Making In-roads Into the Education Arena with Marketing Brochures

Case Studies and White Papers aren't the only marketing avenues into the education field. Whether you provide a product or a service, the power of a well-written marketing brochure will inspire prospective clients to take action and do business with you instead of your competition. 

There are two types of brochures: corporate and product- or service-oriented. For most companies looking to make inroads into the education field, the latter proves most effective. 

This type of brochure highlights your company’s product or service, with the purpose of selling to potential clients. When trying to reach potential customers, you want to not only present the features of your product or service, you will also want to share the benefits. Presenting the benefits of your product or service will tap into potential customers’ emotions, a powerful driving force in the purchasing process.

Crafting an effective brochure to market your product or service to the education arena, you will want to consider the following questions: 

• What is the purpose and/or subject of your brochure?
• Who is your audience?
• How many products, or services, will be featured in the brochure?
• Will your brochure be research-based or experiential?
• What is your budget?
• Based on your budget, will you write it in-house or hire a freelance professional copywriter?
• What will the layout look like? Will there be photos, illustrations, and graphs?
• How many pages will be in your brochure?
• Once the brochure is complete, how will you use and disseminate the brochure?

Let's take a look at an example. Perhaps your company sells curriculum materials for English language arts. Your products help educators teach to their students' learning styles by providing hands-on learning experiences, such as Vocabulary Steal the Bacon and Adjective Scavenger Hunts. Your marketing brochure will not only highlight the materials for purchase but also the benefits of using these manipulatives to engage a variety of learners. Using visual aids, such as pictures illustrating the materials, will enhance the selling power of your marketing brochure. 

Need content for your marketing brochure? A professional freelance copywriter, with specialized knowledge of the education field, can help! 

Break Into the Education Arena with a Well-written, Research-based White Paper

Are you interested in expanding your product or service to the education field, but not sure how. A well-written, research-based white paper might be your solution!

Before we look at opportunities to use white papers in the education arena, let's take a look at the anatomy of a white paper. Broken down into its most basic parts, a white paper consists of a problem, a solution, and credible proof to support your solution. Sounds simple, right?

How you weave these three components into one cohesive document, though, will dictate the effectiveness of your white paper. You see, a white paper isn't just about promoting your product or service; it's about providing quality content to potential customers that will establish your company as a leader in the education industry. Once you can do that, you can tap into the $500 billion spent annually in the education field!

Here are five ways you can promote your business to the education sector with white papers:

1. Let's say you are an admissions recruiter for a college or university. You can write a white paper explaining the decisions, and subsequent challenges, one might face when choosing which college to attend. In this document, you will also provide specific solutions to these challenges, focusing on the unique aspects your college or university offers.
2. Does your company provide strategic reading interventions for young learners? Write a white paper detailing the reading process, highlighting specific strategies that will help students at each stage. Of course, these strategies will be aligned with what your reading interventions provide!
3. With the education field ripe for technological tools and resources, companies offering digital experiences, such as class blogs and online presentation platforms, can write a white paper detailing the challenges of getting teachers and staff on board. In this paper, showcase how districts and administration can overcome these resistances with step-by-step training and tutorials, both of which your company provides!
4. An online assessment company, looking to attract the attention of a K-8 school district, can write a white paper on the importance of differentiated assessment. Since your company's online assessment tools take into consideration the variety of learner styles, you are promoting your service by putting together a well-researched white paper that justifies the use of differentiated assessment plans.
5. Are you a marketing company that wants to tap into the education field? Targeting your ideal client with a well-written white paper might be just the in you are looking for. Districts and administrators aren't necessarily interested in the marketing process, though, so you will want to reach out to them with a document on how an online marketing campaign can help them increase their student enrollment.

What you do with your white paper is equally important as how you craft it; so next week, we will discuss how to disseminate the white paper you have just written. 

Do you feel you need assistance writing a white paper to help your company break into the education field? A professional freelance copywriter, especially one with first-hand experience in education, can help. Feel free to contact me to see if we might be a good fit!

Seven Ways to Promote Your White Paper

You already know the benefits of writing a White Paper - solve a problem for potential clients, build brand awareness by proving your company is a leader in your industry, persuade your audience while informing them - but what should you do once you have completed your White Paper? 

Should you share it? If so, how and where? 

Should you mail out hard copies? If so, to whom?

Your White Paper will do little good if it just sits idly, so here are seven ways to promote your White Paper and get people reading it:

How Customer Case Studies are Impacting the Education Field

I was in my second year of teaching, at the elementary level, when a fellow second-year colleague of mine and I decided we wanted to pilot a new computer-based grading program. Up until that time, our district still recorded student grades and progress the old-fashioned way, pen to paper. Many of our veteran colleagues clung to the old adage, “If it ain’t broke!” 

But, as we would all soon learn, the "traditional" way of grading was broken, antiquated, inefficient, and in desperate need of repair!

The grading program I piloted, Online Assessment Reporting System (OARS), was effective and easy to use. Unfortunately, it wasn't marketed in a way that appealed to teachers, especially seasoned teachers. 

Hidden Opportunities to use Case Studies in the Wine Industry

A well-written case study can help potential clients see your business from a familiar perspective - that of another consumer. When crafting a case study, the writer focuses on a specific problem, obstacle, or challenge the potential client might face - one that the company writing the study can help resolve.

Traditionally, case studies have been used in tech companies and the business industry. But, that doesn't mean they won't work in other fields.

Take the wine industry! One wouldn't typically think of the wine industry aspresenting problems or challenges that can be shared in a case study. But, there are! Here are just a few opportunities for using case studies in the wine industry:

• Bottles and labels - You've just finished crafting your most recent vintage of wine and are ready for bottling. How your wine is packaged and marketed matters just as much as the quality of wine inside, so you turn to the internet for options. As with any product or service these days, there are myriad of companies trying to sell you their wares. How do you choose? Check their website for customer case studies. 

Case Study: Red Dirt Coffee House Promotes their Business with Social Media

A Small Business Gains Big Exposure through Social Media

The Birth of a Business

Jackye and Paul Balegal had always dreamed of opening up a coffee shop, but with both of them working full-time and raising two children, the dream remained just that. Until, one evening, while enjoying a Happy Hour drink, the couple wrote out their business plans on a cocktail napkin. Their kids were now teenagers, and Jackye had recently taken a break from full-time employment, so they thought the time was perfect!

Reach New Heights in Your Industry: Promoting Your Business with Case Studies

Case studies...

From an academic point of view, case studies present a researcher's observations of a phenomena or subject in its natural setting: how it works, what struggles or successes it experiences, and how to help it improve. Academic case studies are not so much outcome-based, as they are focused on the process. At the heart of academic case studies is discovery, resulting in a journey.

In many ways, marketing case studies do the same thing!