You might be creating the best content in the world, but to little effect if there’s no one around to read it.
If you’re going to invest your time in content creation, you have to also invest in promoting that content. Prior to brainstorming your options for promotion, it’s important to realize the different kinds of media you have at your disposal. The best promotional campaigns will probably include each of the following:
- Paid media is when you pay a brand to use its channel for exposure and prime real estate. In doing so, you’re able to take advantage of followers who normally might not see your content.
- Earned media is the equivalent of word-of-mouth advertising. It refers to others evangelizing on behalf of your brand, such as when someone retweets your social post or your brand receives coverage in the local newspaper.
- Owned media refers to all of the channels that you control: your blogs, your eNewsletter, your social media accounts and more.
Once you’ve crafted engaging, original content, it’s time to promote with vigor, choosing which outlet makes the most sense for particular messages. When it comes to effectively promoting your content, it’s best to marry all three of the above approaches together.
Let’s take a look at four tools you can leverage that will provide you with the comprehensive approach to successfully promoting your content:
- Blogging. Have you launched your company’s blog yet? If you haven’t, what are you waiting for? According to HubSpot, companies that publish a steady stream of blogs each month—at least 15—will enjoy a fivefold increase in traffic. On top of that, the study showed that companies that blog even once or twice a month witness a 70 percent increase in leads. In other words, blogging helps expand your brand’s reach and establish your company as a thought leader in its space. Chances are you have a lot on your plate and you’re wondering to yourself how you are going to find time to write engaging content on such a regular basis. Don’t sweat it: You have many options at your disposal. Of course, you can hire new staff for your marketing team. But you can also go about creating content in a cost-effective way: choosing to outsource your blogging responsibilities by enlisting the services of a content strategy vendor.
- eNewsletters. There’s a reason why people sign up for your eNewsletter in the first place: They are interested in your company and what you have to offer. As such, your eNewsletter is a great tool to spotlight your most compelling pieces of copy—from the letter written by your CEO to the recent customer profile. You can either include your content in its entirety, or you can choose to tease pieces of it, inspiring your customers to click through to your website for the full stories. Remember to strike a fine balance between company and industry news; after all, no one wants an entire eNewsletter promoting your own products and services. Also, be careful about how often you blast. Nobody wants to be bombarded by emails.
- Social media. It’s no secret that social is all the rage these days. In fact, studies show that 74 percent of all adults who use the Internet are on at least one social media platform. Because of that, social media is one of the strongest tools at your disposal to help promote your content and, perhaps more importantly, drive engagement. Establishing and maintaining a robust social media presence is paramount for understanding what makes your customers tick, what their desires are and what problems they are experiencing. Not only will social media help you understand the kinds of content your customers want to read, there’s a good chance well-crafted campaigns will ensure your content is discovered. On top of that, thanks to the viral nature of the Internet, you can never really be sure when you’re one tweet away from your content spreading like a wildfire. While social media is an example of owned media, when your customers retweet and share your posts, you’re getting the added benefit of earned media—the digital equivalent to word-of-mouth advertising.
- Syndication. The more websites on which your content appears, the more likely your customers will be to zone in on it as they travel across the Web each day. By finding relevant websites to cross-post your content, you’ll appeal to a wider audience, something that lends more credence to your brand. Syndicating your content allows you to reach a whole new audience that might frequent a number of other sites. As a result, you are likely to experience some conversions from those new leads. Syndication is an example of paid media—you either pay for it with time or money—so it’s important that you consistently test the results of your investments to see if you’re syndicating on the right websites.
All in all, your job truly begins after you’ve created killer content. You can’t afford to let your efforts be in vain and, as such, it’s imperative that you aggressively promote your content to make sure that your customers aren’t missing out on the stories you need to tell: the ones they want to read.
Edited by
Brooke Neuman
