If you’re only developing content with consumption in mind, you’re missing a huge opportunity to keep momentum going as prospective buyers move through the buying cycle.

Think about what happens after a businessperson reads a white paper or e-book, attends a webinar, or watches one of your video customer testimonials. You’re probably hoping your thought-provoking ideas inspire the person to spark up a conversation with colleagues and peers.  According to Ardath Albee, B2B Marketing Strategist and author of eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale, that’s exactly what happens when your content hits the mark.

During her session at the MarketingProfs B2B Forum 2012, Ardath said a key goal of your content should be to transform interactions from dialogues to conversations. She defines dialogue as an exchange of information (only requires one person) and a conversation as an interchange of thought, information actively shared among people (requires 2 or more people). (For more on these definitions, check out Ardath’s blog post on this topic.)

You can help this transformation along by using your content as a Trojan horse to get your ideas into the conversations your buyers are having when you’re not in the room. But this only works if you think of your content as part of a continuum, where you tell a continuous story over time that accompanies the buyer from beginning to end of the buyer’s journey. When do this effectively, you can become part of all kinds of conversations, including…