While recovering from a nasty summer cold last month, I popped in my Animal House DVD for some comic relief. In the opening scenes, Flounder and Pinto are strolling across the Faber College campus when they pass a plaque honoring the school's fictitious founder, Emil Faber, that includes the phrase:

"Knowledge is Good"

After God-only-knows-how-many viewings, this movie still makes me smile. But it also occurs to me that Emil Faber's pearl of wisdom can teach today's companies and organizations something about marketing.

The lesson? If you want to gain new customers or grow relationships with existing customers, educate them before you try to sell to them. As Sy Syms, the late founder of the Syms clothing-store chain used to say in his TV commercials, "an educated consumer is our best customer." If you didn't grow up in the Northeast, you may be unfamiliar with Sy Syms, but I'm sure you get the point.

Financial advisors can put this philosophy into practice by helping clients and prospects make sense of today's often chaotic markets. I interview financial advisors regularly, and I'm always impressed by their sincere concern for doing what's right for their clients. Let that concern shine through by providing content that makes your target audience smarter.

Similarly, asset management companies can earn goodwill by explaining their fund managers' strategies and tactics, using plain English. Rather than boasting about recent returns, set realistic long-term expectations and teach them how to avoid costly mistakes. 

The quest for more assets, more revenues, and more profits can lead to marketing that focuses exclusively on advertising and self-promotion, while ignoring the positive results that can come from offering objective, useful educational content.

Whether your company targets individual investors, financial advisors, or senior executives at other companies (B2B), adopt a "give and you shall receive" philosophy to your marketing and client communications. By sharing your company's wisdom freely, you'll  earn your customers' attention, loyalty, and referrals.

Some of the most effective ways to educate clients and prospects include:

Of course, it takes time and resources to develop a coherent, sustainable content marketing strategy. I have seen organizations launch newsletters that fizzled out after a few issues because they failed to develop a long-term plan for content creation and the development of creative ideas.