Do You Hear Crickets When You Blog?

How Will You Distribute Your Content Marketing?

For several years, the marketing community has been focused on content marketing. Whether it is blogs, videos, podcasts or other platforms, the emphasis has been on what is being produced. However, the big issue is distribution and few are mentioning it enough or offering practical solutions. 

You spend hours or days thinking about an idea. Then you assemble a crew, a team or just time to write. You put the finishing touches on the perfect blog post, your great new podcast or your riveting video. And then you wait.  Often what you get is crickets. 

Dead silence. No one coming to your website, blog or YouTube page and you don’t know why. Where is everyone? 

Without distributing your content to new readers, listeners or viewers you become fully dependent on the organic traffic coming your way.  But what happens when you find new ways to bring the product to where the interested audience already exists?

Let’s use an easy example with a physical product. Imagine I bake the best gluten free brownies in the world. Everyone tells me they are the best and the world will create a path to my front door. I created these products when I could no longer eat my favorite brownies because I developed a sensitivity to wheat and high gluten products. So I open up a little bakery in a small town and put out my sign, open for business.  But no one shows up and knocks on my door.

Now imagine that instead of opening my door for business, I go to a trade show for the food industry that specializes in niches like serving people who want products that serve their special customers who want low sugar, low fat, zero carbon footprint packaged goods, local wares, gluten-free products or baked-goods for diabetics.  Suddenly you get to access to dozens of outlets who can sell your gluten-free brownies to their already identified customers who want these types of products.

The difference is distribution.

How can you market your content (blog, podcast or videos) to reach the right audience? First, you must know your target. Who do you want to reach?  Where do they hang out, what do they read, where can you find them? Can you bring your ideas to them not the other way around? 

Give them something free.  Can you offer a ‘snack-sized’ version of your content that is useful. Jay Baer calls this idea YOUTILITY.  What about a list of other great tasting gluten-free products in other categories that you have discovered.

Offer your expertise. If a gluten-free magazine exists (in print or online), could you write an article about your own experience dealing with being gluten-free after years of consuming bread, cakes and cookies? Tell a story without a commercial bent but with a link to your blog or video.

Be an expert.  An expert isn’t someone with 10,000 hours under their belt. Perhaps the local news may want to interview a ‘gluten-free expert’ when a story pops up and they want to quote someone. Make sure you are top of mind and they can find you.

Post or mention to interested communities. I will post this blog in about twelve marketing communities I belong to in Linked and Facebook. I will mention it on Twitter to a few writers who I know who have very large marketing audiences, much bigger than mine. I'll mention it on an radio interview I am doing about marketing insights and I might mention it at a conference where I am a presenter and speaker. 

News Jacking. Recently all the news about Colorado and their new marijuana laws created a great opportunity to write about brownies. Why not find the key hash tags like #ColoradoPot or #ColoradoMunchies and tell a slightly different brownie story. Maybe you put out a humorous story about gluten-free pot brownies that attracts the attention of a big audience and captures many wheat sensitive individuals who want to learn more about you. 

The Sounds of Crickets

So unless you enjoy the sound of crickets, think about distribution to gain the right kind of awareness and interest in your story. Cliches usually are created for a reason - because of their underlying truth. So, fish where the fish are or in this case, bring your gluten-free brownies where people with wheat sensitivity want a snack.