Why Is Customer Education Important? Building an Effective Customer Education Strategy

Why is customer education important?

It's no question that customer education and training has become critical for businesses to achieve long-term sustainability and growth in an increasingly competitive market. Educating your market early can be a game-changer and enable you to build trust with a large target audience, giving you a competitive advantage. In this article, we’ll explore the benefits of educating your customers before they become customers and how you can do so strategically as part of a customer education strategy to see real results.

Why is there a need for companies to provide customer education to the market at large?

Many technology companies are quickly developing products and solutions that disrupt the market. This means there is no prior context for the product’s use and value, and no existing content about how the product works, the process for integrating the product into current workflows, or best practices for getting the most value out of the product. Hence there’s a need to provide foundational education to increase the pool of qualified leads. And as technology quickly advances, such as Generative AI, there’s an opportunity for tech companies to be proactive in customer education, helping the market at large understand industry topics and laying the foundation for introducing their product among the most innovative solutions.

Of course, customer education is not for technology companies alone. Whole Foods sets a high bar for ongoing consumer education, with programs that teach health and wellness, food safety, and sustainability, among many other topics. Their education strategy has positioned Whole Foods as an industry expert, increasing credibility of its brand and driving awareness of its offerings.

What are the goals of this type of education?

We’ll refer to this stage of education as  prospective customer education. There are two primary goals with this education: build trust and credibility and increase your pool of qualified leads. Importantly, and especially for technology companies, prospective  customer education strategy should not focus on specifics of how to use your product. Most of your audience isn’t using your product yet. This education should focus on the leading and relevant industry topics that will help prospects better understand the value of your product.
 
As an example, a company that offers an innovative project management solution would do well to create education content on project management practices. This would build their credibility as an expert in project management and provide an opportunity to introduce their tool to those who’ve shown interest in their courses. Hubspot Academy is a great example of this, as they offer certificates and certifications in marketing, sales, and operations that ultimately enhance the ability of the market to appreciate and utilize the products Hubspot offers.

Where and how do you implement a prospective customer education strategy to educate your market?

This specific type of education is quite unique. In many cases you’re building education and training for an audience that isn’t actively seeking it. Unlike those searching for academic courses, bootcamps, or professional development opportunities, prospective customers are generally not proactively looking for courses just to learn more about your brand and solutions. (Exceptions arise when the solution has become an industry standard, such as Google Cloud or AWS.) This added challenge means the education team needs to design material that specifically addresses a problem in the prospect’s life, and that they align the delivery of this education with the known user journey for a seamless experience.

This strategy requires strong collaboration between the marketing team and the education team. The marketing team would own content marketing initiatives that would reach the audience where they are – social channels, email, searches. That initial marketing content may include summarized versions of the learning material and would ultimately drive awareness and traffic to the more formal customer education. That formal education may be a webinar, an on-demand course, or even a certification program. Ultimately, you need to attract the attention of this audience by finding them in their own search for answers, and then providing those answers through education.

When you educate your market at large, you’re reaching prospective customers, current customers, and really all other stakeholders such as partners, vendors, and employees. Know that you can’t separate the content that prospects see from customers or partners. You can separate the latter groups with gated log-ins, but if you’re trying to reach the market at large, you’ll want as little friction as possible for them to enroll in a course. So, if your public audience can enroll in a course, your other stakeholders can as well. This is important in that you’ll want to consider a seamless experience for prospects that become customers or partners, where the content is not repetitive, contradictory, or confusing. A centralized approach to your customer education strategy and technology is key.

A market education strategy should fit seamlessly within the broader education strategy.

Measuring the ROI of prospective customer education

While prospective customer education is one of the more challenging strategies to execute on, it’s actually one of the easier ones to measure. This is because prospective customer education is ultimately intended to drive sales and can be measured in a more straight-forward manner than other educational strategies. Unlike customer and partner education, this  approach  targets individuals who aren’t yet interacting with your products. You’ll have little insight into what actions learners are taking or what behaviors they’re exhibiting before and after engaging in your education.  But remember, the ultimate goal of prospective customer education is to drive qualified leads. Therefore, you can use much of the same measurement approach used in content marketing to assess the success of the program.

Ready to develop your prospective customer education strategy?

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