How Do You Show Empathy Through Content?

In this episode, we interview Jessica Johnston, Marketing Manager at Education Advanced, as she shares her unique journey from a 20-year career in education to leading impactful marketing strategies in EdTech.

What you'll learn in this episode:

• How to translate industry empathy into authentic content.
• Effective methods for empowering internal thought leaders to share expertise.
• Why Education Advanced decided to ungate content for greater impact.
• The power of storytelling to connect with your audience.
• Innovative ways to use webinars for engagement and sales enablement.

Tune in for inspiring lessons on balancing storytelling, content strategy, and genuine audience care.

Transcript

Jessica Johnston (00:02)
We wanna be ahead of the game. We wanna make sure that we're really knowledgeable about what is coming down the pipe so that we can make sure that our products are staying up to speed with that as well. I love nothing more than when somebody on our team comes to me and says, I'm really passionate about this topic. Can you help me write a blog post on it? And like the answer is always yes.

Ben (00:47)
Welcome back to another episode of Content Amplified. Today I'm joined by Jessica. Jessica, welcome to the show.

Jessica Johnston (00:53)
Thanks for having me.

Ben (00:54)
I'm excited to have you here. Jessica, this is going to be a fun subject and really a fun conversation. It's going to be something I think that a lot of people can relate to. But before we dive into that, let's get to know you. Just a couple of things we love to have our guests do is catch us up on your career and background real quick. And then another question I just love is what do you love about content and marketing?

Jessica Johnston (01:15)
Yeah, so unique sort of career path started in education. I was a public school educator for 20 years. Finished my career there as a director of communications for a public school district and had an opportunity to sort of parlay those skills into a formal marketing role in an ed tech company, Education Advanced, and loved every minute of it. Wild ride for sure, but love how I'm able to sort of couple these skills for the next thing.

And what I love about content marketing is really just the storytelling. I loved that part of my job at the district, know, really letting people peek behind the curtain, if you will, as to what we were doing. My superintendent used to say, if you don't tell our story, somebody else will. So if we can kind of be ahead of that and just make sure folks know who we are and why we come to work every day, it's a choice. get to, you know, we get to do this thing. I think that's the part I love the most.

Ben (02:04)
That's amazing. Well, with your background, this is extremely relevant. We're really going to talk about how do we have some empathy and really care about our audience and how do we communicate with them, the different formats, all sorts of stuff. What's really cool, Jessica, you're in a unique position where you have a lot of internal experts that come from industry. Like how much of your company actually comes from the industry?

Jessica Johnston (02:26)
Yeah, half of our company came from the world of education. They have sat in the seats of all of the people that we're trying to help. They have a deep understanding of those challenges. They have decades of experience. have lots of titles behind their names. So I think it lends itself to the empathy and to the credibility when we are going out and try to deliver a message.

Ben (02:47)
I love that. So you're already starting ahead. You have people that just naturally care about the space, people that they love. They feel the pain of the industry and everything you're trying to solve. How does that translate properly into your content and marketing? How are you showing people really just how deeply you care? How does that come across the different channels and different formats and mediums?

Jessica Johnston (03:08)
Yeah, so we, like a lot of companies, almost every company out there now with the digital space, we're writing SEO content. We're trying to make sure that we are visible for the folks that we're trying to serve. Although I will say it's a little harder in the space that we're in, in this sort of education operations space, this sort of management space. People don't go to Google and say, how do I track my students' graduation rates without a spreadsheet? That's just not...

It's not what they're doing. So we have to get a little bit creative in the SEO work that we're doing. But the flip side of that is we have people who are deeply passionate about the challenges that we're trying to solve. And so when someone comes to me and says, you know, there's state testing, changes that are coming through and the legislature in Indiana or in Ohio, here's what we're reading. Here's what we're hearing. How can we put something out that will really help our folks?

We wanna be ahead of the game. We wanna make sure that we're really knowledgeable about what is coming down the pipe so that we can make sure that our products are staying up to speed with that as well. I love nothing more than when somebody on our team comes to me and says, I'm really passionate about this topic. Can you help me write a blog post on it? And like the answer is always yes.

Ben (04:21)
I love it. So it sounds like the internal team, you're giving them platforms to create their own content. You're helping them with that. So you do have a lot of thought leaders. How does that work with multiple authors in different viewpoints? What are some of the pros and cons? How do you kind of approach that to really let people have that outlet or the opportunity to share what they care about?

Jessica Johnston (04:42)
Yeah, it works a couple of different ways in our company, just because I love content so much and I love to write. it is just a conversation like we're having right now, where I'll record it and I'll make notes and I'll use the transcript and I'll do like some ghost writing. It's their original thoughts, but you know, I think folks are sometimes intimidated by writing content and I'm always like, come on, come with me. It's okay. Like everybody's a writer. I can help you do this.

So a lot of times it looks like that. Sometimes for our folks internally who are excellent writers, are highly educated and highly skilled, they will just write the content and I'll be, we call it a critical friend, like just let me be your critical friend. I'll look it over, I'll make sure that it sort of matches our brand voice and that it is leading to the product. Of course, we don't want to lead with the product, but we do want our content to point to our solution. So we've just sort of found

I think a really good synergy and I think it's to how you approach your team. I am very non-threatening. I'm very approachable. think too, because I was an educator, you know, it's, we're not this sort of business first mentality. They trust me that I'm going to do what makes the company look good, but I want to help them develop their thought leadership brand as well.

Ben (05:58)
I love that. So when this content comes out, is it under the name of the business or the individuals? How do you kind of weigh out those different options to really benefit everyone involved?

Jessica Johnston (06:09)
Great question. So these all live on our Education Advanced blog, but it's under their byline. you know, they get the glory, if you will. And then I encourage them, we will post things out on our social media channels as well. But we all know the reality is it's like when you're scrolling, if there's a company that posted something, it may or may not catch your eye. We're trying to empower them. Leverage your channels, leverage your networks. Like reach out to people specifically who would benefit from that. A great example is the

Ohio blog that we recently did about these state mandated legislative changes that are coming with student assessment. That's a big group of people that we're trying to help. So if they are putting that content out and they are getting this into the hands of the folks that we're trying to serve, comes across as a lot more authentic.

Ben (06:58)
Very cool. So when you're actually creating the content, you said that you love to write content and you can help people be a critical friend. What are some techniques and strategies that can really portray the empathy and the love and the concern inside of the content? So people know it's not just an advertisement. I like how you put it. It's not starting with the product, but it's leading to the product.

What are some techniques that everyone can kind of learn from to really show their audience that they genuinely care?

Jessica Johnston (07:27)
Yeah, that's a great question and I'll be honest, it's something we could probably do better. I think it goes back to people are sometimes, they're hesitant to share their own personal experiences, but I think that's where it really comes in, especially in these blog posts. If you were a superintendent and you had this challenge when you were sitting in that seat, other superintendents want to hear about that experience that you had and how you overcame it.

So, man, I'm really glad she just said that because that's probably something that I'm gonna go back to my team and sort of practice what I preach here that we definitely need to be infusing more of our own stories into that content. But I think too, if it's just, again, this is not content that was written by AI, this is not content that was written by an SEO contractor, this is content that our internal team is writing. And I think that...

I think that that heart and that passion and that authenticity naturally comes through when you take that approach.

Ben (08:23)
I love that. One of my biggest elements is, and I absolutely love AI. I think it's an incredible technology. I think it's wonderful for sure. What I love that you're talking about is what AI can't mimic are the actual experiences and the stories that we have to tell the experiences where in your case where you have so many to draw upon half of your business is sat in those seats and said,

Here was the headache that I had and here are the solutions and they may not all point to your product, but there are at least solutions and, or at least I didn't even come up with a good solution, but I know I felt your pain and things like that to really share that story. So I love that focus, that emphasis, because I think unique storytelling is really, really powerful. And really it's what AI can't replicate. It's what it can't do.

You know, it never will be able to in the proper elements. So when you're looking at it and you've written this really impactful content and you're trying to get it out there, how are you utilizing channels? What channels have worked really well for you? And I know it's very industry specific, but how have you found success in those areas of getting that message out to different kinds of people in your space?

Jessica Johnston (09:36)
Yeah, I mean, like everybody, we're leveraging social media. I think our social channels, we put content out great. People see it great. We don't get a lot of engagement there. I think the place where we see the most engagement is in our webinar series called Conversations with Educators. And so if we know that there are these themes that we can talk about, having our internal teams who were those personas and then inviting current clients or thought leaders in the space,

to come be a part of the conversations, that's where the real good stuff is. That's where the good conversations come. And not just for the live webinars. Those are great, wonderful, we love those too. But then that becomes an on-demand webinar that our sales team can leverage. And then we can, all the derivative content that comes from that, the social posts, the quotes, the follow-up blog posts, the case studies, all those things. So webinars, I think, is our most important channel this year. It's...

air quotes free. It's just the time and energy to put it together. But the power and all that derivative content, that's the good stuff.

Ben (10:37)
I love it. Now you've mentioned something quickly there that I want to double click into if you're okay with it. you know, often we think about webinars and depending on the nature of the webinar, sometimes they're more considered top of the funnel content. But you just mentioned that your sales team is able to leverage those as well. How are you feeding this content to your sales team? How are they leveraging what you have? How is that making an impact and where does that play a role?

Jessica Johnston (11:02)
Yeah, Kashen, this is a conversation that, a big conversation that we're having right now around sales enablement and content. in terms of how we're enabling the sales team with that, a lot of times it is writing the copy for their outreach, whether it's a call script or an email that they can send, reminding them that we have all of this great content. Like if we have to do a cold call, if we have to do a cold email,

Please, for the love, make sure that you're adding value with sharing some of the content that we've created because we have such a wide body of it. Another conversation that we're having too is around gating and ungating. Historically, we have gated our sort of high value content and breaking news literally just this quarter, we're like, we're not doing it. We're not doing it anymore. We're gonna give it all away for free.

The way people act, you, me as consumers, please don't make me give you something just for a PDF ebook. I'm just not ready there. So this quarter, TBD on how this helps us move things forward, but we're just gonna give it all away for free and continue to educate and hopefully lead them to us through delivering great content all the time.

Ben (12:11)
I love that. I love that mentality. You'll have to keep us posted on the progress because I know it's not necessarily the short term play that everyone helps for, but on the long term side of things, I know a lot of people have had a lot of success with that specific methodology. So one final question, because these episodes go by so quick. With this huge amount of internal resources,

And you've mentioned how you've talked to them, things like that. How do you incentivize and encourage internal resources to take the time away from their daily jobs and actually participate in creating content? I mean, you've said there are some naturally, there's always going to be people that are on top of the news. They come to you. I'd love to write this content. What about those others that may not be so eager? How do you approach them? How do you incentivize them? How do you.

and get them amped up to say, yeah, I want to participate. I want to put my name out there and I want to contribute. How do you kind of approach that?

Jessica Johnston (13:08)
Yeah, a great example of this is a couple of weeks ago, I shared an article with our sales team, like, hey, ran across this in one of the listservs, like it might be something interesting that you can use when you're doing outreach. And one of our sales team members responded with a really long, passionate response to this article. And I was like, hey, can I set up a call? Like, I'd love to just talk a little more about your thoughts on that. You're clearly, you know, it's really important to you. It's around career and technology education and college and career readiness.

and he and I just got on a call and I recorded it and that was one of those situations where it's like he was maybe not comfortable sitting down and writing a full piece but he definitely had a voice and he had an opinion and so I ended up writing something for him. He and I got it to a place that we felt good and we published it. I think the other thing too is for our team anyway because they did come from the education space. Our love language is praise and recognition so

When we have our all hands meetings and we do these like shout outs and spotlights, I am always raising my hand to say, you know, thank you to Kim for being our webinar host. Thank you for writing that blog post about the new legislation. It feels good to be recognized by your internal team, sometimes more so than getting this sort of glory of seeing it published on the website or going out on socials, especially when you're seeing your leadership team.

and your CEO are on those calls and they're seeing that you are a thought leader for our company, I think that goes a long way and it doesn't cost a penny.

Ben (14:35)
I love that. And I love how you're approaching your hunting for those opportunities to give people that platform. Like you said, there was that email. Clearly there's a passion. I'm sure there are meetings where people are piping up and saying a lot of comments about a specific subject. That's an opportunity to say, Hey, let's pick your brain and let's turn this into content. think there's a lot of cool opportunities right there. Jessica, this has been amazing. Thank you so much for the insights. Clearly, you know what you're talking about. I love.

the passion for what you're doing and really just benefiting your audience. think it's absolutely the right way of doing content and marketing. So thank you for being a great example there and sharing these insights. If anyone wants to reach out and connect with you online, how and where can they find you?

Jessica Johnston (15:17)
Yeah, so I'm on LinkedIn, I'm EdTech Chic on LinkedIn and same on Twitter as well. Always looking to grow my network, that is just one of my favorite things when somebody reaches out and is like, hey, do you want to be friends? Do you want to be marketing friends? The answer is always yes.

Ben (15:32)
I love it. love it. Well, Jessica, again, thank you so much for the time and the insights today. Really appreciate it.

Jessica Johnston (15:38)
I enjoyed it.