My Buy Essay

Posts Tagged ‘educate’

Educated Consumers

Not too long ago, a colleague asked me why we invest so heavily in consumer education. We have made a conscious decision to spend marketing dollars on consumer education for a very simple reason. Educated consumers are simply better customers.

Lets take a closer look at why educated consumers are better customers.

Less Technical Support.

1.) Educated consumers require less technical support. The reduced technical support results in lower overhead costs. Often educated consumers can further reduce the support burden by assisting or educating other customers or potential customers in forums, newsgroups, user groups or elsewhere in an industry community.

Often users with a strong technical background or understanding will often assist in the forums and provide users technical support. The result: an educated consumer is a happy and helpful customer.

Easier Sales.

2.) Generally speaking educated consumers have a better understanding of the technology, how it can be used and how it will benefit them. A customers understanding that an application will result in saved time, can easily justify the software’s expense. Cost becomes less of an issue when long-term value is understood.

Reasonable Expectations.

3.) I hate to say it, but back in 1996 when we started out, consumer ignorance resulted in unrealistic expectations. Consumers purchased expecting that software would do their dishes and vacuum. Regardless of how well the software did what it was designed to do, if a customer expects it to do something else, they will not be a satisfied customer.

Educated consumers have realistic expectations and understanding of what can and cannot be accomplished.

Kinds of Consumer Education

1. Articles.

Educational articles not only propagate the success and understanding of a technology, but well written articles will often establish the writer as an industry expert.

Example .feedforall.com/newsletter.htm (on the bottom)

2. White Papers.

Real world examples of how other users are using software to resolve problems or save time are often great illustrations of technology in action.

Example .notepage.net/whitepapers.htm

3. PPT Demonstrations.

Power point presentations not only assist with user education, but also can be used by User Groups to further evangelize and educate potential users.

All in all, educated consumers result in a happier user with realistic expectations. Ignorance often results in dissatisfaction and unrealistic expectations while education leads to long term happy and helpful customers.

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More and more people are considering the World Wide Web as a great opportunity to offer their products and services to a new, bigger market or even as a chance to create entirely new businesses online.

Even if the perspective to reach millions of potential customers is surely exciting, the truth is that internet marketing is more difficult than it may seems and if you don’t have a sufficient experience you will usually waste a lot of time and resources doing things that don’t produce the results you expect.

For this reason, seeking advice from competent internet marketing experts is essential if you want to succeed online.

Hiring a consultant can be very expensive, but fortunately this is not the only possibility.

In fact you can utilize one of the many internet marketing informational products (like books, manuals or ebooks) that are available online.

There are complete courses that deal with every possible aspect of the entire process of building, managing and promoting your business online.

Other products concern very specific topics like how to write effective advertisements or sales letters, or how to promote your site on search engines.

You can usually choose among a great variety of media formats: printed manuals, downloadable ebooks that allow you to use the product immediately, CD-ROMs, or even videos and audio tapes, if reading a big manual is not something for you.

The only risk is to be confused by so many possible choices. So how can you determine the product more suited to your needs?

When I need to decide about the purchase of an informational product, the first thing I do is reading each and every page of the author’s site.

You may think that the informations on a site designed to sell a product are, by definition, not objective.

But you can still find a lot of useful elements that will help you with your decision.

The following are the most important for me.

1) How is the product presented?

Reputable authors will never tell you that you will be able to make a lot of money without work simply by reading their ebook or manual.

They will warn you that personal efforts are always needed to succeed online and every concept you learn must be applied to your particular situation.

Disappointment is the only thing you will earn from an informational product that is presented like a ‘magic recipe’ to make money fast and without efforts.

2) How many details the author gives about him/herself especially with regard to past business experiences?

You want to be sure that you are about to spend your money to learn proven techniques successfully tested on real businesses not some vague theory.

3) Does the site contain customers testimonials? Do they sound genuine?

A testimonial should be always followed by a full name, a website or email address so that it can be verified.

4) What kind of guarantee is offered should you dislike the product once you have purchased it?

Ideally every good informational product should be covered by a full money back guarantee as it’s always the best protection for your investment.

If you pay attention you will find many other elements that will tell you a lot about the author and the product he/she sells.

Learning how to market online is an ongoing process. Even if your personal work is always needed, with ebooks, manuals, courses you can learn from successful marketers experiences, concentrate your efforts on strategies that worked for them and consequently avoid mistakes and save time and resources.