You put a lot of time and energy into researching, creating and formatting your content. But what happens when you post your blogs, videos and graphics on your company site and you’re not seeing the results you had hoped for?
Luckily, there are several channels for distributing your content that allow you to significantly expand your reach and get your brand in front of new prospects. The trick is deciding which one will work best for your marketing strategy and knowing which platform your target audience prefers.
You’ve got mail
Email marketing has been around for quite a while, but its significance in content strategies has not diminished in any capacity, even with the emergence of newer channels.
In fact, 89 percent of companies stated that email is their best method for generating leads. Emails give brands the opportunity to create personalized communications for prospects and deliver specific content directly to readers’ inboxes, which is something that can’t necessarily be done on other platforms.
But leads are worth nothing if they don’t become customers. In terms of ROI, email marketing brings in $38 for every $1 spent, and the return has steadily increased over the past few years. As one of the most cost-effective forms of marketing, email strategies are also easy to execute when developed and researched properly.
So who can marketers expect to reach through email? Well, just about everyone! Individuals in all age groups said they prefer to receive brand communications via email over any other channel.
Gettin’ social with it
Social media use has exploded in recent years, and it’s not expected to slow down anytime soon. These platforms give brands the opportunity to engage more with their target audiences and provide a more human face to their prospects.
When it comes to distributing content, social networks expand the reach for brands, as people who use the various social platforms may not otherwise check out your site to read your content. Research has found that bloggers looking to effectively promote their content rely the most on social media to meet that goal.
Social channels also significantly drive traffic when compared to the amount of work marketers put into the strategy. More than 80 percent of companies stated that when devoting around six hours per week to social distribution, they saw a notable increase in traffic to their content.
You’re probably thinking that the only prospects you’re able to reach on social platforms are younger age groups. But that’s certainly not the case! While younger individuals tend to use social media more, the fact is that older generations have been accessing these sites more and more over the past few years. Now, approximately 70 percent of all Americans use social media on a frequent basis.
Syndication’s the name of the (niche) game
Content syndication is not as popular a marketing channel as social media or email, but its benefits and importance are becoming increasingly recognized by brands.
When asked about their current content strategies, only 14 percent of companies stated they use content syndication as a distribution method. However, when measuring the effectiveness of the methods used, syndication ranks third at 45 percent most effective, behind only search engine marketing and promoted posts.
As for the audience that marketers can reach through content syndication, it’s not so much about breaking it down by age group but about appealing to those prospects who are looking for specific information. Syndicating your content, whether through free or paid partners, gives you the ability to provide content directly to potential leads who are searching for it by posting your blogs, videos, graphics and the like on industry and niche sites.
Revise, repurpose, repost
Although not necessarily a “new” marketing channel for distributing your content, revising, repurposing and reposting your graphics, blogs and videos gives you an excellent way to target new prospects with various forms of content.
Twenty-nine percent of companies currently repurpose their content on a regular basis. But more brands are making an effort to implement this method going forward: 57 percent of marketers stated one of their priorities for improving their overall content strategy is to develop more effective ways of repurposing their existing content.
As for the audience, much like content syndication, reaching new prospects with repurposed blogs, graphics and videos all depends on the individual segments. For example, turning one of your blog posts into a video means targeting a new set of potential leads who respond positively to more visual content. Taking one of your infographics and repurposing it into a podcast puts your brand on a new channel and in front of people who may not have heard of you before.
Now that you’ve seen which marketing channels are best for distributing your content, don’t be afraid to go all in and discover which methods work best for your overall strategy to bring you ultimate success.
