The right order

One of the biggest mistakes made by marketing departments is that they do things in random order (which is often the wrong order), when there are far more qualified prospects to build assets, campaigns, and programs for.

To do things better means doing them in the right order:
1) Start with campaigns prospects in-market and ready to make a purchasing decision.
2) Ensure you have the right product marketing, sales enablement and conversion content in place to nurture them to close.
3) Work backwards to prospects who are less ready to buy but looking for a solution of some kind, build more nurture and educational content to get them to a stage where they are ready to make a purchasing decision.
4) Work backwards to prospects who are not even looking for a solution and help them solve pain points with tools and resources. Nurture them to a stage where they understand what kind of solution they should be looking for
5) Work backwards to prospects who are not even problem-aware and create more thought leadership content to help them understand the scope of how their life can be improved if they start solving certain problems.

Starting with number 5 when number 2 is not completed is the quickest way to burn through marketing budget and internal political capital.

If you do things in the right order, you will find budget for all of these activities.