Failing to distribute your content properly is like shouting into an empty room. It’s a lot of effort for nothing.

The internet is a brilliant place to hide content.

Content doesn’t move. work if it doesn’t

The answer is simple. Put the right content in front of the right people in the right places at the right times. Of course, simple isn’t necessarily easy.

Marketing communication channels.

Content distribution:

Pushing your content to your audience.

Content discovery:

Creating content in a specific way to make sure people find it.

A content distribution strategy which uses the right mix of channels in an integrated way will deliver more value than the sum of its parts.

So let’s take it step by step.

Step 1: Define your objectives at the outset

Content marketing is the marketing and business process for creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience – with the objective of driving a profitable consumer action.

How to define your objectives

Content objectives depend on your business goals – but they generally fall into three core areas:

• Drive acquisition: Content that delivers a sale or a lead – as one of many touchpoints or in its own right.
• Drive performance: Content that enhances the performance of a customer engagement channel – eg SEO or conversion rate.
• Drive exposure: Content that makes a splash in the marketplace – generating awareness and positive conversation.

How is what you’re proposing going to capitalise on existing opportunities?

How is what you’re proposing going to open up new and exciting opportunities?

Right objectives, right metrics.

Having a clear understanding of your content objectives allows you to identify which metrics you’ll use to quantify how well your content is performing.

You can only develop an effective content distribution strategy if you’re crystal clear about what you’re trying to do with content.

Step 2: Ringfence budget for distribution.

In the old days, the rules were simple. But things have changed. Evidently. It depends.

Even the best content needs a distribution budget. It just doesn’t have to be traditional paid media.

Though a bit of paid can get the ball rolling nicely...

You have to invest in content distribution – somewhere between 20% and 70% of your total content budget is probably about right.

Step 3. Know your audience inside out.

Our target demographic is female, 22-35, married with kids, with a household income of £25k to £35k

It’s a great start. But there’s more to it than that. Start with your biggest fans -your customers. But don’t forget the big picture.

Key digital audience questions:

• Who are they?
• Where are they active?
• Why are they interested?
• When are they online?
• What do they want from you?

Don’t rely on hunches. Dive into the data.

There are loads of tools out there to help you understand your audience.

Introducing Pinpoint

Harnessing big data to generate insights into your online audience.

• Join the dots between multiple data sources to produce fully rounded audience insights.
• In-depth audience profiling – demographics, location, politics, professions, disposable income etc.
• How does your audience behave online? Device usage, social network preference, time spent online etc.
• Other insights - hobbies, activities, outlook on live, brand role preference, values etc.

Insight considerations

Audience insights inform content distribution in many ways – from the channels they prefer and the things they search for, to the media they consume and the sites that influence them. The best strategies consider all these factors.

Data-led distribution

When assessing channels to use for content distribution, consider both the proportion of the audience who use that platform AND how that compares against the baseline.

Facebook insights

Facebook’s free insights tool is a great way to investigate how your audience behaves online.

Getting inside their heads

It’s important to put yourself in your audience’s shoes – what are they thinking?

A deep understanding of your digital audience will lead you to the right content distribution strategy

Step 4: Create your content with distribution front of mind

If distribution is an afterthought, it might not have the desired effect.

The results.

• 75,339 views
• Over 42,000 entrants
• 3,748 social shares, comments and likes
• 22 linking domains 61 avg DA. 40.9m Hitwise traffic. Over 3k referrals
• 3 mins 58 secs on-page engagement
• 2 nd highest trending post on Reddit

Think about distribution at every stage of the content ideation and creation process to give yourself the best chance of success.

Step 5: Build a strategy that’s just right for you.

Don’t be a sheep.

If you’re selling highly-caffeinated fizzy drinks on a global basis, spending millions on incredible YouTube videos would appear to be a GREAT strategy

But if you’re selling rat cages in the north of England, it’s still all about Rattitude magazine.

Finding a unique solution.

Staying true to your brand, your objectives and your audience will result in a unique and effective solution.

Step 6: Leverage a wide range of skills and experience

This is the really hard bit.

Content distribution skillsets

An integrated content distribution campaign needs to leverage the specialist skills and experience of a wide range of experts working closely together:

Example: Earned outreach

For example, having a tried-and-tested process that’s deployed by an experienced team allows us to deliver maximum impact from influencer-led SEO campaigns.

• Identify relevant websites: Using our inhouse WebCRM tool, we’ll identify the most relevant and suitable sites to deploy content on.
• Identify specific influencers: We’ll then drill down further – identifying the individual influencers most likely to deliver what we need.
• Create outreach proposition: The next step is to develop the assets we need to persuade our target influencers to get on board with the project.
• Reach out to contact network: We then reach out to the influencers personally – leveraging our relationships and contact network.
• Intensive personal dialogue: We’ll then communicate intensively with our influencer shortlist to ensure we get the right people.
• End-to-end support & assistance: Once they’re on board, we’ll work closely with the influencers to give them what they want and need.
• Secure client credit :When content is published, we’ll follow up secure that all-important client credit for SEO – a mention or a link.

Example: Paid media targeting

And our biddable media team can provide expert guidance on whether a broad-to-narrow paid approach is appropriate for a particular content campaign…

Example: Paid media targeting

Or whether an insight-led, narrow-to-broad approach offers and better and more cost-effective solution.

It’s impossible for one person to master them all. But it can be hard getting teams to work together.

Unless you live in Stockphotoland

Harnessing the different skills of channel experts is the most effective way to distribute content.

So that’s it. In a nutshell.

Time for some top takeaways.

1. Start with the end in mind – define your goals from the outset.

2. If you’re creating content, you need a distribution budget too.

3. Understand your audience – get to know them inside out.

4. Put distribution at the heart of the content ideation process.

5. Develop a content strategy that’s right for you – don’t just follow the crowd.

6. Use the skills and experience of channel experts to drive the biggest impact.

Thank you.