Content marketers need to take their content higher, further, faster
Marketers are under pressure to produce more content, but many struggle making the most of what they have. Distribution cannot be left as an afterthought.
When Amy Winehouse died, 20 million people tweeted about her death before a single major news outlet had picked up the story. In today's hyper-connected world, stories that truly matter to people travel the world and back without much help.
But this can be misleading. It can invite the mindset of 'if we build it, they will come'. Nothing could be further from the truth for marketing in the 21st century. In fact, in the land of PR, you're more likely to see the stories you don't want circulated going viral than the ones you do.
Digital marketer and columnist Sherry Bonelli writes: “The most overused digital marketing phrase is 'content is king.'" Bonelli argues that the content marketer's job is not just to create great collateral but to figure out how most effectively to get it into the hands of the target reader.
"For years digital marketers have been told to produce content — and lots of it," says Bonelli."However, savvy marketers preach something a little different. Instead of creating tonnes of content, you should do more with the content you create.”
By focusing most of our efforts on creation and neglecting content promotion we stand only to add to the mountains of disposable content out there.
Principles like the 80/20 have surfaced to counter this trend. The idea is marketers should spend 80% promoting their content and 20% creating it. But lots of content creators have yet to catch on.
"Unfortunately most content creators don’t have distribution strategies", says LADbible Group’s head of communications, Peter Heneghan.
“Our audience wants content delivered to them in a way that they can understand it quickly," says Heneghan.