One thing I’ve watched businesses flounder with content is the marketing component of content marketing.
You can create the greatest blog post, video, podcast, or webinar ever. But if there’s no content distribution behind it, no one is ever going to see it. Don’t come at me SEO bros. You know I’m right. And if nobody sees it, how is it going to help you close more deals?
The first step of content marketing is really the last step. Creating the content is important, but if you don’t have your distribution strategy planned out, all the work of creating the content has been wasted.
Here’s my content distribution playbook, we’ll start with the ones that don’t cost you any extra money.
Newsletters and Email Marketing
Do you know why I have this newsletter? Because I want to blather on about things I think are important. If I can do this every week, so can you! But it’s also the most efficient way for me to distribute the content I create to people in my industry.
If you’re creating content regularly, then sending it out to your list is a logical step to add into your creation process. You are probably already paying for an email platform with your CRM. So let’s put it to use. Many platforms call the newsletter function a broadcast.
I don’t automate my newsletter. I don’t use any fancy templates. I schedule it using my email platform on Wednesday night, then go to bed.
How Do I Grow My List For My Newsletter
First off, make sure you get people to opt-in. Don’t just blast your list with your newsletter as tempting as it sounds. If you have a list, send them an email, with a quick note asking them to join your newsletter list. Trust me, these are your customers and active prospects don’t piss them off. Create a separate list to segment them out, using a tag or list function in your CRM.
Add a CTA to the bottom of your blog posts inviting them to join your newsletter.
Most popular form tools have a zapier integration that works with every major CRM or email marketing platform.
Social Media and Content Distribution
I am really burned out on brands and even personalities that ALWAYS post their content on social media. So don’t be that dude. But there’s a way you can take that content you created and get eyeballs.
First off, don’t always post about your content. I have been testing a bunch of different topics on twitter to varying degrees of success. But I’m finding my rhythm and seeing how my current followers engage with me.
People really seem to like listicles on twitter, with a thread about the list?
I’m not great about LinkedIn, but I am getting better and I’m posting way more often on Twitter lately thanks to HypeFury.
This is what I am doing. You can do it or not, but every week it’s getting me more eyeballs and subscribers.
The day before the newsletter goes live, I post on Twitter and LinkedIn with a pretty basic teaser.
Don’t put any links in the main post, I have been experimenting with this for awhile on both LinkedIn and Twitter. The posts that I put in a link in the body of the post, the reach is hot garbage. For Twitter, I put the link in a threaded response. On LinkedIn I put it in the comments, and tell people in the post where to find it.
The day it goes live, I engage with other people. I set aside about 20-30 minutes that day just to engage with other people on Twitter and LinkedIn. And no I’m not linking to my posts or website, I’m just hanging out being SOCIAL on social media. If I’m not being a jackass, and instead being helpful, funny, or entertaining people will check out my profile and they might follow me, or they might visit my website and subscribe.
The day after the newsletter goes out I post a quick summary of what the newsletter was about and link to it in a threaded post or in the comments on LinkedIn.
That’s my social media strategy, it’s not perfect, and I could probably be doing a lot more.
Pick your poison when it comes to organic social media. I haven’t made a ton of videos. If I did I would be doubling down on vertical video like reels, shorts and tiktok right now. Traditional YouTube is still a solid choice for content distribution.
I’m just telling you what I’m doing right now.
What About Paid Content Distribution?
If I had something to sell in this newsletter, I would add to my social media strategy by putting some ad spend behind it.
Now that I’ve got a whopping 30 subscribers to my email list I could use that as a decent seed list for a lookalike audience. You could seed it with your best customers.
There’s two paths you can go down for paid distribution:
Growing Your List to Get More Subscribers.
Create some checklists, worksheets or other lead magnets and either use a lead ad, or drive traffic to a landing page with the lead-magnet as an opt-in to get more subscribers.
Driving Traffic to Your Content.
You could also use a paid content strategy with that lookalike audience and drive people to specific content with an exit-intent or CTA on the blog post you’re promoting.
That’s really the best strategy I’ve seen, and what I am building myself and for the company I work at.
Most people think a marketing strategy has to be something complex with a ton of moving parts, in reality some of the best content marketing strategies are simple and easy to replicate.
While you’re here download a checklist I put together for content distribution