This post's title promises a lot. How can we fit “everything” you need to know to start a blog in a 650-word post, when white papers, books, and entire websites have been created on the subject?

When you launch your inbound marketing efforts, there's no doubt you're watching your budget closely. You don't want to cut corners, but you want to get the best value for your investment. One way to do this is to rely on in-house employees to create content.

 Many different elements go into the successful practice of inbound marketing, but we're going to start at the very beginning, with your blog. Quality blog content helps achieve at least three different objectives in your inbound marketing efforts:

If you've already downloaded our template for creating buyer personas, you may be wondering how to gather all the information needed to fill in the spreadsheet. (If you haven't downloaded our free buyer persona spreadsheet template, you can get it here.)

A very powerful way to create buyer personas that will serve as your foundational support for creating content is to first create a buyer’s matrix and then distill the information you’ve assembled in the matrix into a short, descriptive narrative. I first learned about this process in reading Jill Konrath’s book, Snap Selling. You can find out more about the book here. (Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with Jill Konrath or with Snap Selling.  Maybe I should!) While the focus of her book is on selling, the benefit of using this approach is that it has a major impact on your inbound marketing efforts and guiding you in creating meaningful content for your clients and prospects.