S5 E8: Education and Marketing

Today, Drs. Rebecca Hines and Lisa Dieker discuss an article from convinceandconvert.com titled "The Most Important Content Marketing Skill and How to Master it" by Barry Feldman. In this episode, they talk about how educators can tap into the minds of expert educators (and students)—using marketing skills to ask your audience what works best. So, if you want to know what makes a great teacher, ask the students. 

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Link to Article:
 https://www.convinceandconvert.com/content-marketing/most-important-marketing-skill/

Transcript

Lisa Dieker 00:01
Welcome to Practical Access I'm Lisa Dieker.

Rebecca Hines 00:04
And I'm Rebecca Hines.

Lisa Dieker 00:06
Alright and Rebecca you, decide what to call you today, you have a topic for us today for our listeners to think about.

Rebecca Hines 00:16
I do, you know Lisa as we always talk about I'm always interested in finding ways of thinking outside of education to help inform what we do inside of education because I think we become so entrenched in you know repeating the past. So, marketing is one of my favorite areas to think about because logically, you know, intuitively if we could sell the information to our students better then they're going to remember it better and they're literally going to you know air quotes "buy it." So, the article that I'm sharing is called "The Most Important Content Marketing Skill and How to Master It" and it's, it's this very simple read this is just a little you know, article with some food for thought. But the simplest premise presented first is, if you want to know what works best, ask your audience. Ask your audience and we know that as teachers, but we don't always do it. As we think about going back into this next school year yeah ask your audience, so you know, the author says, you know good, good teaching is about listening, questioning, being responsive, and remembering it's about, it's about all of these pieces and understanding that every audience is different, including the students you're going to go in and teach.

Lisa Dieker 01:39
Yeah you know and, and as I looked at this article I thought you know what I love, if nothing else, you and I do know how to laugh, I mean we can be in some pretty intense situations that we'll find somewhere to find something funny or laugh about it and I do think that's really, really important not only for marketing but also there's research that shows that's good for the brain. So, you know what we know is that marketing and brain goes together. You always say I'm going to steal your famous quote you know watch the commercial when you want to make a good presentation, what are people doing? And I've been laughing because all the marketing commercials now I'm like does anyone ever sell car insurance anymore they're all Jake from State Farm, Limu Emu, I was like they're all about novelty and what we know is right now the brain is really engaged by novelty because it's been really bored I don't know about you, but certain things are very boring right now, like I'm kind of zoomed out. I mean a lot of things have become so routine, and so I think the lovely part about this article. Is not only is it a short read, but it reminds us that we should go with what our consumers want and have fun with it, you should love laughing and you know, so I don't know why you watch this same commercial over and over again, but it's funny you watch a funny movie over, and you know the punch line beforehand but again, you watch it over and over again, so I do think that that's important to recognize that the relationship of marketing in the brain.

Rebecca Hines 03:02
Yeah, and you and humor definitely, anything that's novel, engaging, as you said, and for teachers it's always funny because when you hear about using humor it's like yeah I recognize that not all of us are funny. Okay that's just the truth and that not all of us can pull it off, but there are conventions of comedy that we can employ. In the case of teaching, as mentioned in this article it's important to be self deprecating and not take yourself too seriously, so it is about kind of reframing how we see ourselves and how we present ourselves to the audience so that they understand that we are we're working with them. It's not about making jokes about kids if you're going to joke about anything it's got to be self-deprecating, it's got to be professional, it's not about telling a joke it's more about breaking the ice and creating a more relaxed atmosphere, so if you, you know you mentioned some some insurance commercials it's also about repetition it's the repetition of characters because that's what your brain remembers you're not processing that new Geico gecko every single time because you're already familiar with it. So these patterns are really important for marketers and as the marketers of content, we need to be mindful of that as well, so getting good patterns getting good repetition, but making sure that the things that we're presenting you know are consumable by our audience and I keep using those words because our students are literally our audience.

Lisa Dieker 04:39
You know and it's funny because you and I both love to present. I mean that's something we do for fun all the time, I mean we see it as fun, I mean we enjoy it, yet you and I are the first to pull in a cute funny clip video clip or an example from a classroom. Not only because the brain likes novelty, but we also find sometimes that's inspirational we like a good story, and I think that's another thing is how do you inspire. Well sometimes you inspire by showing something besides yourself, I mean all inspiration for every content in every scenario can't come from within you so I often love that you and I have personal stories that we inspire with but we're also not afraid to pull in other content from experts to help to help inspire 

Rebecca Hines 05:22
And I was you know, as I was looking at this topic I did, I did see another article that caught my eye, so I read it as well, Why Education is a Powerful Content Marketing Strategy and Seventeen Examples. Their examples I didn't, I didn't love, because some were a little bit outdated, but here are a few thoughts from that article that I want to also share. One is in marketing, you know number one rule they say our customers don't care about our products or services they care about themselves. And you know what we forget that as teachers, we assume everybody's motivated by something external, no, most students are sitting there caring mostly about themselves. So, what we're providing has to fulfill their needs and what they perceive their needs, not what we want them to do, and I think people are finding that more and more and more, so we have to get back to that connection, that makes learning internal. At the end of the day, this article says, our content needs to help us sell more, lower expenses, or create happier customers and I think, as we repeat every podcast in some way, shape or form we got to focus on creating happier customers if we want them to learn more.

Lisa Dieker 06:46
Yeah and I'll go with my last tip on marketing, which is you know, whatever I like to call an inclusive classroom a resort at or a buffet and there's lots of things to do, and so, nobody wants to show up at a resort that you know, has a pool that you can't get into or is you know outdated or ugly or that you can only get in the pool, there's lounge chairs, there's jet skis or you don't want to go to a buffet that's just meat unless you're you know on a keto diet, or just chocolate unless you're me. So, again, I think that what we know is novelty and choice, are part of marketing, but I think marketing also says you market something somebody wants to go to instead of marketing what you've been doing for the last 10 to 15 years and I think sometimes we get caught into liking, repeating our patterns because we are the teacher but we have to remember our consumers are really looking for choice and novelty, which goes back to that magical word universal design for learning.

Rebecca Hines 07:44
She likes to get that in. So, end of the day great topic for you guys to look at. I've mentioned it, I think, almost every season go back and do a quick search for marketing look at some marketing tips and think about how that can help shape what you bring in the fall.

Lisa Dieker 08:01
Thanks for joining us, and if you have questions, please post them on our Facebook page at Practical Access or you can tweet us @accesspractical.