after you have provided some helpful information you should invite your prospects to call you, visit your website, come to your store, or take advantage of your free offer to do an onsite visit.

Education-Based Marketing captures prospects earlier in the decision process and establishes a relationship of trust, resulting in dramatically higher sales and closing ratios.

Those small businesses that seek to develop this relationship by delivering a non-threatening educational message will position themselves as their prospect’s first choice from which to buy products or services.