If you want your marketing efforts to inspire change in the classroom, you’ll have to put your customers first. Rather than being outbound and using sales calls and mailers, you’ll need to use an inbound marketing approach. If you are unfamiliar with inbound marketing, it is a methodology that allows you to attract the right prospects to your website and effectively turn those visitors into your customers and evangelist through the use of educational content.
When you focus on helping educators rather than focusing on your needs by placing the pain points, challenges, and aspirations of teachers, school administration, parents, and students first using inbound marketing, you’ll have the ability to not only grow your business but also help inspire change in the classroom.
1. Inbound Drives Innovation Everywhere Including the Classroom
Inbound marketing creates a constant drive to be more innovative simply because you listen to the needs of your audience and innovate to accomodate. For example, think back to your younger years of having to sit in a classroom under a desk that is just barely tall enough to not squish your knees(unless you were one of those tall kids). By now in this memory, you’ve probably pictured yourself checking the clock on the wall (the big one above the chalkboard that always seemed to tick extra slow). Anyways, it wasn’t the most enjoyable experience to be crammed into a classroom under a small desk for hours. Today, however, children at many schools don’t have to endure this torture and instead sit on exercise balls and bouncy chairs because>research has shown that movement stimulates learning. Parents and teachers, in this case, listened to what kids’ antsy bodies were saying, and it has completely changed the way classrooms are structured.
Inbound marketing requires that you keep content fresh and ideas flowing, so your company is constantly innovating to provide the best solutions. Instead of doing what you’ve always done, you dive into the needs of your audience and find new ways to help them overcome challenges.
2. Educators Get Information They Need When They Need It
When educators have questions, they use the internet. In a Pew research study, 92% of teachers surveyed said that the internet had a “major impact” on the resources they use for teaching. Inbound marketing campaigns are designed to help educators find you when they need help with teaching. You can inspire change in the classroom through the content and resources you provide teachers.
3. Through Social Tools
From Pinterest to Instagram, teachers are using social media to get ideas, share ideas, and connect with other teachers, parents, and even students. Recently, a friend of mine helped raise money for her classroom art projects through a Facebook campaign. This is just one of many ways that social media can help impact the quality of classrooms. If you provide valuable content to teachers through inbound marketing, social media is where you can share it.
Putting Ideas into Action
Building an inbound marketing campaign that helps grow your business and inspire change in the classroom takes careful consideration into your marketing audience and existing marketing strategies. If you’d like to learn what next steps to take with inbound marketing for your company, request a SmartBug Media consultation today.
