Thursday, April 9, 2015

You Are In The "Edutainment" Business


It doesn't matter what your product or service is.

If you want to attract people in this Age of Attention Scarcity, then you should consider yourself in the "edutainment" business.

What is "edutainment"?

Simple - it means a mix of education and entertainment.  Think Food Network, Discovery Channel, or HGTV.

Maybe you don't have your own cable channel, but you can still have online and offline points of contact and influence.  For example, You Tube videos, blogs, twitter, and live events.

Let's say that you are a restaurant.  Then, don't consider yourself in the restaurant business.  Think of yourself as your own Food Network.  

Your job is giving value to people through entertainment and education.  The actual food and dining experience is simply one part of it.

Here are a few ideas:

1. Theme nights at the restaurant.  An example is kid's game night, where kids can also win "food bucks" to be used in the future.

2. Live cooking classes.

3. You Tube video cooking classes.

4. Special nights - for example,  a performance by the award winning local high school orchestra or a wine and cheese party at a local luxury car dealership to see the latest cars, mingle, and hear live music.

5. Secret menus and special limited-time dishes only listed online.

The idea is to advertise the events in the restaurant, capture people's email addresses and drive people  online.  Then complete the loop and use online to drive people to the live offline events.