What does success look like and how do you measure it?

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In the image above, the "pre-" and "top" stages are where we produce most of our content; not only is there a much larger audience there, but this content encourages people to trust you and learn about you later down the funnel.

CONTENT DISTRIBUTION
Another place where knowing your audience will really help you is when deciding where to actually publish content.

To start, we chose three channels:

Our blog
Guest posts for other blogs and relevant publications
Newsletter by email
Depending on your own audience and the types of content they prefer to consume, you may have better luck with videos distributed via YouTube/Vimeo, infographics posted on Pinterest, or useful tools hosted on your own domain.

But don't overdo it.

Choose one main channel and one or two additional tunisia phone number list channels. Content is a long game (see lesson three below), and if you spread yourself too thin, you won't be able to spend the time and effort to create the content you want in any one channel.

For us, the startup costs and learning curve were lower with a blog (compared to buying a $2,000 camera to get the hang of making videos), so we started with that.

CONTENT PROMOTION
"Content promotion is as important as content creation."

Everyone says it.

But to ensure you're actually practicing this, you need both a written content strategy and a written promotion strategy.

We took content marketing seriously and in 2013, along with our two-page written content marketing strategy, we also developed a two-page content marketing strategy.

Only four pages of strategy!

Note: I've also included this in the big bonus resource pack at the end of this post, along with all of our other templates, checklists, and processes you can steal.
Our promotion strategy answered three main questions:

What content is being promoted (blog posts, guest posts, infographics)?
Who is promoting it (the writer, someone on the marketing team, or someone else in the company)?
What channels is it promoted through (LinkedIn, Twitter, email, forums, comment sections of other publications)?
Depending on your team structure, goals, and industry, you will likely have different answers to each of these questions than we do.

Which is completely normal!

But to give you a taste of what worked for us, here's how we responded to them:

All content is promoted, but at different levels. A blog post gets the most basic level - just social and community posts, and inclusion in an email newsletter. Much more like a report or infographic with detailed research, including the addition of email and social media posts to influencers, industry pubs, and tier 1 media.
The writer promotes each piece on their own channels (15 to 30 minutes per week) at a minimal level, but the marketing team handles all major corporate social accounts and larger pitches/campaigns.

Note: Our “Writer Promotion Checklist” will also be included in the large bonus resource pack at the end of this post.
We've picked three channels to focus on and get really good at before expanding: Twitter, LinkedIn, and email (both email newsletters and influencer emails).
This last point is important, and you should absolutely limit which channels you promote in the beginning. Too many companies try to be everywhere and end up falling apart, rather than taking the time to master a few high-quality promotion methods.

But a written strategy isn't enough if you don't have a good idea of ​​how to apply it, which brings me to our next lesson learned.