Today I want to take a break from analysis and share a simple idea that’s often come to the rescue in my marketing.

When I finished my degree in marketing, most of my peers who went to grad school chose the classic, the prestigious, the typical, MBA. I took a different route. Recognizing my strength fell on the interactive side of the marketing spectrum, I rolled the dice and chose something called “Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences” that would become my home for the two years of my master’s degree.

True to their word, after I finished the core classes I did a lot of work transferring the teaching skills I’d learned to the marketing sphere. I’d always noticed it, but it wasn’t until I graduated that I knew it: marketing is teaching.

The Long Version
If I wrote it out in anything longer than a soundbite, I’d probably say that marketing is teaching as many people as possible about your product in a way that gets them to act.

You teach people what you have, why they need it, and how to get it. You teach them how it feels to use, you teach them why other people love it. You teach them why it’s a better choice than others and how it can improve their lives, makes things better, easier, simpler.

It’s not just telling people about your product, it’s teaching people about it.

A Mental Tweak
Sometimes, remembering this idea is all it takes to write copy that actually changes behavior. To create a social media post that doesn’t just entertain, but does some good for the brand in both the long term and short term.

So, give it a try. Next time you are creating a Facebook message, coming up with a blog posts topic, or brainstorming next year’s creative, think about how you’d teach someone about some aspect of your resort and see if that helps.

It worked wonders for me.

About Gregg & SlopeFillers
I've had more first-time visitors lately, so adding a quick "about" section. I started SlopeFillers in 2010 with the simple goal of sharing great resort marketing strategies. Today I run marketing for resort ecommerce and CRM provider Inntopia, my home mountain is the lovely Nordic Valley, and my favorite marketing campaign remains the Ski Utah TV show that sold me on skiing as a kid in the 90s.