It took me six years to figure out what you’ve read so far.

Over those six years, the campaign misfires and hair-pulling were softened by a feeling that I was steadily improving, slowly filling in pieces to reveal a big picture. If there is a big picture, you should be looking at it now too.

The front and back covers of this book give the impression that I now have a complete view of content marketing for B2B software companies, which suits me fine, but can’t be true. But although there’s probably plenty missing from this guide, there’s enough here to sidestep the headaches most folk experience trying to figure out content and take you well beyond $3m ARR.

Now you have a strong foundation for your content efforts, when something goes wrong, you don’t need to do the soul-searching. ‘Why is nothing working?’ ‘Am I a bad marketer?’ ‘Should this startup even exist?’ No more. Audience and message are already locked in, so you’re only left with a handful of campaign-related variables that you need to tweak.

With more confidence about how your content marketing contributes to your growth, you can also make some bets!

• You can bet on content contributing to revenue targets
• You can bet on reduced customer acquisition costs
• You can bet on your brand slowly becoming famous for something specific
• You can bet on creative campaigns you wouldn’t have tried otherwise
• You can bet on hiring a content marketer that’ll focus on business growth, not just content production

Of course, in the arid, unforgiving landscape of startupland there is no guarantee of success. You can only narrow the odds by identifying the few things that will make a difference, and executing those things quickly, and in the right order.

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I hope that you and your team make it to wherever it is you want to go and that this book proves to be a helpful companion.