Content Promotion
Learn how to effectively manage, track, and improve your content marketing methods and results.
Content promotion is the process of distributing content through different channels to reach its intended audience.
The aim of creating content to grow your business is to get it in front of as many people in your target audience group as possible.
The more people in your target audience your content can reach, the greater its impact on the growth of your business will be.
It is beyond the scope and purpose of this course to cover areas of content marketing and promotion in-depth. There are many excellent sites and resources that provide exhaustive information on these topics and we list a number of these in this module’s “Resources” and “References” sections.
The focus of this module is to help you understand the role of content management in areas like content marketing and SEO.
Before You Begin
Make sure to review and complete the Content Strategy, Content Planning, and Content Production modules before you begin.
Additionally, we recommend subscribing to our free content management course email lessons if you haven’t already, as these provide a practical step-by-step way to implement the lessons in this course.
As a subscriber, you will also get notified when new posts containing practical information and valuable content management tips are added to our blog.
The Role Of Content Management In Content Promotion
When we think of content promotion, we mostly think of using different strategies and methods to distribute and promote different content types across different distribution channels.
For example, we might think of using paid and organic channels to promote blog posts, videos, or downloadable guides.
Many organizations, however, develop their content promotion strategy to include a multi-channel marketing approach and build their brand across many different platforms using many different tactics.
This means that the content used in your promotion methods has to be tailored and customized to the various different platforms used in your promotional campaigns.
For example, let’s say you are asked to create a piece of content to promote your business on social media. That same piece of visual content will need to be reworked and resized to comply with the image dimensions of different social platforms. This means not only making the content horizontal for Facebook and Twitter, square for Instagram, vertical for stories, etc. but also modifying captions or the accompanying copy to fit the platform’s requirements and be as effective as possible.
Additionally, as part of the promotional strategy, the same content may need to be repurposed for use across different platforms. For example, using the same piece of content formatted differently for social media, blog posts, and email newsletters.
All this content needs to be documented and stored for easy access and retrieval by the marketing team.
Content promotion, then, has a significant impact on content management and vice versa. It affects everything from your overall content strategy, to content planning, content production, and content documentation.
It also affects how you allocate resources within your content team, how your content team communicates, how you design your content workflows, schedule work, etc.
A good way to think of the role the content team plays in the area of content promotion, then, is that you can help your organization’s sales and marketing team become superheroes by being their most trusted and reliable sidekick.
How To Effectively Manage Content Used In Content Promotion
As a content manager or a member of a content team, it’s important to understand your organization’s marketing strategy and how to manage the content used in areas like sales and marketing activities.
For example, when looking at your company’s marketing mix, renowned sales trainer Brian Tracy defines 7 ‘P’s for sales and marketing success. Each of these areas involves using content, which needs management:
- Product – While the marketing team is responsible for determining what the company’s products and services are, what they stand for, what differentiates them from the competition, whether they meet market demands and customer needs, and come up with appropriate messaging that communicates this, the content team also plays a role in this area. For example, by helping to manage and produce content (e.g. content designed to get feedback from users to create new products or services or improve existing ones).
- Pricing – Your company may need to seasonally increase or decrease the pricing of its products or services to remain competitive and engage in sales and promotional activities. It’s important to make sure that wherever there is published content displaying pricing information, it can be quickly and easily updated to reflect accurate pricing changes.
- Promotion – This area includes all the ways the business tells its customers about products and services. The content team can help deliver the business better results in this area by reviewing and suggesting improvements to promotional copy (e.g. headlines, calls to action, etc.) and reviewing content metrics.
- Place – This is where your products and services are actually sold. It’s where the customer meets the salesperson. Since much of this activity now takes place online (e.g. eCommerce), digital content plays a vital role in all sales and marketing communications.
- Packaging – It’s important to look at every element of content in your company’s products and services packaging with a critical eye just as a prospective customer would. Are there any improvements to the text or visual elements of the packaging that could be made to create a better impression on customers?
- Position – This is about winning the hearts and minds of your customers. What are the specific words that people use to describe your company’s products and services to others? Can you create more content around this to improve the way people think and talk about your company and its positioning in your market?
- People – Ultimately, everything is done by people. Having the right people in the right roles creates better results for the business. Content plays an important role in selecting, recruiting, hiring, and retaining people. For example, HR content such as documents outlining roles and responsibilities, policies, company guidelines, training, staff manuals, etc.
If we return to the basic premise of this course (i.e. “all content needs management”), then it’s clear that content promotion also needs content management.
Earlier, we talked about the role of the content team in content promotion as being like a superhero’s trusted and reliable sidekick, handling the tools in their ‘utility belts’ when help is needed, and providing the business with the support and information it needs to run its marketing activities smoothly and deliver consistent results.
The lessons in this module look at what this means from a practical perspective.
Content Metrics
Content metrics help you track how well your content is performing and measure the success of your content marketing strategy.
View the lesson: Content Metrics
Content Marketing
Creating and sharing relevant content helps to promote brand awareness, establish your expertise, and attract, engage with, and grow your audience.
View the lesson: Content Marketing
Search Engine Optimization
Although Google won’t disclose the ranking signals they use to drive content higher in their search results, they do allow you to understand their mindset by sharing extensive documentation with clear guidelines on how to create quality content that will help to improve your rankings and the questions they ask when writing algorithms to assess site quality.
View the lesson: SEO
Content Distribution
Promoting your content to the right audiences using the right content types via the right channels helps you get the content you create in front of the audience you create it for.
View the lesson: Content Distribution
Your Content Promotion Plan
Now that you understand the content promotion process better, it’s time to create your content promotion plan.
Your content promotion plan is a document that outlines the strategy and tactics for promoting and distributing the content created by your business.
It typically includes the goals and objectives for your content promotion, your target audience, the distribution channels to be used, the timing and scheduling of promotions, and the key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the success of your content promotion activities.
Your business needs a content promotion plan because it helps you to effectively reach and engage your target audience and to maximize the impact of the content you produce.
By having a plan in place, your business can also more efficiently allocate resources and budget toward content promotion and track the performance of your promotion efforts over time.
Additionally, a content promotion plan can help your business to identify and leverage the most effective distribution channels for reaching your target audience and to stay consistent and on-brand with your messaging.
Furthermore, having a specific plan for the promotion of your content, allows you to maximize your reach, it will ensure that your content is seen by the right people at the right time, rather than just publishing it and hoping it will be found. It will also allow you to track the effectiveness of your promotion and make adjustments as needed.
In short, your content promotion plan is your strategy for getting the word out about your business’s content. It helps your business increase the visibility of your content and drive engagement and conversions.
Content Promotion Plan Goals And Objectives
Common content promotion plan goals and objectives include:
- Reach and engagement: The goal is to increase the visibility and reach of your content to a wider audience through various promotion channels. This can be achieved by sharing content on social media, sending newsletters, and creating and sharing infographics on social media platforms.
- Brand awareness: The goal is to increase your brand awareness and visibility by promoting your content so it aligns with your brand’s messaging and values. This can be achieved by creating and sharing branded graphics, videos, and infographics, and guest blogging on relevant websites,
- Search engine optimization (SEO): The goal is to improve the visibility and ranking of your content in search engines through strategic keyword usage, meta-tag optimization, and backlinks. This can be achieved by researching and including relevant keywords, optimizing meta tags, and creating internal and external links.
- Lead generation: The goal is to generate leads and collect contact information from interested users by promoting content that includes calls to action. This can be achieved by creating and promoting e-books, webinars, and other content that requires contact information for access.
- Influencer marketing: The goal is to increase the reach and credibility of your content by partnering with influencers in the industry. This can be achieved by working with influencers in your niche to create and promote content and collaborating with influencers to create sponsored posts.
- Email marketing: The goal is to promote your content and increase engagement through email campaigns. This can be achieved by sending a newsletter that includes links to recent blog posts or promoting a new product or service through email. (Also, consider using video marketing)
- Paid promotion: The goal is to increase the visibility and reach of content by paying for advertising on various platforms such as Google Ads, Facebook Ads, or Twitter Ads. This can be achieved by promoting a blog post on Facebook and running a Google Ads campaign to promote an e-book.
How To Create A Content Promotion Plan
Here are the steps you can follow to create a content promotion plan for your business:
- Review your content: Before promoting your content, make sure it is of high quality and relevant to your target audience.
- Identify your target audience: Determine who your target audience is and where they can be found. This will help you decide which channels to use for promotion.
- Select your promotion channels: Decide on the channels you will use to promote your content. This might include social media, email marketing, video marketing, paid advertising, influencer marketing, etc.
- Create a promotion calendar: Use a calendar or scheduling tool to plan out when and how you will promote each published piece of content.
- Create promotional content: Create promotional content like social media posts, email subject lines, ad copy, etc. to share with your audience to drive engagement and increase visibility.
- Use metrics to measure your results: Set up metrics to track the success of your content promotions. Use this data to optimize your promotions over time.
- Evaluate and adjust your plan: Review your results and make adjustments as needed to improve your content promotion plan.
Example Of A Content Promotion Plan
Here is an example of what a simple content promotion plan to promote a B2B company’s webinar might look like:
- Audience: Business owners and managers in the manufacturing industry
- Goals: Increase brand awareness, generate leads, increase attendance to the webinar
- Competitors: Industry leaders and peers
- Topics:
- The latest technology for the manufacturing industry
- How to increase productivity and reduce costs
- Plan:
- Promote the webinar on social media: 1 week before the webinar
- Email the audience: 3 days before the webinar
- Reach out to influencers in the industry: 2 weeks before the webinar
- Run Facebook and LinkedIn ads: 1 week before the webinar
- Distribution:
- Social media: LinkedIn, Facebook
- Email marketing: Weekly newsletter
- Paid Advertising: LinkedIn Ads, Facebook ads
- Influencer marketing: Reach out to industry leaders
- Promotion calendar:
- Social media posts: Start promoting 1 week before the webinar
- Email the audience: 3 days before the webinar
- Reach out to influencers: 2 weeks before the webinar
- Run Facebook and LinkedIn ads: 1 week before the webinar
By following these steps and regularly monitoring your results, you’ll be able to create a content promotion plan that helps you reach your target audience and achieve your business goals with your webinar or any other content.
Content Promotion Challenges
Promoting your content can be a challenging task, as it requires a combination of technical skills, marketing strategies, and audience engagement.
While content promotion is a crucial and necessary part of your content strategy, it can also present the following challenges:
- No clear strategy: Without a clear and well-defined content promotion strategy, it can be difficult to effectively promote a website’s content and achieve desired results.
- Audience engagement: creating content that resonates with the target audience and encourages them to share and engage with it.
- Competition: There is a lot of competition for attention, visibility, and engagement on the internet, and it can be difficult to stand out among other websites and content creators.
- Lack of traffic: Without a significant number of visitors to a website, it can be difficult to gain traction and promote content effectively.
- Limited budget: Promoting content can be expensive, and websites with limited budgets may not have the resources to effectively promote their content.
- Limited reach: Even with a large amount of traffic, a website’s reach may be limited if the majority of visitors are not within the target audience.
- Producing high-quality content: The quality of your content is very important. Poor-quality content will be hard to promote and get noticed by the audience. Ensuring that your content is informative and of high quality is important for keeping your audience engaged.
- Search engine optimization (SEO) – making sure the website and its content are optimized to rank well in search engine results pages.
- Algorithm changes: Search engines and social media platforms frequently update their algorithms, which can greatly impact the visibility and reach of a website’s content.
- Content promotion activities: Actively promoting the content through various channels such as social media, email marketing, and advertising.
- Measuring and analyzing performance: Tracking content metrics such as website traffic, engagement rates, and conversion rates to measure the success of content promotion efforts.
Content Promotion Checklist
- Define promotion goals: Clearly define the goals for promoting the content, such as increasing website traffic or generating leads.
- Identify target audience: Identify the target audience for your content and where they are most likely to be found online.
- Create a distribution plan: Develop a plan for distributing the content through various channels, such as social media, email, and paid advertising.
- Optimize for SEO: Optimize the content for search engines by including relevant keywords, meta descriptions, and alt tags.
- Use social media: Share the content on your company’s social media platforms and encourage your followers to share it with their own networks.
- Reach out to influencers: Reach out to influencers in your industry and ask them to share the content with their audience.
- Leverage email marketing: Include your content in your email newsletter and send it to your email subscribers.
- Leverage video marketing: Include your content in videos and upload these to popular video-sharing platforms.
- Use paid promotion: Consider using paid promotion, such as Google Ads or Facebook ads, to reach a larger audience.
- Track and analyze: Use analytics tools to track the performance of your promotions and gather insights for future campaigns.
- Repurpose and refresh: Repurpose the content and refresh it with new information and insights to reach new audiences and keep existing audiences engaged.
- Continuously monitor and improve: Continuously monitor and improve your promotion strategy based on the results and feedback.
Content Promotion – FAQs
Here are frequently asked questions about content promotion:
What is content promotion?
Content promotion involves strategies and tactics used to distribute content to reach a broader audience. This may include sharing it through social media, email marketing, paid ads, or collaborating with influencers.
Why is content promotion important?
Content promotion is vital to increase visibility of your content, attract more traffic, engage audiences, and ultimately drive conversions. It helps to ensure that your valuable content reaches its intended audience and doesn’t just sit unnoticed.
How do I choose the right platforms for promoting my content?
Select platforms based on where your target audience spends their time. Analyze demographic data and platform popularity among your audience. Tailor your approach to fit the platform’s unique environment and user behavior.
What are some effective content promotion strategies?
Effective strategies include:
- Sharing content on social media
- Email marketing campaigns
- Influencer collaborations
- Guest blogging on popular sites
- SEO optimization for organic reach
- Paid advertisements for targeted exposure
How can I measure the success of my content promotion efforts?
Use analytics tools to track metrics such as page views, user engagement, social shares, and conversion rates. This data will help you understand the effectiveness of your strategies and guide future efforts.
What role do SEO and keywords play in content promotion?
SEO and keywords help to optimize your content so it is more likely to appear in search results, increasing organic visibility and traffic. Keyword optimization should be strategically aligned with the content topics and the search habits of your target audience.
Can I repurpose my content for promotion?
Yes, repurposing content across different formats (e.g., turning a blog post into a video or an infographic) can maximize its reach and appeal to different audience preferences, making it a versatile tool in content promotion.
How often should I promote my content?
The frequency of content promotion should depend on the platform and the nature of your content. Regular updates and reminders can keep your audience engaged without overwhelming them. Balance is the key to maintaining interest and relevance.
Summary
Content promotion activities such as content marketing and SEO including the promotion channels used to distribute this content all require content management.
Your content team plays a vital role in this area, helping to make the marketing team’s work more effective.
The process of content promotion involves getting your content in front of the right people, at the right time, and in the right format.
However, this can be challenging as there are various hurdles to overcome, such as increasing visibility, standing out in a crowded digital landscape, measuring performance, and budgeting.
Additionally, creating high-quality content that resonates with the target audience and encouraging engagement and sharing are also important aspects of effective content promotion.
Without a well-planned approach, promoting content can be a difficult and time-consuming task.
Action Steps
Review all areas relevant to content promotion in your organization and make sure that systems for managing, documenting, and accessing the content in these areas have been effectively implemented.
Resources
- Content Promotion Kit – Includes a content promotion checklist (PDF), an editable checklist to customize for your business, templates for sharing content with leads, customers, and influencers, and templates for promoting content on social media.
- Content Troubleshooting Guide – Use this guide to troubleshoot content-related issues.
References
The articles below contain additional information that you may find useful to complete this lesson:
- Multichannel Marketing: What Is It And How To Use It Successfully
- The 7 P Formula For Sales And Marketing Success
Next Steps
The list below contains all the lessons included in this module:
Content Promotion
Content Distribution
Content Marketing
Content SEO
Content Metrics
A/B Testing
Email Marketing
Video Marketing
Content Measurement Plan
Content Promotion Automation
- Go to the next module: Content Management
- Return to the Course Outline
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