Also, don't forget that you will need to ob_start() again for any successive calls:
<?php
ob_start();
echo "1";
$content = ob_get_clean();
ob_start(); // This is NECESSARY for the next ob_get_clean() to work as intended.
echo "2";
$content .= ob_get_clean();
echo $content;
?>
Output: 12
Without the second ob_start(), the output is 21 ...