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Teams create great content – even unique one – and then nobody consumes it. It’s not driving any impact. Ugh. But does that mean it’s bad content, or does it just mean no effective content distribution strategy is in place, and people didn’t see it?
Of course, the answer can also be somewhere in the middle, but the truth is that there’s way too much content – of all types out there – for consumers ever to consume it all. No matter how good or relevant it is. People have to make choices where they let their attention wander.
That’s why any marketing team needs an effective content distribution strategy.
In this article, I discuss the following:
- What is a content distribution strategy?
- What are content distribution channels?
- How do you develop an effective content distribution strategy?
What is a content distribution strategy?
I’ve been watching the two seasons of “The Mick” on Netflix in 2023. Interestingly, the show was on TV in 2017 and 2018 and had millions of viewers, but I didn’t hear about it until it started showing in my Netflix feed. When the show was on network TV, I wasn’t watching network TV, so that was not a good content distribution channel for me then. But Netflix – six years later – was. I’m not the outlier! Consumers have moved to different channels, and those channels keep evolving!
A good distribution strategy for your content keeps in mind the following:
- What are the best channels from a content and audience perspective?
- Where can we reach our target audience?
- How can we expand the reach through more channels?
- What’s the goal of the content – including what needs of the audience does it address?
- Which distribution tactics help us get closer to that goal?
Channel options
A good strategy likely has a checklist that goes through each channel option, and marketers can check off each channel to see if it works. Let’s say you have some excellent long-form video content that can easily be considered to be repurposed in one of more of these ways:
- A TikTok. One of my favorite shows on YouTube TV – “The Rookie” – does this well. They organically share short clips on the social media platform.
- YouTube Shorts
- Soundbites on other social media channels
- Text quotes – maybe on a designed background – that share a good story and raise awareness.
- Email campaigns
- Articles – many long-form videos can be repurposed into written pieces with different goals. And the people that might read an article may not have watched the long-form video anyway or not at this stage.
- Gated content with or without a cost to download it.
So there are plenty of options and ideas to distribute content to a target audience. The trick is to be strategic, keep moving forward, and optimize the workflow.
What are content distribution channels?
We can’t just create content and hope people will come. At some point, they might, but to truly reach them we need to be aware of what are the best content distribution channels currently, long-term and which ones are worth at least trying.
Content expert Jeff Bullas and I discuss this topics on an episode of “The Business Storytelling Show.” In all, we dive into these areas:
- How content is a long game
- Becoming an influencer through content at the right time
- Choosing the right social media channels
- The importance of having your own website
- Will AI replace the human content creator?
How do you develop an effective content distribution strategy?
To develop an effective content distribution strategy, roughly follow these steps. The exact process can vary depending on team size, budget, and industry.
- Be clear about the goals of the content.
- Develop your content tilt (aka know what you will be talking about and what’s unique about you)
- Determine priority channels – if email is your highest converting channel, make it a priority. If short-form social media video content is up there, make that a priority too.
- Create a foundational workflow for content. For example, my two foundational content pieces usually are my live-streamed podcast and/or articles.
- Then deploy a Create Once, Publish Everywhere strategy (COPE) trying to repurpose the content in as many places as possible.
- Keep measuring to see what works, keep adjusting and keep moving forward.
Use technology to help you be successful, including:
- Copylime (for AI-assisted headlines and other brainstorming)
- Grammarly (better and more accurate writing)
- Agorapulse (social media scheduling)
- Keywords Everywhere (to use the words your target audience uses)
- Convertkit (for email marketing)
- VR Sync (maybe there’s a VR component)
Conclusion
Getting in front of the right audiences in the proper channels is harder than ever, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try and do so strategically. The example of “The Mick” is also a good reminder that it’s worthwhile to repurpose content that hasn’t been used in a while. Just because we created something a year or longer ago doesn’t mean it couldn’t be used again now in full or pieces of it.