Educational Campaigns:
Impact’s 8 Key Must-Win Moments For Brands
Educational campaigns can be hard to get right. Making people care about your message, cause or issue is tough. Especially when you are trying to change behaviours. However, when effective, educational campaigns leave powerful lasting impressions that make individuals, communities and the environment better. If yours is a socially minded brand, educational campaigns are part of your marketing efforts.
So, how do you ensure yours are as effective as possible? Below, we’ll show you why educational campaigns are a key moment for your brand. As well as how to make sure they’re hitting the mark and making a difference.
What are Educational Campaigns?
Also known as social marketing, educational campaigns use marketing principles and techniques to influence and motivate people to adopt positive behaviors that benefit the community and the greater population. Essentially, it’s about brands using marketing strategies to bring about positive and lasting social change.
Effective educational campaigns create an emotional connection between your brand and community. This is great for business, but the goal is to benefit those in your sphere of influence. That might be through encouraging a change in behaviour for safety or better health, inspiring them to take specific actions to protect the environment, or making them aware of social issues that impact them.
“At the heart of social marketing efforts is enhancing the quality of life of individuals, communities and societies as a whole.” *
Impact’s 8 Key Must-Win Moments
What are they?
Over our 20+ years of branding experience, we’ve learned that the most effective brands connect with their audience in key must-win moments. Now, these moments vary across industries, but we’ve narrowed them down to the eight most common.
- Educational Campaigns
- Campaigns and Promotions
- Point of Sale Presence
- Events and Tradeshows
- Gift With Purchase
- Onboarding
- Rewards
- Calendar-Based Events
You may find that your brand focus is just one of the key moments. On the other hand, your brand might find the most success in three, or five, or all of these. Whichever it is, if you can bring your brand to life in these key must-win moments, you can make a meaningful connection with your audience.
Why are educational campaigns one of the key, must-win moments?
Educational campaigns are an opportunity for brands to firstly, create better outcomes for their audience. These are essential moments for not-for-profit and health organisations where health-centred campaigns make a big difference to their service clients and community. Anti-smoking campaigns or targeted messaging that encouraging regular dental check-ups and an example.
Secondly, organisations can use educational campaigns to further- and rally support for their cause. Many brands are focused on lessening their environmental impact. You may use social marketing to demonstrate your commitment to making environmentally friendly changes while motivating others to follow suit. This approach builds your brand’s credibility and fosters trust between you and your customers.
Finally, educational campaigns position your brand as a change-maker. That is, change for the better. On an individual level, your social marketing empowers your customers, clients and audience with the knowledge, the support and the tools to be part of the change that improves their community and environment.
So how do you make sure your educational campaign is a success? There’s one way that we know.
“Realising that factors in the broader environment influence people’s motivation, opportunity and ability (MOA) to adopt a desired behaviour, a social marketing approach works with participants and change agents in ways that improve peoples’ quality of life and enhance society as a whole.”
How to boost your educational campaigns with promotional products.
Drive your message home
The location of your message is critical for its effectiveness. If your audience can’t see it, how are they supposed to take it in and act on it? As a marketer, you are aware that the home is an important environment for your message. This is because your audience is guaranteed to encounter your educational campaign’s message if it is inside their home. They’re more likely to interact with it and consider its value when they are exposed to it in their place of residence.
Promotional products that are useful in the home give your educational campaigns greater visibility. Did you know that 91% of consumers have at least one promotional product in their kitchen? 81% even have two! This is where your clients and customers spend an average of three to five hours a day. Branded merchandise, such as magnets, mugs and medication organisers are prime opportunities to make your social marketing message visible.
Make change accessible
Your branded merchandise can actually be the vehicle to enable change! Take our client, Yarra Valley Water for example. With the help of branded reusable drink bottles, they and other Choose Tap partners have reduced the number of single-use plastic water bottles that end up in their local environment.
Being committed to the cause means investing in the systems and tools that make positive changes easy, or even possible. For some, this means the changes you envision may be out of reach due to cost or circumstance. Giving promotional products in your social marketing campaign can be just the thing your audience needs to get on board and start their journey to better health or social responsibility.
Consider the impact of your branded reusable silicon straw set in your campaign against single-use plastics. Or perhaps your informational meal portion plates in your food education campaign. Finally, using your branded three minute shower-timer could mean your audience uses 36 litres of water instead of 150 litres. Isn’t that a spectacular outcome for your water use educational campaign?
Create on-brand experiences.
As always, creating experiences where your clients and customers can connect with your organisation is the key to winning your branded moment. For educational campaigns, that connection is what will inspire your audience to be part of the change your are working towards.
When it comes to your on-brand experience, make it positive and impactful. One way of doing this is to tap into the emotion you want to elicit. If ‘Inspired’ is what you want your audience to feel, you can remind them that small, every day victories can make big change feel possible. Reinforce this idea with a small promotional product that start them on their journey toward big change.
Alternatively, you may want your audience to feel empowered. You can achieve this with an information and merch pack that helps them understand your message and share the message in their social circles.
Effective educational campaigns help your customers and client understand the importance of your message and believe in your cause. Adding real-world products to your campaign can even enable them to make the changes that you’re advocating for. Whether the goal is a healthier lifestyle, safer community or greater environmental consideration, your organisation can use promotional products to improve your social marketing efforts.
*Source:
Lee, N. R., & Kotler, P. (2015). Social marketing: Changing behaviors for good (5th Ed.). SAGE Publications.
