You’ve put blood, sweat, and tears into researching and creating a killer blog article. You’ve promoted it on social media channels and other online platforms. You just know it’s going to be big.
But then you release it and you get…not much.
Low organic traffic, a few comments here and there, and even fewer conversions.
What happened? The answer probably lies in your content distribution strategy. Your article either hasn’t reached or connected with your target audience.
It begs the question, how can you refine your content distribution strategy so that it gets to the right people?
Finding your target readers is one thing, but getting them to engage with your content and buy from your business is another. You may also find that you have limited time and budget for content promotion – resources that you feel may be better spent elsewhere.
Yet, an effective content distribution strategy can work wonders for your business for three key reasons:
- It increases your brand’s visibility by putting your products in front of new audiences
- It drives up conversions by engaging with not just more people but the right people who are more likely to buy
- It saves you time and money by targeting only the highest-returning channels for your business.
At Mint Position, we’ve seen first-hand how a smart content distribution plan can send content marketing ROI through the roof, with improved engagement, lead generation, and Increased revenue for businesses we’ve worked with.
Want to find and connect with your target audience but don’t know where to start? Book a consultation call with Mint Position to find out how we can maximize your brand’s exposure and increase sales.
What is a content distribution strategy?
In basic terms, a content distribution strategy is finding the best way to share your content across different channels.
It aims to get you the best possible return from your content creation. After all, the best content in the world means nothing if no one reads it.
The best strategies cover three vital types of content distribution, which we can break down into the following categories.
1. Company channels
As an online business owner in 2023, you probably own various content channels already. These will include your website, app, and accounts on social media platforms. You might also have a blog and an email newsletter that are part of these or link directly to them.
Company channels require the most time and investment, but when used well then all the effort pays off.
In particular, these are the places that reap the benefits of great search engine optimization (SEO content). SEO is similar to investing in that it has compounding effects over time: the more effort you invest now, the better it performs over time.
2. Earned channels
You’ll also need to distribute content via channels owned by third parties. This might be in the form of a guest post on their blog or forum, mentions or shares on social media or articles, passive backlink building strategies, or user-generated content.
These earned channels can be free to use and instead work through providing something in return for the owners, including high-quality content, or promoting their products.
Distributing content via earned channels requires dedicated outreach and PR, something that a separate team of marketing professionals should carry out.
If done well, the added exposure and return from this content, however, can more than justify the cost.
3. Paid channels
Sometimes we need to pay extra to create some buzz about our content and this is what paid channels are for.
Online ads (particularly social media ads), pay-per-click (PPC) content, podcasts, and influencers can all promote your content in exchange for a fee. This can also include paid guest post placements on certain media.
Paid channels are probably the most effective way of generating a short-term return so it’s best to save these for your most valuable content, such as landing and product pages or a lead-generation promotion.
How can you refine your content distribution strategy? 7 proven ways to get more viewers
So, how can you refine your content distribution strategy?
The answer lies in assessing your current approach then adjusting it to fit with what you want to achieve.
Here are seven touchpoints that will help you do this.
1. Reassess your target buyer persona
To get your content in front of the right people, you’ll need to know a lot more of the SPECIFICS: exactly who they are, what they want, and how you can help them get it.
Crafting a detailed buyer persona is the quickest way to understand this. But you’ll have to commit to really study your target audience to do this well – many companies don’t put in the research needed to create personas. This will almost always involve interviewing current or prospective customers.
But the rewards of good customer research are evident. 71% of companies with a documented buyer persona exceed lead generation and revenue goals, according to marketing platform SharpSpring.
If you already have a persona(s) but are not getting results, then you’re probably failing on one (or more) of three fronts:
- It’s not specific (or empathetic) enough
- It’s not the focal point driving how you choose your content
- You’re not hitting the same distribution channels that your persona would use.
You can build or reconstruct your persona by asking yourself some simple questions:
- Which demographics benefit from your product/service the most?
- Whose opinion do they trust?
- Which channels do they typically live on?
Don’t be afraid to get very specific. Some marketers even think of the names of their persona’s pets, or favorite flavor milkshake to really delve into the true nature of the target market/person.
Once complete, build your content creation and distribution around this persona. Make sure that your marketers write with them in mind and post on the relevant social networks.
Buyer personas are an essential part of super empathetic marketing that identifies customer pain points and shows how your product will solve them.
Once you have (at least) one, you’ll better know who to distribute your content to so that it gets heard and acted upon.
2. Set clear goals and KPIs to measure the success of your content distribution
Now that your target reader is at the forefront of your mind, you’ll find it easier to set out clear content distribution goals that you want to achieve.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are the metrics that will tell you whether you’ve hit these targets, and this will affect how you distribute your content.
Let’s say your goal is to rank #1 in the search rankings for a specific keyword so that you draw in the organic traffic that leads to conversions. KPIs such as rank positioning and conversions will tell you whether that there has been any success.
Real-life case studies drive home how effective this can be. Mint Position helped gift card API provider Reloadly rank #1 for a high-value keyword by creating and distributing a B2B product page and related tutorial blog with the three KPIs outlined above in mind.
The result? 124 new conversions for Reloadly within a month of publishing, an extremely high figure for their specific B2B industry.
How Mint Position’s content creation and distribution helped Reloadly hit the top of the rankings
3. Create a visual content marketing agenda
A digital marketing strategy is nothing without a content agenda (or content calendar) that specifies how you’re going to carry out your plan.
This is normally a centralized master sheet that maps your content schedule for contributors to refer to at any point.
But how does this look?
Well, the content agenda should be heavily linked to your keyword strategy, including which key terms each piece of content targets to maximize organic traffic potential.
It should show which stage of awareness the target reader is at and the appropriate type of content for this, as well as a category to help organize into blog themes or menu bars on your website.
Note: Each stage of the buyer funnel – from casual observer to motivated buyer – should have a piece of specific content that links to other content. At Mint Position, we call this “mind-mapping” your content library, and it’s designed to keep your target reader on your pages for longer, increasing the chances of conversion.
And, of course, the agenda should outline how you’ll distribute the content.
This may sound complex, but content marketing agencies normally have a tried-and-tested way of doing this. The goal is to keep the agenda layout simple yet informative so that all team members can easily grasp the plan.
Biweekly strategic calls, as we offer at Mint Position, help make sure everything is on track.
A snapshot of Mint Position’s content agenda that outlines keyword info, type of content, and publication date
The content agenda is the vehicle to convey your content strategy, which we craft in the form of a quarterly framework built around the following parameters:
- Topic authority target: The themes we plan to build your authority around.
- Audience pain points: The specific customer problems your product/service is going to solve, and how the content is going to show this
- Unique value propositions: How the content is going to highlight what makes you stand out from competitors.
- Setting KPIs: How we’re going to measure the content’s performance.
When done well, a well-structured content agenda and strategy form a compass that guides your content distribution efforts toward achieving the organic traffic and conversion rates you’re looking for.
4. Strike a balance between paid and organic channels
Paid and organic distribution channels elicit strong feelings in marketing, with content strategists often choosing one or the other and then passionately defending their position.
The answer, though, lies in striking a balance between the two.
Paid channels are great for quick results. They’ll make your content reach a wider audience and are better for promoting time-sensitive offers or events. Two-thirds of content marketers used them last year because of this, with 85% of them investing in paid social media ads and promoted posts.
Source: Content Marketing Institute
Organic (or non-paid) channels are important in building the long-term growth of your brand’s online presence. These not only require a long-term investment, but also a more emotional one, as you work on building relationships with your target audience.
The clear difference is that organic is a “lean-in activity”; that is, people are actively looking for what you are offering. Paid is a “lean-back activity”; that is, people are being shown your content while they are looking at something else.
An SEO’ed blog is a great example of organic. By creating informative content that ranks for a valuable keyword, you can build trust as a thought leader. This leads to social sharing and community engagement, expanding your brand’s reach over time.
The exact balance between these approaches hinges on your objectives, target audience, and budget constraints. A content marketing agency can help you weigh the advantages of one against the other and build it into a digital marketing campaign.
Get this right and the results will come.
5. Repurpose, update and optimize for new content distribution channels
A new marketing strategy doesn’t mean your old content has to waste away in the archives. Instead, you can repurpose it into new content formats, using fresh marketing practices to make it suit your new target channels.
You also have the great opportunity to update content that was once performing well.
If your new distribution plan calls for targeting more video-based mediums like TikTok, then you could convert an important blog post into short video content, and/or update it by including video within the post.
You might break down old webinars or white papers into articles and/or an email marketing campaign that drip-feeds valuable info to your target customers weekly.
You may even turn old testimonials into LinkedIn articles to boast about your business’s achievements to your social media followers.
A new distribution formula can also call for fresh optimization, including a new SEO keyword plan and backlinking that maximizes your content’s visibility.
You can use many metrics to assess the potency of existing content, but it’s better to focus on business-critical figures like click-through rates and conversions to find those ripe for improvement.
Then it’s a case of upgrading the content to fit your new plan. Let’s take the example of a video repurposed into a blog post.
Mint Position’s “low-hanging fruits” keyword approach means we would start by identifying easy-to-rank but highly-value keywords that attract customers.
We would also embed the original video into the content with the audience in mind, inserting several visual elements in the post to make it more engaging.
This way, not only will the content (both the article and the original video) show up better in search results, but it also appeals to a new audience.
6. Analyze metrics and user feedback
Your content distribution strategy should always be flexible and open to tweaking, and metrics and user feedback are your best friends here.
The more data you can collect the better, including conversion rates and rank positioning, like we mentioned earlier. Google Analytics tools, HubSpot, and SEMrush can all guide you here, then it’s a case of seeing how close you are to your targets.
When studying your metrics, ask yourself:
- Has your website traffic and keyword rankings changed since you made your content adjustments?
- Has your new email marketing campaign led to your desired click-through rate?
- Are people spending more time on your pages and has this led to a spike in conversions?
Regular (but not overbearing) evaluation is key. Mint Position finds that quarterly reports get the balance just right, giving us enough time for the tweaks to take effect but doesn’t let our strategy drift.
After each report, we reevaluate and evolve our distribution plan to stay on track for the best possible returns.
7. Onboard UGC and influencers to help spread content
In the age of social media, everyone loves sharing their opinion and you can use your content distribution strategy to take advantage of this.
User-generated content (UGC) is an excellent way of doing this. Many companies now reward users with special offers for posting positive content about their brand, be it a short review, or even just a simple retweet or ‘like‘ on social media.
They mold content into interactive campaigns, contests, and polls to elicit this feedback, using specific hashtags to attract interest. UGC done in this way helps to build trust and foster a sense of community among customers: a great way to strengthen brand loyalty.
Influencer partnerships, too, excel at spreading brand awareness for you. Paying one might be the quickest way to amplify your reach quickly, but often thought leaders are happy to promote your product in return for exposure through your channels, especially if you have a large follower base.
Influencer marketing also doesn’t have to involve just YouTube celebrities, but an expert in your industry who backs up your brand’s performance with specialist knowledge and statistics.
Subject matter expert quotes also keep us above the masses of regurgitated AI content by providing a unique human insight – something that Google SERP factors love.
How can you refine your content distribution strategy? Expand your reach with Mint Position
If you’re a business owner or CEO, then you know the value of your brand’s product or service and how it can help your target audience.
But if you don’t put it in front of the right people, then you’re shouting into the wind: your customers are out there, but they can’t hear you above the cyclone of online noise.
Mint Position has a proven track record of helping businesses punch through this online storm by creating and distributing content in a way that ensures your message doesn’t get lost.
We reach your ideal customers by providing them valuable info they are looking for, engage with them, and guide them toward the conversions that are the lifeblood of your business.
Want to find out how enhanced content distribution can fire up your sales? Get in touch with us and we’ll show you how our unique SEO-focused content marketing method gets your brand in front of more people and leads to higher conversion rates.
