The Number One Reason Your Content Strategy Isn't Working

A little while back I wrote this post for Condé Nast's Confluence blog about what I think is the most overlooked part of content marketing today: distribution. So I thought it was worth posting it here, with a few updates. Give it a read and let me know if you agree (or don't!).

“If you build it, they will come.” Now, we all know what a lie that is. But it’s a particularly egregious misconception when it comes to content—and it’s a mindset that, I believe, threatens to render content just another fad in the annals of marketing, despite its genuine ability to engage audiences and redefine the relationship between brands and those they are trying to reach.

At Condé Nast, we—like all publishers—know that audience development is serious business. Particularly in an era of fragmented media consumption, you’ve got to work hard to get your great content in front of users (and the right users) wherever they might be. The number of people who bookmark a site and come back, time and time again, or who remember your catchy URL and type it into their browser window, has been declining for years, and for most content sites, it represents a relatively small percentage of total users.

Distribution Tactics That Work

These days social media is key for getting content out there, of course—but not all platforms are created equal, depending on the kind of content you make (i.e., articles versus photography versus video), and you have to pay close attention to changes in algorithms that can have a serious impact on performance. Search is the same story: hugely important, and always changing, which is why the whole SEO industry exists and why we all hang on every Google update. If you’re not constantly optimizing your content for performance in these channels—and, in the case of social, picking your battles—you may miss out.

Then there are the unsexy but incredibly effective forms of distribution, like e-newsletters and RSS feeds. For many publisher sites, newsletters represent the most important and most reliable driver of traffic. Syndication partners often matter a great deal, too, especially the big guns like Yahoo! and The Huffington Post.

And although it’s something of an unspoken secret in digital media, there’s almost no content provider out there that doesn’t utilize some form of paid distribution—“paid traffic” is the usual, somewhat dirty-sounding term, but the truth is less nefarious than that. You simply pay money to get your content placed in recirculation modules on like-minded sites, where it hopefully attracts the right kind of users and pulls them into your site. You’re not “buying” traffic; you’re buying exposure to potential audience members. If they like what they see, they’ll click, but you still have to earn their attention. (Don’t believe me that everyone sees this as an important tactic for content distribution? Just ask Outbrain. Or ZergNet. Or Taboola. Or Facebook, for that matter.)

Of course, there’s also traditional media—content can be effectively distributed through native placements on sites like ours or, in some cases, within traditional banner ads. This is a great way to get scale in a short period of time. But it kills me when brands make content purely for media distribution. Good ROI on content will come when media is one tactic of several.

In short, effective distribution requires developing a channel strategy and doing everything you can to get your content in front of the right people. And you work at it—day in and day out, testing and learning, and optimizing as you go.

The Bottom Line For Branded Content

What’s all this mean for brands? Most importantly, if you’re investing in content, or thinking about it, it’s mission-critical to have a distribution strategy. This is particularly true for brands that have no real history making content; unlike publishers, users are not looking for content from you, so you’ve got an uphill climb.

And it’s important to have a sense of your plans before you start making all that content, because they can help you define what to do, and figure out what will generate the greatest ROI: What channels are available to you for publishing material? Does your site have a CMS? (If not, then reconsider making hundreds of pieces of content.) Are you strong in particular social media platforms? (Not active on Pinterest yet? Maybe think twice about that image-based program.) Do you have an email database you can tap into? (If not, start building one.) Do you have budget for paid promotion? (Set some aside, seriously.)

All too often, I see brands focused on the why and the what of content, but not on how it is going to be used—leading them to pursue content initiatives that ultimately underperform. Too often, brands seem surprised when no one consumes that great content they spent a great deal of money, time and effort to make but little to no money, time or effort to distribute. Thinking this through is critical for success—indeed, it can also help define KPIs.

As any publisher knows, no matter how great your content is, people won’t necessarily find it, so having a sound strategy for getting it out there is imperative. Here’s a crazy thought: Before you kick off your next content program, start with a plan for distribution and work backwards from there. See if you don’t end up with a tighter brief. And see if that doesn’t yield better results.