Steven Winokur, Turning Point Strategies
You know your industry inside and out. You know why your product is better than your competitors. You know your product is the best solution to solve your prospects pain. The question is, does your prospect know?

Prospects and customers expect you to educate them about your product and industry, not just sell to them. By educating them, you have the opportunity to demonstrate why YOU are uniquely qualified to solve their problem - that you are the expert they have been searching for.

This generally cannot be accomplished through a single ad or a message on the back of a business card. So, how do you convince the prospect to take precious time to understand why your solution is the best?

Simple - give them free information. Three effective communication vehicles include person-to-person communication (seminars), mail (direct mail), or the Internet (website or email newsletters).

Seminars
People love to learn, especially if the subject really interests them. What better way to demonstrate your expertise and creditability than to present free information. Presenting high-quality, helpful information during the seminar builds credibility and helps position you as a true expert. You don't need a "sales pitch" because the attendee will leave the seminar knowing you have a solution to their problem.

A key to driving people to your seminar is the title. Make the name as informational and beneficial as possible. For instance, if you're in the permanent staffing industry and your target market is HR directors, you might call your seminar, "12 Easy Steps to Hiring the Right Candidate."

Direct Mail
Contrary to popular belief, not all direct mail needs an immediate call to action. "Response rate" is a popular term in our industry, and numbers like 1% and 2% are tossed around. An information-based direct mail campaign, however, isn't concerned with "response rate."

Its goal is to educate (and nurture) the prospect over a period of time, so that when the individual is ready to buy, s/he would turn to only one place - the company that was nice enough to explain the industry and describe product differences in a non-hard-sell way. An education-based direct mail campaign could be different articles or white papers about a specific subject, mailed out biweekly or monthly.

Internet
E-mail campaigns - often in the form of a monthly newsletter - should be education-based. The cost of delivery is significantly less because the information is transmitted electronically and not through the Post Office. Just be sure to abide by government SPAM regulations.

Blogs are one of the newest ways to educate prospects online. Short entries on a consistent basis (consistent being the key word) can demonstrate your expertise in a given field.

Finally, people look to Internet search engines to solve their problems so ensuring your site is optimized for search engines or running a Pay-Per-Click campaign is a good way to attract prospects. The industry knowledge housed on your web site just might provide the answers they are seeking - and they'll remember where they found it.

Sure competitors may read some of your information. Let them! You're the expert, right?

Remember, being perceived as an expert in your field allows you to stop competing exclusively on price and start competing on the value you're providing - a place everyone would like to be.