How to Build a Content Distribution Strategy
How do you ensure your content reaches the right eye? Discover the best content distribution practices to maximize your reach.
Creating engaging content is an important part of a successful marketing strategy, but the job does not end there. Making sure that the content is reaching relevant audiences is important as well. Simply publishing the content on various platforms will not yield the expected results. You need to build an excellent content distribution strategy to ensure your target audience is viewing your content.
Content distribution refers to a systematic process of sharing and promoting content across the right channels. The content can be in the form of blog posts, videos, images, social media updates, podcasts, etc. A content distribution strategy aims to maximize visibility, engagement, and impact. This guide features the best practices for building a content distribution strategy.
Best Practices to Build a Content Distribution Strategy
Here are some of the best practices for building a content distribution strategy to ensure your content reaches a wider audience:
Identify Your Goals
Before building a content strategy, it is important to define your goals firsthand. There are various reasons for creating content. Content can help you to increase brand awareness, drive website traffic, or generate leads. Identifying your goals will give you a clearer picture of how you want to craft your distribution strategy. It will also help you to identify your target audience.
Define your Target Audience
Knowing your target audience is a crucial part of forming content distribution plans. Remember, you cannot create content that will please everyone. So define your target audience by creating customer personas. Find out about the demographics (age, gender, occupation, etc.) of your audience and create a strategy that specifically reaches them.
Select your Distribution Channels
Multiple distribution channels are available today, and they are divided into three categories.
- Owned: The brand or content creator has complete control over these channels. They include blogs, websites, social media pages, emails, newsletters, etc.
- Earned: These channels are not under the control of content creators. Here, third parties share your content on their channels. They include guest posts, forums and communities, review sites, etc.
- Paid: These channels require you to pay to promote your content. They include pay-per-click (PPC) ads, social media ads, sponsored content, etc.
Once you identify your target audience, research where they spend their time. Based on this information, select one or multiple distribution channels. You can also republish your older content by modifying it based on your channel.
Measure the Results
After publishing your content, knowing which distribution channels are working and which aren’t is important. This will help you to save time and effort. To make it easier, make sure you set certain KPIs and goals. These are quantifiable metrics that give you insights into the efficiency of your distribution efforts. The metrics can vary based on the type of content you’re sharing.
For instance, the metrics for a video can be views, likes, comments, and shares. Similarly, for a blog post, it can be traffic and conversions. You can set specific periods (weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc.) to measure and analyze your content. This will also help you choose the channels effectively for future campaigns.
Effective content distribution strategies will ensure your content reaches a wider and more relevant audience. By staying up-to-date with industry trends and emerging platforms, you can experiment with your strategies to ensure they are relevant and effective.