I remember when I had first moved to St. Louis – I had no clue where anything was and really only knew how to get from my apartment to work which was downtown.
One morning on the way to work I noticed my gas light was on, but since I was running late (and had no frickin’ clue where a gas station was) I let the yellow gas pump shine and continued on. That night on the way home I got that terrible, punch in the gut feeling when you get when your car jerks a little, then sputters, then just rolls to a stop.
I had run out of gas.
What’s a car without gas you ask? Well it’s a 2000lb hunk of steel, aluminum and plastic. What’s with the out of gas story you ask? Because it’s exactly like a marketing automation system without content…worthless.
You see, without content your marketing automation tool will just sit on a digital shelf and suck money from your budget w/o proving it’s real value which is automating the process of driving suspects to prospects, prospects to leads, leads to opportunities and opportunities to customers. This process depends on delivering the right content to your buyers at the right time in their buying cycle. By this I mean you don’t want to send them a contract when they don’t even know who you are.
“But I have content in my marketing automation system now, lay off pal!”
That’s great, but is it the right content? Think of it like this – there are 4 different kinds of gas at the pump, some for certain cars and some for others. If you’re driving a Honda, then you’re likely not going to pump a tank full of diesel, it’s regular ol’ unleaded for you.
Understanding the right ‘gas’ for your marketing automation tool revolves around the buyer’s persona or role (vp of marketing, director of customer retention etc…) and where they are in the buying process. Different buyers have different problems or concerns at different stages so do your research and learn about their concerns.
Loading up your marketing automation tool with the right content is just like filling up the tank with the right kind of gas. If you do your research to understand your different buyers and their problems and create the right kind of content for their buying stage you’ll have plenty of fuel to keep the engine humming.