You’re busy, I know.

You don’t need constant chirping from marketers like me about getting on board with content. You’ve got stuff to sell.

But hear me out. Content marketing can be your best friend when wooing deals—and you don’t need to upend your calendar to start using it. In fact, you need 20 minutes to get started.

A quick word on why you’d want to set yourself up with a cache of content. While your prospects or opportunities may be ready to talk brass tacks, likely no one is chatting with you simply because they’re aching to buy another product. They’re talking to you because they have a challenge to overcome or objective to accomplish.

The more you can provide insights and advice that help address these challenges and goals, the more you establish the trust needed to seal a deal. (As this recent infographic showed, content can help position you as a teacher, problem solver, coach, thought leader, and partner.)

So you know the benefits. How do you get started….and fast? 

Here are four quick steps that will take less than 20 minutes total, and can supply you with fresh, relevant content to share with prospects every week.

1. Subscribe to your company’s blog.

I’m always surprised by how few sales folks do this. If your company has a regularly updated blog, then it’s likely serving as a hub for content that speaks directly to the needs of your company's target audience, which theoretically includes your top prospects. The best way to get access to fresh and hot content is to subscribe.

It’s a super short step that can provide you with a fresh trove of insights every week, if not every day.

2. Create a Twitter list of top prospects.

You’re following your best prospects—those whale-size accounts—on Twitter, right? Store your most coveted prospects (say, 25 of them) into a private Twitter list. Use this for quick reference each day to see and engage with the content your best prospects tweet, and share relevant content your company is producing.

3. Set up Google alerts for topics and prospects.

Pop quiz: what are the topics your prospects and opportunities care most about?

The answers would probably roll off your tongue. So why not have content roll into your inbox. By setting up Google alerts for these terms, you’ll get content that matters most to prospects. Even if it's not produced by your company, sharing this content shows you're paying attention.

While you’re at it, set up alerts for those prospects and their companies as well. That way, when any news pops up, you’ll be ready to strike.

4. Find a prospect that’s gone cold and send a content-driven email.

Go into your Salesforce.com instance and pick out one prospect or opportunity that’s gone cold. By cold, I mean you haven’t communicated in a while. Do you know the issues that sent them into a cold sweat? How about the type of content they’ve interacted with in the past?

Using those data points, search your company’s resources page or blog for a relevant piece of content. Shoot them a quick email with a link to that content, suggesting they might find it useful. You’d be surprised how many relationships get reignited when you help address a challenge rather than ask for another call.

These are all small steps. But you’d be amazed at how quickly they can ramp up your reputation as a timely, helpful thought leader.

And there's more where those came from. Check out the short eBook, Connecting with Content, for additional tips on using content marketing to build relationships with your prospects.

Jesse Noyes is Senior Director of Content Marketing at Kapost. He got his start in the newsroom and today his goal is to ensure Kapost's content meets the best editorial standards, that Kapost tells the best stories and spreads the word through social media channels.