Audience Content Mapping

Content-audience mapping ensures every piece serves a specific person at a specific stage. The matrix reveals gaps, redundancies, and priorities.

Persona Development

Keep personas actionable, not exhaustive. Each persona needs: a memorable name, their role or job function, primary goals they're trying to achieve, key challenges blocking them, content format preferences, and channels where they consume content.

Avoid persona bloat. 2-4 personas typically cover your audience. More than 5 suggests insufficient differentiation or trying to serve everyone. Designate a primary persona for resource allocation when trade-offs arise.

Funnel Stages

TOFU (Top of Funnel): Awareness stage. Audience is problem-aware but not solution-aware. Content educates broadly, builds trust, attracts through search and social. Formats: blog posts, infographics, social content, podcasts.

MOFU (Middle of Funnel): Consideration stage. Audience evaluates solutions. Content differentiates, demonstrates expertise, addresses objections. Formats: comparison guides, webinars, case studies, detailed how-tos.

BOFU (Bottom of Funnel): Decision stage. Audience is ready to act. Content proves value, reduces risk, enables purchase. Formats: demos, trials, customer stories, ROI calculators, implementation guides.

Content Matrix Construction

Build a three-dimensional matrix: Pillars × Personas × Funnel Stages. For a skill with 4 pillars and 3 personas, that's 36 cells (4 pillars × 3 personas × 3 stages). Each cell contains: existing content (if any), planned content, and format recommendations.

Start by mapping existing content to cells. Empty cells are gaps. Overcrowded cells suggest redundancy or consolidation opportunities. The matrix makes invisible imbalances visible.

Format Preferences by Persona

Different personas prefer different formats. Technical audiences often prefer documentation, code examples, and detailed tutorials. Executive audiences prefer summaries, ROI analyses, and case studies. Practitioner audiences prefer templates, checklists, and step-by-step guides.

Build a format preference matrix:

Persona	TOFU Formats	MOFU Formats	BOFU Formats
[Persona 1]	Blog, Video	Webinar, Guide	Case Study, Demo
[Persona 2]	Podcast, Social	Template, Tutorial	Trial, ROI Calc

Distribution Channel Mapping

Where does each persona consume content? Map channels per persona: LinkedIn for business professionals, Twitter/X for tech and media, Reddit for technical communities, industry newsletters, conferences, YouTube for visual learners. Content format should match channel expectations.

Journey Mapping

Beyond the matrix, map realistic content journeys for each persona. Show how they discover you (TOFU entry point), what deepens their interest (MOFU progression), and what drives decision (BOFU conversion). Journeys aren't perfectly linear—readers move laterally, skip stages, and revisit content. Show the ideal path while acknowledging real behavior.

A journey map includes: entry content (how they find you), bridge content (what they consume next), conversion content (what drives action), and typical timeline (days/weeks between stages).

Priority Analysis

Not all matrix cells are equal. Prioritize based on: primary persona (highest value), conversion stages (BOFU often underserved), pillar importance (strategic priorities), and gap severity (empty vs. thin coverage).

Create a priority ranking: Tier 1 cells get immediate attention, Tier 2 cells go in next quarter's calendar, Tier 3 cells are future backlog.

Analytics Tagging

To measure matrix effectiveness, tag content in your CMS with: persona target, funnel stage, and pillar. This enables reporting by segment. Example tags: audience:product-manager, stage:mofu, pillar:productivity. Without tagging, you can't measure which cells perform.

Existing Content Integration

Before planning new content, map your existing inventory to the matrix. Run the Audit recipe first if you haven't. Place each audited piece in its appropriate cell(s). Some content serves multiple personas or stages—that's fine. The goal is visibility into what exists before planning what's missing.