content creation

Mar

2018

What is Edu-Marketing?

What is Edu-Marketing for Environmental Products & Services?

True Edu-marketing vs. White or Greenwashing

Edu-Marketing, or educational-based marketing, is the concept of creating an educational curriculum and transforming it into digestible marketing content for the masses in various forms (articles, videos, magazines, infographics, interactive quizzes, email updates, online courses, etc.) thus helping people better understand your area of expertise and positioning yourself and/or your organization as an Industry Leader. As opposed to whitewashing and greenwashing, which are the deceitful practices of covering incriminating or unpleasant facts about an organization with inaccurate niceties. In this blog we’ll dive into the importance of edu-marketing and take a look at some examples and contrasts to whitewashing and greenwashing. Let’s jump in!

While nearly any industry and any topic can technically employ the edu-marketing strategy, it is especially necessary for industries that are making a positive impact on society and the planet; those leaders and individuals that take the lead and enlighten the masses on the topics that have the potential to truly benefit humanity. It’s so important that we begin to shift the focus from marketing tactics that take advantage of society and manipulate truths to benefit the few.

Why is this? Well, it seems that we have experienced a massive amount of miseducation and frankly, lies for the sole sake of profits. For example, in the book Trust Us We’re Experts, journalists Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber dive deep into the ways that big industries have paid off “experts” and created front groups of fake scientists to lead false movements and misguide people.

Like the time SmithKline Beecham paid the American Cancer Society $1 million to use its logo on products + in ads for the smoking cessation product NicoDermCQ and other Nicorette anti-smoking aids.

This is a perfect example of how edu-marketing for natural herbs that help with smoking cessation like Catnip, Coltsfoot, or Horsetail plant, would be a better benefit to humanity. However, big pharma and willing-to-be-bought non-profit organizations, have teamed up to misguide the public with false reasoning to push their products.

Unfortunately, the reality remains that we’re more likely to recognize and have access to Nicorette, a $60/box pharmaceutical drug when it comes to quitting smoking rather than Catnip, a $10/high quality organic tincture bottle, or any other herb that we are probably more willing to take than a pharmaceutically synthesized product.

Edu-Marketing with integrity is so clearly needed now. We have been inundated with sellouts and front groups, whitewashing and greenwashing so much so that we likely have beliefs skewed in their favor, whether we know it consciously or subconsciously. And this has mostly been successful because less than honest companies with substantial financial backing can easily justify the cost for fraudulent “experts,” creating front groups, funding lobbyists, and creating corporate spin that act like real causes and sound logical on the surface. Take for example the front group People of Color United, that was established in 2004 by the (anything but color) conservative group Bradley Foundation whose aim was to diminish John Kerry’s perception during the 2004 Presidential Election via personal attack radio ads aired in swing states on primarily black radio stations.

You see, we are in dire need for education-based content marketing with integrity to uplift the well-intentioned and honest companies and movements that need to happen in our soceity. This is especially true for industries like cannabis and energy where major players can either side with greed and harm public good or greatly serve humanity with things like broad-spectrum medical cannabis and sustainable energy. These things when conceived of solely on logic shouldn’t technically need marketing. Clean water, natural health, sustainability, renewable energy, decentralized economy, these are things we all want for ourselves and when we set corrupt politics aside, our neighbors as well. Unfortunately, though, we have come to a juncture in our society where these things do need marketing. MASSIVELY smart marketing at that, to combat the missing or false information that has created mass self-sabotaging, false belief systems that have been implanted in us all at some level.

There is a dire need for education based content marketing that uplifts sustainable products and renewable energy over the barrage of bad choices that we've become so accustomed to accepting. Share on X

It’s time to start disrupting the status quo of industries that have taken advantage of the dumbing down of society in order to tell lies or at the very least cover up truths, solely for profits-sake. It’s an era for NEW Industry Leaders, and if you are like me, you don’t care where the solutions to the big issues of today come from. You just care that they happen at the highest integrity, highest efficiency levels, and are the longest-term solutions that get to the heart of the issues we face.

Arguably this can be accomplished in many ways from many organizational standpoints. Yes, of course, our government should be ensuring that its citizens get their basic human needs met like clean food, clean water, and housing. As we move forward, we will need all hands on deck. This includes every type of organization, non-profit, small business, church, enterprise corporation, and local community be involved with educating about the truths which affect humanity and the planet.

How do we do this?

By holding to integrity. By educating. By incorporating edu-marketing.

It’s with great hope that we see more of these earnest edu-marketing tactics that serve to win back the minds and the reasoning of people.

Below are some contrasting white/greenwashing vs. true edu-marketing strategies.

Fake vs. Real Edu-Marketing

The Cannabis Industry

Cannabis Propaganda + Fear by Above the Influence

VS.

Cannabis Edu-Marketing from Jenasis Medical Group

Sustainable Laundry

The health of our laundry is a very overlooked topic in most people’s lives. Yet, laundry is a very intimate thing when we really think about.Both household laundry and dry cleaning have the potential to be extremely toxic when using traditional detergents and traditional methods of dry cleaning. The 4 top toxic ingredients in common laundry detergents are 1) Sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS)/sodium laureth sulfate (SLES) 2) 1,4-dioxane 3)NPE (nonylphenol ethoxylate) and 4) Phosphates. Likewise, the singular most toxic method for dry cleaning clothes is PERC, a chemical known to induce spontaneous abortions in women who are pregnant and work near the chemical, among a long host of other violent afflictions. Below is an example of a laundry detergent who calls itself green but hasn’t quite quit all toxic junk and a dry cleaning company that uses truly non-toxic methods that believes in educating on dangers of the mainstream dry cleaning toxin, PERC.

Planet Laundry Detergent, though better than most still contains 6.1 ppm of 1,4-dioxane not listed.

The Eco Laundry Company Educates by sharing data on the health effects of chemical exposure to PERC .

Renewable Energy

The Greenwashing of Nuclear Energy vs. Education of Solar Energy

Nuclear energy is entirely greenwashed now. Some try to defend nuclear energy as renewable energy but uranium deposits are a finite resource on this planet, so the designation should not include this option. Read this to learn more about the debate.

However, the Nuclear Sector has done a fine job explaining away the problems of toxic nuclear waste and letting us forget about the radiation still wreaking havoc from the long list of nuclear disasters that occurred around the world. Most recently the Fukushima Disaster and the radioactive materials that now spread across the pacific ocean and U.S. Coast poisoning our oceans, wildlife, and seafood.

The Greenwashing of Nuclear Energy via NEI

Edu-Marketing on Solar Energy via the Union of Concerned Scientist

These are just a handful of examples that display the importance of integrity based educational marketing, or edu-marketing. When dealing with truth, there is no wiggle room. When it comes to integrity and becoming the master of your content, true edu-marketing is the cornerstone for leading a movement and leaving a legacy.

Join the movement to educate by working with us! Contact our environmental edu-marketing team.

Want to push environmental agendas and help well-intentioned companies and organizations find their educational voice? Become an affiliate!

Nov

2017

Marketing: For the Discouraged Social Entrepreneur

You’ve come up with countless ideas, created brilliant products, useful services, and are eager to elevate your company and community to levels far beyond what you’ve ever seen.

The thing is, you’re not alone.

So many business owners like yourself have wanted to do the same, but lack the knowledge, the time, and the strategy.

At A.R. Marketing House, we have noticed a consistent pattern amongst the socially conscious clients we have worked with as well as businesses we have come across. That is, when it comes to developing and implementing a marketing strategy, many business owners struggle because they either 1) lack a strategy with objectives and subjective goals 2) don’t have a strategy that aligns with their personality +brand 3) don’t have a strategy that aligns with their long-term marketing budget 4) do not stick to their plan long enough to see expected results.

But we see your success, we support your amazing ideas, and we want to help you launch your potential to new heights and bring your dreams into reality. So, we’ve come up with this little cheat sheet for you to wash away your discouragement and get back on the marketing horse. Here are 6 ways to amplify your business and bring to life those brilliant ideas toward making a positive impact while achieving great long-term success.

Imagine the Greatest End-Goal First, THEN reverse engineer it

One trait we see often is leaders seeing an end result without really taking the time to understand the methods of getting there. It is so important to set goals, work on a strategy, come up with clear objectives, and understand what tactics you need to take to ensure you are reaching these milestones. You need a plan, a CLEAR plan with measurable results. But sometimes this is easier done in REVERSE. Yes, seeing the end result and working your way back from that vision has proven to be the method that some of the most successful entrepreneurs and change makers actively use.

What do you need to get there? Visualize the end, then close your eyes and walk backward from that goal to narrow down the steps it took to get you there. You might find that you need to do some additional research. Have others achieved similar results to those you hope to achieve? How can you be different? Greater? More creative? Help others? More than just wanting to get to that point of success, you need to plan for it strategically and cleverly. Understand the possible repercussions of steps that can go awry and mitigate your risks by having options within your plan, like a roadmap with alternative routes.

Strategize and Re-strategize

Often times, it is easy to get discouraged when you don’t see immediate results. The important thing to understand is immediate success rarely means long-term success. Sure, maybe some businesses start off with a bang, but this is not the norm, especially if you are in a field that is either not widely understood or is shrouded with miseducation. Sometimes your brilliant ideas will have to be introduced and reintroduced many times over before even the brainiest of people begin to grasp what you are truly trying to do. Whether you are introducing a politically controversial product or educating on a spiritually profound message, you will not only need to give yourself some time to find your voice within your message, you will also have to give your audience some time to become educated, by you, of course. However, after about a year of solidly sticking to your plan, assess what worked best and look to see what new methods are currently out, then…re-strategize! Trust your analytics and your instincts, then move forward with the knowledge you have gained. In what ways did your strategy lack? Did your audience grow? Were you able to convert leads into sales? You already have a plan in place, just look for gaps and focus on what can be done to improve going forward. It won’t happen overnight. If you don’t believe us, check out how long these “overnight successes” ACTUALLY took. *Hint: It definitely wasn’t overnight. Of course these are larger companies but the reasoning and logic also applies to small and midsize businesses.

Timing is Everything

Marketing is more than just posting on social media here and there. You need to be strategic. Create a calendar. Know when you should be posting your original content, how frequently, and know why this all relates back to your overall marketing goal. More than just posting on social media, you need to create conversation on more than just one platform. Start a blog, newsletter, social media strategy, and more than that, focus on collaborations with influencers.

Digital technology allows numerous avenues to educate based on your business or practice. But it’s key to narrow down the focus on how each platform leverages your strategy best. When do you want to reach your goal? Is this plan going to do anything for you in the short-term? If not, is it worth what it will do for your goals in the long-term? Now, I know this sounds like a lot of work, but creating a marketing calendar will greatly help you along the way. Creating a calendar will allow you to improve your time management and ensure you are relaying a consistent message across various platforms to the right people.

Remember WHY you started and tell people

When you first decided you wanted to start this business, you knew what you wanted to accomplish. You knew your skill, gift, or wonderful product was worth a formal delivery to the world. Keep this in mind as you continue on this rollercoaster to success. It won’t be easy. If it was easy, everyone would do it. The important thing is to remember why you did this and why you want to continue to do it. Constantly remind yourself of the WHY and work on achieving small milestones that will set you up for long-term success. Add the WHY into your messaging, make sure that you are storytelling and capture your audience with your true motivations, they will appreciate and relate to you more for it. What’s more, you will hit some emotional health markers with your vulnerability, see Brene Brown.

SMARKET yourself

It is so easy to put your marketing strategy on the back-burner when you don’t see results right away. But doing this before you’ve accessed the intelligence of your content and the strategy of your delivery, is not fair. When you find yourself on the slippery slope of doing nothing and re-sharing other people’s content, STOP and focus on the various ways you can contribute to your own smart content creation. With smart content creation, your success is dependent on following an educational purpose, an audience generating data collection format, utilizing various and specific avenues for delivery, consistent implementation, tracking, adjusting based on analytics, patience, and spiritual alignment. Actually, you might want to start with the latter.

You can’t expect your audience will show up without knowing who you are and why you’re special. By creating smart content, you are allowing your readers, followers, and clients the chance not only to get to know you but to develop and understand and be educated by you; a relationship built on trust developed by you.

The modern marketing plan, or as we call it, smart content creation, is more than just posting ads online or in the local paper, but more about nurturing a relationship and moving from tangential to tangible continuing past the sell, into the long-term.

In the digital arena, smart content creation relies heavily on making yourself known and leveraging yourself to your best-suited audience, then demonstrating leadership with your unique expertise.

6. Hire a Pro.

If you’ve made it to this point of the blog you’re either struggling pretty hard or you’re eager to apply the best tactics to your marketing strategy. Under both circumstances, tip 6 can easily get you where you want to be. There are professional marketers whose job is to put you and your business out there. They already know how to discover the intricacies and the methods that would work best for your goals and are dedicated to meeting your needs while you are out there perfecting your craft, improving your product, and working on sustaining your business. At A.R. Marketing House our goal is to learn the ins and outs of what it is you offer so we can reach the right people with the right message to get them to invest in what you have to offer. We have done this for a variety of industry leaders and are eager to elevate you to unsurpassed levels.

With these tips, we are confident that your business will flourish! Whether you’ve just decided to market your business or have been working at this for some time, but need a little help, we are eager to help you and encourage you to seek help from pro’s, like the A.R. team.

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