Educating prospects. not every lead is ready to convert Get started by laying out the basic components of into a closed deal. Content is critical to the lead nurturing your business, product, and target audience. Use process and can help educate leads to a sales-ready state. the worksheet at the end of this chapter to organize this information and identify those important key for B2B marketers investing in content marketing, messages. “creating engaging content” remains the largest challenge. “Producing content consistently” and 2. Create your buyer personas. The average marketer “measuring content effectiveness” are the number two targets four separate audiences with their content. and number three challenges. This chapter will walk you One of the greatest challenges of marketing is through the steps needed to put a complete strategy making sure that each of these audiences is getting in place that can address these roadblocks and more the right content at the right time. and will provide a number of helpful worksheets and checklists to keep you on track. By having a concrete understanding of your ideal buyer, you can cater your content to their needs and PUTTInG An effeCTIve COnTenT preferences and distribute it among the appropriate STRATeGY In PLACe channels. This ensures that your marketing messages are always relevant. To make this a little bit easier, 1. Identify your goals. The key to effective content we’ve created the buyer persona template at the end of this chapter to help you identify concerns and is to make sure it meets your target customer’s questions for each of your buyer personas — across needs while simultaneously highlighting your every stage of the sales cycle. company’s strengths and positioning your brand as a helpful resource. Before you begin developing 3. Start developing your content — with your goals a content marketing plan, it’s important to identify in mind. Before you dive into content creation, it’s your overall business goals, map your marketing important to have an understanding of all of the goals to those business objectives, and think options at your fingertips. The types of content you critically about the key messages that will lead to can create may seem limitless, but it’s likely that more focused and effective content. some content will be better suited to your content 44 / Pardot