Learning about content promotion is one of the most critical marketing strategies for your brand. We learn from the Content Marketing Institute’s 11th Annual B2B Content Marketing report that 73% of marketers use content marketing to nurture subscribers, audiences, and leads. That report also indicates that 64% of the most successful content marketers use content marketing to generate sales and revenue, and 60% of them use it to build a subscribed audience.
While content is critical, it’s a mistake to believe you can “set it and forget it.” That way of thinking could mean your content isn’t getting the attention it deserves. This guide outlines the importance of content promotion, how it relates to your content strategy, tips for promoting your content, and mistakes you should avoid.
The Importance of Content Promotion
Promoting content is essential for dozens of reasons. In addition to building trust, cultivating customer loyalty, and generating leads, content promotion is something potential and existing customers expect. They want to see brands delivering relevant resources that help solve their pain points or lead them down the path toward doing so.
How Content Promotion Relates to Your Content Strategy
Creating high-quality content plays an integral role in any company’s content strategy. However, the process doesn’t end as soon as you publish this content. If brands are going to reap any benefits from this content, they must attract readers. Therefore, your content strategy is just as critical as the content creation process. Your content promotion and content strategy correlate with each other first by researching your target audience.
Researching your target audience helps uncover:
- How they discover your site
- Social media networks they visit and share content on
- Which device or devices they use to access your site and read its content (i.e., laptop, smartphone, tablet)
- What content types they share most often
- When they typically read content (i.e., emails, social media, and more)
- Your audience’s demographics (i.e., age, education, employment, ethnicity, gender, income, marital status, race, and more)
Email marketing software, Google Analytics, and social media analytics help uncover most of this information. These tools help brands develop a primer for determining whom they’re writing for and which content performs the best.
Tips for Content Promotion
Before making a buying decision, your target audience wants to know, trust, and like your brand. Each of your site’s visitors is a potential conversion that could translate into customers, leads, and subscribers. Content promotion helps marketers increase traffic—posting high-quality content isn’t enough. It must reach your target audience, and these tips can help.
Content Promotion Involves Using Visuals
Stock images are fine, but why not take it to the next level by using branded graphics? Up to 32% of content marketers believe visual images are critical pieces of content.
These graphics are excellent to use as feature images on blogs, social media graphics, infographics, and more. In addition, image editing sites like Canva help you boost your content’s appeal with custom designs for the following examples:
- Digital posters
- Infographics
- Logos
- Photo collages
- Pinterest pins
- Presentations
- Social media ads, posts, and covers.
- YouTube thumbnails and channel art
Use Distribution Platforms (Like Medium, LinkedIn, etc.)
Up to 96% of content marketers use distribution platforms like LinkedIn for organic content. You can break content distribution into three categories:
- Earned: When third parties, like blogs or news sites, distribute your content, that’s earned distribution.
- Owned: This category means you can distribute content using channels you control, like email newsletters, blogs, social media accounts, and more.
- Paid: If you use a cost-per-click (CPC) strategy, then you’re distributing content whereby you have to pay each time someone clicks.
Many marketers use sites like LinkedIn and Medium, where they can self-publish while simultaneously growing an audience. These platforms make it easy to add, edit, and publish long and short-form content.
Incorporate Targeted Email Campaigns
Did you know that email campaigns are approximately 40 times more successful than using Facebook and Twitter combined? An integral part of any content marketing plan is building an email list. That way, you can use this channel to reach the highest percentage of your target audience. Because your audience opts to receive information from you, they’re ready to engage with the content you send. Here are some strategies:
- Make sure your email content is mobile-friendly.
- Create engaging subject lines.
- Stick to a distribution schedule, like weekly, for example
Content Promotion Includes Posting and Engaging on Social Media
One of the biggest mistakes a company, brand, or marketer can make is failing to publish new content on their social media channels. Use scheduling tools like Loomly or Buffer to organize and schedule posts. We learn from Hootsuite that the best time to post is 10:00 AM on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. However, there are differentiators regarding when to post on different networks. So, plan your posting schedules accordingly!
Here’s the breakdown:
- Facebook: Tuesdays and Thursdays between 8:00 AM and 12:00 PM
- Instagram: Wednesdays at 11:00 AM
- Twitter: Mondays and Thursdays at 8:00 AM
- LinkedIn: Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 9:00 AM
Leverage Q&A Sites (Like Quora and Reddit)
Q&A sites offer an incredible opportunity for driving traffic to your site’s content. The trick to leveraging these sites is not to be too self-promotional. Instead, answer questions or create posts where your content is a suggested resource. Make sure your profile is complete before you begin posting, including showing a track record of commenting on others’ posts with helpful information that doesn’t point to your site.
Guest Posting
Writing for other sites is an excellent way to attract more visitors to your site and promote specific content using anchor links. Create engaging content that resonates with the website’s target audience and, if you have permission, include links to your site. Countless sites are looking for guest posts—you can find them by searching for your niche keyword and the phrase “guest post submissions” or something similar.
Influencer Marketing
Did you know 67% of marketers use influencers to help promote content? Reach out to influencers in your niche and ask for quotes to include in your content. Or you can pull quotes from interviews or articles and then cite the source. This strategy gets you one step closer to receiving a direct quote from an influencer, and it amplifies your chances of them sharing the piece.
Repurpose Content
Nearly 60% of marketers repurpose content between two and five times. Repurposing content means you’re taking something you already have and giving it new life. For example, if you have a top-performing article or blog, consider repurposing it into an eBook or webinar. In doing so, you increase your opportunities for reaching new audiences, reinforcing your messaging, and improving organic visibility.
Examples of repurposing opportunities include:
- Turning blog posts into podcasts or videos
- Creating case studies from internal statistics or other data
- Turn webinars, articles, blog posts, and other content into eBooks.
- Transform eBooks and other long-form content into online courses.
Remediate, Update, or Rewrite Content
It’s impossible to create evergreen content 100% of the time. So, what should you do when you have a listicle featuring the top 20 webinars for 2016? Look at your database and determine what is and isn’t evergreen. Then, look for opportunities to update and rewrite the content so it’s timely and no longer out of date. Next, look at content that isn’t performing well. Those are opportunities to remediate content by including more information, removing “fluff,” and improving keyword density.
Create a Podcast or Video
Did you know up to 54% of podcast consumers stated they’re more likely to consider brands they hear on podcasts? Combine that with 87% of marketers indicating that video gives them a positive ROI, and these are two content promotion strategies you shouldn’t neglect. Consider offering an audio version for each piece of long-form content you post and creating videos for how-to content or tutorials.
Use Paid Promotions
There are dozens of ways to approach paid promotions, including using paid social media, paid search, and display advertising. Sites like Reddit, Outbrain, and Facebook allow users to create feature ads to help them reach their target audience more effectively.
Content Promotion Mistakes
It isn’t uncommon for companies to believe that if they write and publish several long-form content pieces monthly, that’ll brand them as an industry expert. But it takes a bit more work than that. With 4,800 new blogs posting per minute (per MINUTE!), content marketing is a crowded space. That means marketers can’t afford to make content promotion mistakes.
Failing to Target Your Audience
If you’re new to content marketing, make sure you’re targeting your audience. It’s a mistake many marketers make. Targeting your audience ensures the content is interesting, relatable, and relevant to your audience. You can avoid this mistake by:
- Researching your potential customer’s interests
- Researching competitors
- Identifying trends for popular content
- Determining word counts and engagement for various content types
Focusing on One Content Form
Did you know that over two billion YouTube users log into the platform and watch over a billion hours of video each day? Moreover, in a separate survey, 74% of marketers indicated that, during 2019, over 70% of their content contained a visual.
Remember, content isn’t just a blog post or other form of written content. It’s also images, videos, infographics, and more. You’re missing out on traffic by focusing your efforts on a blog post containing one image.
Keep your audience engaged with a mix of videos and infographics repurposed from other content forms. Audiences love it when they find content in different delivery forms – it’s so much more interesting than reading blocks of text with one feature image.
Not Creating Evergreen Content
Evergreen content is always relevant. That means, no matter when you publish it, the content doesn’t go out of date and still shows up in searches. Failing to create this content is a mistake. Ultimately, your evergreen content should continue driving traffic to your site because it’s still engaging, enjoyable, resourceful, and relevant to your target audience.
What does this mean?
While it’s valuable to post up-to-date news within your vertical, this shouldn’t be the only content you publish. In other words, if you follow news bulletins that are relevant to your target audience, make sure you sprinkle them in with evergreen topics.
Failing to Include Enough (or Any) CTAs
Posting long-form content is an excellent start for attracting visitors to your site, but then what? Do you know what your audience does once they finish reading your content? They click away. Why? Because you failed to include a call to action (or, if you’re using them, you’re not using enough).
You can use a call to action (CTA) in images, anchored texts, forms, and more. Avoid using simple language like “Click here” or something similar. That won’t drive traffic. Instead, use phrases that tell your audience what they’ll receive in exchange for clicking, filling out the form, and so on. HubSpot has an excellent compilation of CTA samples and templates if you need inspiration.
Learn More About Content Promotion Today!
The goal for effective promotion is getting content in front of as many as possible in your target audience. That way, you can establish your brand, company, and yourself. Promotional strategies also provide opportunities for engaging directly with your audience. In doing so, you’re building interest, loyalty, and trust.
Do you need help with content promotion? Contact nDash’s sales team today!
FAQ
How can content promotion make my content reach more people?
- Use visuals.
- Take advantage of distribution platforms.
- Use targeted email campaigns.
- Embrace social media.
- Leverage Q&A sites
- Involve influencers.
- Repurpose content.
- Remediate, update, or rewrite content.
- Create a podcast or video.
- Use paid promotions.
What is a content promotion strategy?
A content promotion strategy is when you use organic and paid channels to distribute your brand’s content. Marketers use them to get in front of their audience while simultaneously establishing themselves, their brands, and their company.
How can I promote digital content?
- Participate in social media groups.
- Use content promotion networks.
- Join Q&A sites and suggest content as a resource.
- Use paid promotions, including social media advertising.
- Use tools like BuzzSumo to create targeted social media lists.
- Connect with influencers.
- Guest posting or blogging.