Content Falling Flat? How to Overcome the Distribution Hurdle in 8 Easy Steps

Why Distribute?

Buyers are 60% down the buyer’s journey before they engage with a brand or person. You have to be proactive in reaching

them early on.*

*Research by Rishi Dave, Dell’s Executive Director of Digital Marketing via newscred.com

In order to be heard over the noise that is the Internet, you have to hand deliver your content to your target audience.

Understanding the Channels: Owned vs. Earned vs. Paid

Owned Earned Paid

Email newsletter list Forums Facebook ads

Social media channels Blogs (guest blogging) Twitter ads + Promoted Tweets

Slideshare Newsletters AdWords

Podcasts + Webinars Communities (i.e. Linkedin Groups, Medium, etc.)

Social media groups Distribution apps (i.e Buffer Daily)

RSS Feed Podcasts + Webinars

1. Define Your Goals

WHO? END GOALS

- existing community- broader audience

- visits - signups - conversions - social shares - followers - brand awareness

2. Find Your Audience

Determine the Problem

Ideate Search Terms

Check usagewith Google

Trends

Track termswith a media

monitoring tool

Make a listof channels &

influencers

Identify influencers with

Buzzsumo

3. Develop a Process

Make a spreadsheet of every earned channel with tabs for forums, blogs, newsletters & influencers.

Create a column for category -> sort each sheet by category.

Publish content -> send to each channel in the relevant category.

Pro tip: Ask friends and colleagues to post to forums and groups for you, rather than do it yourself. Eventually, you’ll have a big enough audience that you won’t have to ask.

4. Research + Measure

TRENDING CONTENT GOOGLE ANALYTICS

See what headlines are trending on relevant forums and buzzsumo.com

See existing top referrers; stop wasting time on non-performers. Make note of landing pages

In GA, go to -> Acquisition -> All traffic -> “Secondary Dimension” drop down -> Landing Page

5. Build Your Owned Channels

Don’t forget to start building your own vehicles via RSS and email subscribes.

TEST & ITERATE

A/B test different messaging and call-to-actions. Try attracting people with the headline of the most popular article in your popup.

Subscribe bars (hellobar.com, manycontacts.com, sumome.com) Pop-Ups Twitter Cards Promoted Tweets Promote with other email channels (one-offs, customer newsletter) In-app messages (we use Intercom.io)

Design matters

Consult a UX pro.

Do informal user / visitor testing.

Keep it simple and easy to read.

Keep newsletters brief and visually pleasing.

Make your Slideshares and presentations attention-grabbing.

6. Measure Conversions

Tag content by category.

Track posts with KISSmetrics.

Determine which topics drive the most relevant audience for signups or sales.

Focus on elaborating and repurposing those.

7. Share Multiple Times on Social

Spread posts over a few weeks at different times throughout the day.

Pull quotes, headers, and subheads as copy.

Include Click-to-Tweets in the posts (CoSchedule has a great plugin).

Include the handle of the author and their company in most tweets.

Include different images.

8. Reach Out, Build Relationships

1. Identify influencers with media monitoring and buzzsumo.

2. Look at what they share - topics, tone, commentary.

3. Only share relevant info.

4. Figure out the value you add for them, and offer a lending hand.

5. Find something personal to talk about. Be friendly.

6. If it’s not happening, don’t push it.

High quality content Strong relationships Shared Content+ =

Bonus: Our Fave Channels + Tips

Buffer’s Daily App: Drives a ton of shares with a trickle-down effect of visits, but still very high.

As a SaaS company and media monitoring tool, here are the distribution channels (or amplification networks) we’ve seen greatest success with:

growthhackers.com: Our second biggest referrer. Make content relevant and valuable. Ask someone else to post. Follow up on comments.

inbound.org: Very content and community focused. Smaller traffic driver, but lower bounce rates and more time on site from visitors.

Hacker News: High quality content trends. Tech and investment-related posts seem to do the best. Upvotes restricted to 1 from each IP.

Bonus: Our Fave Channels + Tips

Designer News (designnews.layervault.com): For design-related content only. Strong community; drove significant traffic.

reddit: Our tech posts have done remarkably well. All about choosing the right sub-reddit. Many of the smaller ones aren’t worth the time.

The Next Web: For syndication. Drives a significant amount of traffic (not huge), but allows us to reach broader audience.

8 Steps to Overcoming the Distribution Hurdle

1. Define Your Goals

2. Find Your Audience

3. Develop a Process

4. Research + Measure

5. Build Your Owned Channels

6. Measure Results

7. Share Multiple Times on Social

8. Reach Out, Build Relationships

Read more about overcoming the content distribution hurdle at: https://blog.kissmetrics.com/overcome-content-distribution/