Content Promotion Tips to Save Time and Do Better Marketing

In the inbound marketing world, we should all take a second look at the advice “work smarter, not harder" — because if we did, we'd all spend a lot more time on content promotion.

Just think of how much time a marketing team spends to publish relevant, informative, and entertaining content.

Content is a vital strategy to most marketers:

Some 96% of organizations investing in content marketing see it as core to marketing strategy, according to Regalix’s State of B2B Content Marketing 2016.

But are these teams using their time to complete the right content tasks?

Between emails, blogs, videos, social media posts, white papers, eBooks, podcasts, and more... it's an exhausting rush to get content out the door, fast and often.

Even so:

Marketers report they are challenged by “producing quality content” (62%) or “producing enough content” (45%).

What if the problem isn't either of these — and marketers simply need to use content promotion more effectively?

A shift from producing to promoting

Marketers already have an arsenal of content they've created. It's ammunition just begging to be used.

So what if we simply shift the focus from producing to promoting?

By promoting content more effectively, marketers can achieve several goals with less time: generate leads, drives conversions, and delight existing customers.

Without the constant grind to put out more and more, a team can now focus on content quality rather than quantity.

https://www.ironpaper.com/articles/b2b-marketing-builds-brand-authority-with-quality-content/

Tip: Many experts suggest that you spend as much time promoting content as you do creating it. If you cut your content creation time in half, brainstorm ways you would spend that time promoting existing content — through SEO, backlinks, social media posts, paid ads, etc.

When a marketing asset goes out the door, don't consider your job done — book time into your schedule to actively work on content promotion for each piece you publish.

Better yet, work your content pieces into campaigns and promote them holistically around a set of keywords or a single conversion goal.

Repurpose content for ongoing use

Promoting the same offer over and over will soon become dull for your audience.

That's why effective content marketers know to repurpose, repackage, and recycle content for ongoing use.

They might use these tactics:

• Break a large piece of content into smaller formats — e.g., An eBook becomes a blog, a blog becomes a guest post, and a statistic list becomes an infographic.
• Combine shorter content pieces into a thematically linked video, eBook, or SlideShare.
• Find ways to update and revamp content that customers already value and share.

You can also turn to different media, such as videos and podcasts, if you're in a content rut.

Repurpose your written pieces into something like a webinar or talk show. The script's already written — you just need to repackage!

Promotion practices

With content in hand, the next big step is to promote the content on the right channels.

If you've exhausted your traditional channels — you know, organic traffic and social media marketing — there are plenty of ways to boost influencer marketing.

These content promotion ideas include:

• Contact influencers (industry experts) to secure a quote, or ask them for a share
• Comment on related articles and blogs with links to build relationships that generate interest (rather than simply post a link to your new content)
• Pitch media and bloggers to write about the new content

https://www.ironpaper.com/articles/influencer-marketing-in-the-b2b-arena/

Social promotion best practices

Promoting content more than once on social media is a good way to "work smarter, not harder." Marketers should consistently share articles online, and use data to determine which message/image drives more clicks.

But this only works if the marketer has some nuance in their strategy. Nobody likes a spammer.

Creating a plan for pre-scheduling across social media accounts can have tremendous results. A social content promotion schedule may look like this:

• Social message is sent when content goes live.
• Further social messages are released over the next 2-3 hours.
• Messages are shared again the next day.
• Another series of messages are pre-scheduled and sent the following week.
• More social messages are pre-scheduled for the following month.
• The marketer analyzes data on clicks and shares to scale high-performing posts into the future.

 “Promotion is the step where most companies fail at content marketing.” - Moz

Use analytics for content promotion

Use website analytics to optimize your promotion and get the most return for your time.

To do this, determine which website pages are currently getting the most traffic or highest number of shares — then add links to new content from those pages.

You can do this within the content on that page, or via ads in a sidebar or at the bottom of the page.

Good content needs a great audience. Don’t invest everything to create piece of content, then let it gather dust! A solid content promotion plan will accelerate your results, with much less time.

https://www.ironpaper.com/articles/does-web-content-have-an-roi/

Sources:

Agius, A. (n.d.) 17 Advanced Methods for Promoting Your New Piece of Content. https://blog.kissmetrics.com/17-advanced-methods/

Cain, K. (2013, October 30). 6 Key Elements of an Effective B2B Content Marketing Strategy. https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2013/10/effective-content-marketing-strategy/

Moz. (n.d.). Content Promotion. https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-content-marketing/content-promotion

Regalix. (2016, May). State of B2B Content Marketing 2016. www.regalix.com