After having helped many of my clients implement marketing automation tools like Pardot and Hubspot I have come to the conclusion that the implementation is the easy part – the real challenge is creating the Content Strategy needed for success. I think Marketing Automation is a real misnomer as it indicates a set it and forget it mentality and nothing is further from the truth.   Most companies invest thousands of dollars and countless employee hours setting their tools up.   There are connections to be established with your Salesforce CRM, fields to map, smart/dynamic lists, templates for emails, landing pages and forms to create, scoring, and the list goes on.  Once the tool is set up – there is an audible buzz around the marketing team, “Now what do we do with it?”   It is like you have a shiny new sports car without gasoline.  There are two things you need to do to ensure your company gets the most from its investment in Marketing Automation:

Content Audit  
My new mantra is “No more random acts of content”.  It is easy to get caught up in a flurry of activity to create infographics, videos, case studies, white papers, resource guides, presentations for slideshare, … the list goes on and on.  A content audit is an important first step.  Ideally, you want to ensure you have marketing content to support the entire purchase process of your target customers.  You may find it is a good time to interview current customers to get better insight into the purchase process.  Figure out what content you have, what step in the purchase process it supports, and where you have gaps.  I like to rate the quality of the content and recommend a refresh date as a part of the audit.   

Content Marketing Strategy
I am frankly tired of the whole “Content is King” mantra.   The “Customer is King” and they need the content available so they can access it whenever, wherever, and however they want it.  Not all customers are the same so the onus is on you to repackage and serve the content in multiple different ways.  One of the most common ways to go about planning is to leverage a Content Pillar approach.  I build a plan by week for 3-6 months that covers my major content assets and how I can repurpose each of them across multiple different channels including blogs, resource guides, white papers, videos, infographics, emails, enewsletters, and social.   Each content piece should link your customer to more engaging content where they can learn at his or her own pace.  If your marketing automation tool has a calendar (Hubspot has a great one), you can actually set up the calendar right in Hubspot.  

In closing, don’t let the mechanics of setting up your new marketing automation tool distract you from building the content to fuel your success.  My favorite part about building these plans is to see how excited my clients get when they see how much they can accomplish with a little advance planning.  

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.