Avoiding the Most Common Content Marketing Virus

It is an easy content marketing virus to catch.  Your new widget is awesome.  It is faster than a turbo-charged drone, it takes less space than a bedbug in your suitcase and sleeker than any i-gizmo.  You whip up the standard marketing content including:

• Web pages that are optimized for phrases like  “Fast Widget”, “Small Widget” and “Sleek Widget”
• Data Sheets which detail every technical spec you can find
• White Papers that describes how to use your widget 
• “Case Studies” (which are fictional) because you don’t have a customer ready in the wings to rave about your widget
• Video demos of your widget in action
• Webcasts of your VP of Sales talking about your widget

Next, You push email campaigns at target customers with catchy subject lines like “The Fastest Widget on the Market”.  You post about your widget on all the social networks.  

And then you wait.  And wait.  
You have been the victim of one of the most common content marketing viruses in the business; the “It's all About Me” virus.  You forgot that in the customer doesn’t care about widgets.  Customers are busy. They aren’t looking for faster, smaller, sleeker widgets.  If they were, they would find your website and order widgets galore.  Customers are looking to solve problems and if you can help, they will come.  

It is easy to get overly zealous about creating marketing content all about your widget.  You still need your marketing content, but you need to shift your perspective to center on the problems your widget solves for customers.  Listen to your customers.  Maybe your target customers spend too much time on something your widget can do in a snap.  Or maybe they are challenged to by big clunky alternatives to your widget.   Your content marketing strategy needs to look more like:

• Web pages that are optimized for phrases how to fix a problem (with your widget)
• Data Sheets that describe use cases (and a few specs)
• White Papers about solving problems (which your widget can do)
• Authentic Case Studies featuring beta-customers
• Video demos of your how customers get value from widgets more quickly.  
• Webcasts starring happy customers who are willing to share their success story

The bottom line is that your customer doesn’t want to hear about your widgets. Your content marketing strategy needs to focus on the “It’s all about Me” Customer not the “It’s All about Me” Widget.  

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