Why Educate-First?
So why should you focus your content and efforts in educate-first marketing? In today’s world with SO much content constantly fighting for attention, customers will focus on content coming from sources that provide them with value. How do you provide value? Firstly, you must share quality knowledge. This can be wedding dress shopping tips, advice, or information about your own shop. Through this information you can also create trust between you and your bride through sharing personal experiences and adding personality to your brand. By focusing on sharing quality content and creating meaningful relationships, your brides will not only come to you for their dress, but also send their friends/family!
Creating Educate-First Content
Okay, it’s easy to say “create quality content for your brides”, but what does that actually mean? The idea of quality of content can be different for every shop and for every bride! Here are a few things to think about when creating!
- WHO is your bride? Your content could offer great information, but unless your brides view it as quality, it won’t work. When batch creating or brainstorming, keep in mind what it is that is important to your brides. A great way of ensuring you understand who your brides are, is to work on creating your shop’s buyer persona. Check out this guide and FREE worksheet to build your persona!
- WHERE does your bride gain her information? Different brides will look in different areas for information such as looking at what celebrities did, what tips Tik Tok offers, or the inspiration of Pinterest! Identifying where your brides spend their time and what platforms they already trust to provide quality content, is key to ensuring your content makes its way to them!
- ASK for feedback from your brides! One of the BEST ways to find out what information your bride wants to know is to ask! This could be an after-appointment survey or a poll on Instagram stories. Overall, be sure to fully address these concerns/questions and keep them in mind as one bride’s question could lead to a GREAT idea for your next blog or Tiktok!
- USE the 3 E’s! The 3 E concept states that all content should educate, engage, and excite your customers! Learn more about how to incorporate all 3 Es here!
Build Your Educate-First Strategy
Step 1: Awareness
The first step to focusing your strategy on educating-first is by growing awareness that YOU can answer bridal questions! To do this, encourage brides to educate themselves and gear your content to focus on COMMON issues or experiences brides have! Be sure to include some kind of Call-To-Action (usually at the end) of these posts!
Step 2: Interest
Increase the bride’s interests in what you have to say by educating them about different solutions and give honest evaluations of each! For example, if a bride isn’t sure if she wants to wear a veil, you could show her different veil styles or other alternatives! This shows brides that your shop doesn’t require all brides to be the same and encourage each bride to find how THEY feel beautiful!
Step 3: Action
Once you have educated your customer, continue to educate them while they perform an action. For example, if your bride likes one of the veil options that you had shown them, continue to discuss ways of styling that specific veil and hard sell the item at the end!
Want to Learn More?
Check out our other blog posts and follow us on Instagram at @engagedmarketingcompany for more marketing tips for bridal shops and other small businesses!
