How to Build an Audience-Centric Content Distribution & Promotion Strategy

Content distribution and promotion are vital pieces of today’s content marketing puzzle. Without an effective content distribution strategy, content marketing can become a drain of time and resources.

Brands that simply wait for the right people to discover their content through social sharing and search rankings alone are losing critical momentum in reaching their target audiences. With an increasing number of businesses competing in the content marketing space, brands will find that organic content discovery isn’t happening as quickly or reliably as it once did.

Brands will succeed when they develop an audience-centric content distribution and promotion strategy that considers the earned media potential of content throughout the entire content development lifecycle.

Serving journalists by serving their readers

The first step in developing a successful content distribution and promotion strategy is one of the most important. To be truly audience-centric in your planning, you should prioritize the end reader above all else. Consider who is going to read your content and what kind of information they need. Journalists value their readers highly and write news stories and blog posts to serve the needs of those readers.

Pivot into the mindset of creating and distributing content to serve the readers. In everything you do throughout the content development lifecycle, you should prioritize the end reader and, by association, the needs of the journalists. Remember that the reader comes first, and your brand comes second.

Embrace a reader-centric approach to research

During the initial stages of research, it’s crucial to dig deeper and build a complete understanding your target audiences. Develop a reader-centric approach to content development and promotion by considering target audiences for a specific piece of content; learn their interests, needs, concerns, demographics and even psychographics. Psychographic data can help you uncover the heart of your target audiences and readers by using available demographic data to figure out more about their lifestyle, behaviors and habits.

Discover where your readers live online and find out which sites and social channels they use to find similar content and news. Most importantly, once you’ve identified your target audience personas and their media preferences, align them with the most relevant media outlets.

Prioritize media outlets whose readers are best served by your content

Keeping your reader personas in mind, research and create a targeted media distribution list that includes media outlets that can reach a large or very targeted niche portion of your core audience. On your list, note the quantity of site visitors, social followers, content engagement and conversion rate data from any previous earned media you’ve posted at that outlet. Next, identify the best media contact to pitch with your new content. With readership data and contact information compiled for each media outlet, take your media distribution list and prioritize outlets that have the greatest potential to reach the largest groups of your target audience.

Consider distribution throughout the entire content development lifecycle

Once you’e prepared your dream media distribution list, you can intelligently weigh in on content development to ensure it is worthy of publication in your targeted media outlets. Armed with a media distribution strategy, you can guide the development of content that will meet the needs of your core audience, better serve journalists and earn strategic media placements.

To avoid being left in the content marketing dust, businesses should consider the earned media potential of content throughout the entire content development lifecycle by adopting an audience-centric approach to research, planning, production, promotion and measurement.

Read more:

• Why Audience-Centric Content Is Not an Option