This talk by Jason Fried, founder and CEO of 37 Signals, at the Business Innovation Factory is great for all small business owners. Fried is well known for his strong belief in simple and user friendly interface design.

In his talk about marketing he looks to chefs as a great example of good advertising. Rather than spending millions of dollars on paid advertising, the famous chefs market themselves by sharing their knowledge and skills with the world through their cooking shows and books. As a result they can generate an audience of people who will voluntarily purchase their branded products and recommend them to their friends. Fried believes that teaching is the most valuable way of marketing a product. Hundreds of people who have never cooked before can watch a Jamie Oliver show and make something from a recipe found in one of his books, so Jamie has the ability to create customers by appealing to more people.

This doesn’t necessarily mean teaching someone how to write a book – although it could. By simply putting up a top ten book list or best picks for gifts you are sharing you specialized knowledge with new people. You being an expert in the field is one of the most valuable assets to your company and it should be leveraged to build and audience that will continue to return to you.

Teaching is a prolific way of growing you customers rather than continuing to target a small percentage of the population – showing people why and how to love using your product is probably the best conversion optimisation out.