It’s easy for the content your business creates to get lost in the crowd. Simply creating good content isn’t enough to get noticed. Social media posts, news articles, how to guides and emails constantly bombard your potential customers. Developing a content distribution strategy is key if you want your business’ news and resources to stand out online.
What is Content Distribution?
Content distribution is the process of sharing and promoting your content to your target audiences across a strategic mix of platforms. If you want to catch potential customers’ attention online, a digital distribution plan is an integral part of your content strategy. In order to cut through the noise, you need to deliver your content to the right people in the right places.
Content Distribution Channels
Content distribution channels are the platforms where you share and promote the content you create. The channels you use depend on both your ideal audience and the resources your business has available. You can distribute your content through three types of channels: owned, earned and paid.
- Owned Channels: When you use owned channels, you’re sharing content across the digital properties you own. These platforms might include your website and blog, your social media profiles and your email newsletter.
- Earned Channels: Earned channels are third party platforms that distribute your content or content about you. You may also hear this type of distribution called shared channels. Customers, journalists and bloggers are often the people creating the digital mentions your business earns. Earned content also includes guest posts you write, product reviews, and social media shares and mentions.
- Paid Channels: Paid channels are distribution methods you explicitly pay for. This includes pay-per-click (PPC) ads, social media advertising and content created by influencers who are paid by your business for their work.
Developing a Distribution Strategy
Making distribution part of your overall content strategy will guide how you promote blog posts, ebooks, podcasts, resources and other valuable content. Rather than distributing your content anywhere and everywhere, a content distribution strategy provides organization and intention to your content marketing process. Planning ahead also helps you set benchmarks and goals when publishing and sharing your content.
Before creating or sharing content, it’s important to research your target audience. Identify precisely who you want to target, where they are located, and their age, income and interests. You can then begin to think about how you’re going to distribute your content effectively to this target market.
Next, outline the types of content you’ll create and the channels you’ll share it on. Be sure the channels you distribute your content through align with your target audience’s preferences and behaviors. Consider distribution channels that complement the type of content you create, whether it’s a podcast episode, blog post or video.
It’s a good idea to set goals for your content distribution. Establish key performance indicators (KPIs), including website visitors, social media engagement, ad click through rate, backlinks and conversions to measure the success of your strategy. Incorporate your goals into your content calendar, where you can outline your promotion schedule and the channels you’ll be sharing on, as well as track your KPIs.
With insight into your target audience, distribution channels, content type and goals, you can craft and distribute your content purposefully!
