A whopping 89 per cent of B2B marketers are including content marketing in their overall marketing strategy. Are you one of them? Is your organization ramping up a content-building engine and starting to churn out lots of interesting and educational content that is relevant to your target audience?
The write-it-and-they-will-come approach simply doesn’t work in this big data age. You can’t post a blog on your website and expect your target audience to stumble upon it organically. You need a distribution strategy to amplify your content and get it in front of people who want to read it.
Here are a few tips on how to amplify your content and get more results from the content you create.
1. Get influencers to do the work for you
Influencers come in all shapes and sizes. Depending on your business, an influencer could be:
- a journalist who covers your company…or your competitor
- a blogger who writes a lot of product reviews
- a happy (or unhappy) customer who has a sizeable Twitter following
First you need to identify the right influencer for the content you want to promote. Media databases have contact information including email and social media profiles; Agility from Agility PR Solutions holds the contact details of 800,000 journalists, bloggers, etc. We also tell you how that influencer prefers to be contacted, and highlight their latest tweets to give you a precise idea of just what they’re most interested in at the time. You can create custom lists for each piece of content, email them right from the platform, and track who opened or clicked to streamline your follow-up.
2. Be selective
Unless you’re the next Ernest Hemingway, chances are that not every piece of content you write is interesting to the whole world. Be selective, both in terms of whom you reach out to and how often. You don’t want to alienate journalists or influencers by sending them too many irrelevant emails or blast every story to your whole contact list. The shotgun approach is passé.
Personalize your messages to each influencer you are sending the content to – include information on why this release or content is relevant to their beat, outlet, or their last tweet or story. Consider adding an offer to send additional content or an exclusive interview “just for them”. People like to feel special.
3. Spend a little money
A recent story in Bulldog Reporter discusses how the promotion or amplification of content can “make or break its impact”. In fact, the majority of content marketers surveyed (85%) say that paid content distribution tactics — including social media, pay-per-click (PPC), and native ads — are more effective than organic efforts.
Check out the new Facebook Advertising Opportunity Calculator, a free tool that, with a few easy steps, can show you what the Facebook landscape looks like for your business. If your ultimate goal is to generate leads, you don’t want to focus on or pay to reach people who have no influence in the purchasing process. This tool can help you target those individuals who make the buying decisions. Be very discriminating when choosing your targeting parameters and get your message to the right people in a timely manner with an offer they can’t refuse.
4. Say please and thank you
Like your mother always told you, be polite. People are busy and receive hundreds of emails and requests a day. Make it easy for them to read and share your content, and recognize them if they do. Thank anyone who shares or retweets your content – it can go a long way to building a beautiful long-term, mutually beneficial relationship.
