If you’re bootstrapping a startup you’re probably short on both time and money. Is content marketing out of reach then? No, I think not. You just have to be able to start small.
A small start, if done right, will enable you to scale. By the time you have the money to hire a content writer, you’ll be able to tell them what to write.
I’d start with a story. Once a founder hired me to generate content. But he was never quite happy with the content. We went back and forth trying to figure out what he really wanted from content. In the end I produced a few pieces that did well on various metrics, but because there was no real goal, he still wasn’t satisfied. He had plenty of money for content, but that couldn’t help him.
These days I ask: What problems does your product solve? If your ideal customer posted about one of these problems in a forum, what would their question be?
Start with brainstorming these questions and answering them. These make great blog posts. And even more, in the future they can make great briefs once you’re thinking about hiring help with content. In fact this is exactly how I wrote the very blog post you’re reading.