Have you ever thought about how much content there is on the internet? The short answer is too much! That’s why, even with amazing content, it can be easy to get lost in the crowd. But hope is not lost! You can still reach your target audience and boost your brand, influence and credibility. That’s what a good content distribution strategy is for. In this article, we’ll teach you everything you need to know about this crucial part of your content marketing strategy and how to implement it for your own brand or business.
What is Content Distribution?
Before we get into the thick of things, let’s begin with a content distribution definition. Content distribution refers to the processes where the end goal is to reach a wider audience. Now, this term seems pretty loaded, but in all likelihood, you are already partaking in some of the tasks that make up this strategy. Content distribution includes the following elements:
- The actual content creation process;
- Your target market, including where and when they’ll be around;
- The content marketing channel or channels that will be used;
- The correct timing of distribution;
- Monitoring and analyzing performance.
All these have an impact on the effectiveness of your content marketing distribution strategy. What kind of content is counted here? It doesn’t matter! As long as it can be consumed, like videos, e-books or podcasts, it falls under the content umbrella.
Why Content Distribution Matters
You’re probably asking, why care about this in the first place? Beginners in the industry think that all you need to do is create a great piece of content and publish it. However, without content distribution tactics to help your content go that extra mile, way fewer people will see your work. Yes, even if you create the best content out there. So, if you’re thinking about whether or not to come up with content distribution strategies, keep reading. We’ll show you just how valuable content distribution can be.
Increased Engagement
All the content that you produce is another opportunity to start a conversation. For example, social media content distribution allows you to obtain likes, shares and comments on social media platforms. The increased engagement allows you to strengthen your relationship with your target audience and keep the brand at the top of their mind. When you distribute digital content, there’s a higher likelihood of them becoming loyal customers. Besides, engagement is how your target market communicates with your brand. So, why not use content marketing distribution to build a stronger relationship with them?
Brand Awareness
There’s a reason why a lot of content creators are aiming to go viral. That boost in visibility means a boost in brand awareness as well. Through content creation and distribution, you can vastly increase the number of people who have heard about you and your brand. This is especially important if you have just entered the industry and are trying to establish yourself or your business. But with content distribution, remember that it’s not always just about going viral. It’s a great bonus, but it’s important to be known for the right reasons. That’s why, as you manage the distribution of content, consider how your efforts can potentially affect your brand’s perception.
Establish Credibility
Content distribution can also be a great way to establish yourself or your brand as an industry leader. There are two ways that you can do this.
- Educate the customer: Make guides and videos, or hold workshops that will benefit your customers.
- Create authoritative content: Create insightful content that demonstrates your level of expertise and builds your credibility in the industry.
What are the content marketing channels that will work best in either scenario? This will depend on the industry. To maximize the impact, it’s imperative that you choose the right channel for you.
Increased Profitability
Do you also run a website? An advertiser will always want their ads to be displayed to a relevant audience. And with well-executed distributed content management, you can make this happen! With a highly homogenous audience comes higher site traffic averages, making you a rare gem for businesses that want to laser target their market. But to keep attracting the right people, be careful which organizations you let place ads on your site. If the user experience is severely diminished because of the advertisements, they may stop visiting your site altogether.
What Are the Types of Content Distribution?
The internet is a virtually limitless place. Over the years, many means of dissemination have been created. Right now, there are three major types: owned distribution, earned distribution and paid distribution. Which ones are most suited to you? In the following subsections, we will tackle the different approaches to content distribution. To help you decide which will be the most suitable for your purposes, we have summarized everything you might want to know about all three below.
Owned Content Distribution Channels
Owned channels are those that you own and control directly. The MGID website itself is a distribution channel!
Websites are the most popular content distribution platforms. However, there are other owned channels that you can use.
- Email newsletters: Send an email directly to your subscribers’ inboxes and give them the highlights!
- Mobile app: Even if it’s not created specifically to disseminate content, you can still use it for important announcements.
- Social media distribution platform: This refers to your pages on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and everywhere else!
Essentially, the options are anywhere you can publish your content.
What Are the Pros and Cons?
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| You have full control. You’re free to distribute any kind of content that you want. | It requires you to be hands-on. Should there be any problem with the content distribution channel, you need to take care of it yourself. |
| You have complete access to data. All the generated data is your own, which may be useful if you decide to work with a content distribution agency or other external professionals. | It may have limited reach. Until you build your following up to a substantial size, you may not reach as much of your target market as you want. |
| It can be more cost-effective. Once you have a decent following, it will be more affordable. |
Earned Content Distribution Channels
With this type of content distribution, others are sharing or promoting your content without compensation. This can come in the form of:
- Guest posts: Instead of publishing on your own site, you can use a high-authority website as part of your content distribution efforts to improve credibility and reach in the same way Amy Porterfield amplified her reach through HubSpot.
- Endorsements: If someone with a large social capital online shares your content, it can mean a lot of exposure for your brand.
- Shares on social media: Even what you publish on a video content distribution platform can be shared across other social media.
Although uncommon, press coverage is another avenue that you can explore.
####What Are the Pros and Cons?
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| There is a higher level of credibility. Since someone else is advocating for you, people may tend to give you more credibility. | There is limited control. You don’t have control over the entities participating in content distribution. |
| It improves SEO ranking. Having your link on a reputable third-party platform can increase your site ranking, which helps more people discover you organically. | It has no guarantees. There’s no guarantee that anyone will share what you create. |
| It widens your reach. By redistributing your content, the sharer exposes it to their audience. |
Paid Content Distribution Channels
Here, you’re paying for your content to appear on various platforms. You may know this better as an ad! Depending on your goal, here are a few types of paid content distribution channels that you can explore.
- Paid search: Your content will appear based on the keyword the user searched for.
- Sponsored content: This is like a guest post, but you have to pay for it!
- Display ads: Through this subtype of content distribution, your ad may be placed in various parts of the page.
- Social media ads: Your content will receive more exposure on social media. The exposure options will depend on which platform you use.
How much will it cost? This depends on various factors, like the demand and your target audience.
What Are the Pros and Cons?
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| You can enjoy immediate results. As soon as you pay, let’s say, for branded content distribution, what you want shared will immediately be put in front of the audience. | It can be pricey. You need to set aside a content distribution budget to reach your audience based on your desired reach and target market, which can be expensive. |
| There is better control over content exposure. Most ad platforms allow you to fine-tune your audience so that your content is only shared with those that belong to your target market. | There is limited visibility. Any gains that you achieve will immediately drop to zero as soon as you stop paying. |
| Experience measurable results. You’ll get access to detailed analytics, allowing you to refine your strategy based on hard data. |
How Do You Assess the Success of Your Content Distribution Strategies?
To be able to confidently determine the level of success that you obtained from this, you should:
- Define your KPIs: Depending on your goals, these can include impressions, traffic data and more.
- Use monitoring and analysis tools: To easily manage your content distribution success, identify the tools that will best serve your purposes.
- Look at the performance of each channel: Ask yourself if every selected channel is doing as much as you expected for this content distribution campaign.
- Use your competitors as a benchmark: It’s great to outdo yourself, but remember that you’re competing for the same viewers as the other players in the industry.
Content Distribution Plan: How to Distribute Your Content Effectively
Content distribution is accomplished by fulfilling every step involved in the process, and we will walk you through them all below. For every step, we’ll include questions, sub-steps or general insights that we believe are important for increasing your odds of success. Regardless of the direction you take, remember that mobile media content distribution is considered as well. Since it’s now very normal to use smartphones to browse the web, you should make the extra effort to go with a mobile-first approach.
Step #1: Identify Your Target Market
If you already have a customer avatar, great! It will make this step in content distribution easier. But don’t skip to the next just yet! For this part, think about the following:
- What segment of my audience am I addressing specifically?
- Is part of my target not included in the customer avatar?
- Do I want to hop on a trend to increase the chances of success of my content distribution efforts?
All these points should be considered so that you can more easily perform the following steps. This is especially true if you offer a range of products or services that may not be interesting to your entire market.
Step #2: Choose the Content Distribution Channels That You’re Going to Use
Why do we need to identify the channels before creating the content? The amount of work that you’ll have to do is based on the content distribution media that are involved. Let’s say that you want to create a video. If you want to use email marketing, too, you’ll have to repurpose it to a more inbox-friendly format. It’s tempting to just say you’re going to involve all channels for content distribution, but consider these points:
- Where is my target audience hanging out?
- What level of effort am I willing to take to disseminate the content?
- Am I in a hurry to publish, or can I afford to take my time?
Based on your answers here, you can figure out which content distribution platforms you should prioritize.
Step #3: Create the Content
Finally, right? Equipped with more information, we’re confident that you’ll be able to create awesome content that your audience is going to love. If you need some guidance on how to proceed with this step in content distribution, we wrote this piece about content marketing a few years back. That article provides in-depth information on the process of content marketing, but here’s the gist:
- Define your goal;
- Create your buyer persona (done!);
- Brainstorm content ideas;
- Select the most suitable content type or types;
- Publish.
If you’re in a pinch for inspiration, look at what has already worked. Then, try to do better than that to maximize the impact of your overall content distribution strategy.
Step #4: Time Your Publishing
It goes without saying, but make sure that you have polished your content ahead of time. This allows you to schedule everything instead of rushing to meet the deadline you’ve set in your content distribution calendar. But just as important is making sure you time the publishing right. You can have the best content on the most suited platform, but if you don’t time it right, you may just get lost in the crowd. In deciding when it’s best to finalize content distribution, try to answer the following questions:
- What time and day does my audience use each channel?
- When does my competition publish their content?
- Do I want to go straight against the competition or choose a different time?
- Is there any justification to publish ASAP?
Step #5: Monitor and Analyze the Results
Now that you’ve done all the hard work with content distribution, it’s time to see what results you got from your efforts. Either way, it’s time to give yourself a high five! Whether or not you did well according to numbers, remember that there are endless opportunities for improvement. Look into the following metrics to gauge the success of your content distribution strategies.
- Traffic metrics: This includes the total number of visits, unique visitors and bounce rates.
- Engagement metrics: Here, you can consider the number of likes, comments and shares, as well as the time spent on the page.
- Conversion metrics: This refers to the percentage of people who performed a specific action, like clicking on a link or signing up.
Top Digital Content Distribution Channels and Tools
Are you feeling overwhelmed by all that makes up content distribution? We recognize that if you are running a one-person team, it can be challenging to do this over and over again. However, thanks to content distribution channels and tools, you don’t have to do everything manually. In the next two subsections, we’ll talk about our favorite tools and channels that can be used to maximize the outcome of your content distribution efforts. Remember that these are general suggestions. Depending on your existing system, you may benefit from assets not mentioned in our list.
Top Content Distribution Channels
You’ll most likely find success in using these channels.
- Social media: Social media remains to be one of the easiest ways to spread the word about practically anything. That’s what makes it such a great content distribution channel! There are free and paid options, too.
- Email marketing: With email marketing, you get unlimited direct access to your audience. Including this in your content distribution strategy can pay off if you’re willing to build your list.
- Website: This can serve as the primary spot for all your content. The more that you invest in it, the better your SEO rankings and your reach can be.
If you already have these, then great! Just focus on maximizing their capabilities.
Top Content Distribution Tools
Here are our three selections for the best tools to help you with content distribution.
- Hootsuite: If you’re using various social media platforms as part of your content distribution strategy, Hootsuite allows you to manage all of them in one place. This includes everything from scheduling your posts to analyzing your data.
- Mailchimp: Mailchimp has automation, AI generation, audience segmentation and analytics capabilities. So, even with just this one platform, you can implement your email content distribution.
- Hubspot: No matter where or how you want to distribute content, this all-in-one marketing tool is great for improving SEO, managing social media pages and more.
There are options available for all budgets and functions!
Content Distribution: You Can’t Live Without It!
Even if you’re literally the biggest in your industry, it won’t necessarily translate into having the largest number of impressions. That’s what distributed content management is for. It ensures that content reaches as many of the right people as possible. And if you’re in search of advertisers for your website, create your MGID account today. With our programmatic AI advertising, only the most relevant content distribution materials will be shown on your website to increase its profitability. And if you’re an advertiser, you’ll get access to our top tools, a personal manager and our specialists. No matter what side of the fence you’re on in content distribution, you’ll always win with MGID.
