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Two million+ blogs were written today.
Source: worldometers.info
It’s a mind-boggling number, and a lot of content. But in the final analysis, is it really the number we should be focused on?
Happily, no. The reality if that the number we should be thinking about, and the number which will most help us in our content marketing efforts, is not the number of blogs written. It’s the number of blogs which are actually read.
And that’s a number which is unlikely to be anywhere near two million.
Which brings us to the conundrum - what can we, as financial services companies, do to ensure our blogs are read, and that our content finds an audience? That’s a much more difficult nut to crack than simply creating the content in the first place.
Even great content needs promoting
Even the most engaging content in the world doesn’t sell itself – something we have canvassed regularly in the past. Although if you have any remaining doubts, or want to know more about the importance of promoting your content to achieve results, feel free to re-visit some of our previous posts on the topic - “Financial Services Content Distribution for B2B Marketers”and “How to squeeze the most value out of your content? Think distribution”.
At the same time, the mechanics of content distribution are evolving all the time, so how do you stay up-to-date with the latest tips, tricks and hacks?
Glad you asked! Here are our top 5 go-to gurus’ thoughts on getting your message out - far and wide.
#1. Moz
OK, I’ll admit I have a bit of a professional crush on Rand Fishkin @ Moz. He’s just so smart. In this whiteboard Friday episode, Rand runs through some excellent tools (in a great format) to help you identify your ideal audience, find influencers and work out what messages are going to resonate. Best of all, he reminds us that it all takes time and that to expect a certain amount of failure is to be realistic. In other words, test, learn and iterate.
It’s definitely worth a watch [11:51 min].
#2. Neil Patel
Neil Patel produces some great, data driven content. And knows a thing or two about content distribution. In this post he provides 16 tactics to consider in your content promotion process. He discusses some tried and true channels like LinkedIn and SlideShare for B2B but also highlights the successes he’s seen from submitting content to online communities such as Reddit.
Great for inspiring you to think more broadly, but remember to check your website analytics to see where your high quality visitors come from and build from there.
#3. BlueChip Communication
OK, shameless self-promotion but our playbook is good. It’s a great step-by-step guide to putting together a content distribution plan, targeted at financial services.
We’ve included downloadable templates to save you time, a summary of the best channels, and some clever tools that take the hard work out of your planning. Go get it. Truly. #humblebrag
#4. Outbrain
Another e-Book but from one of the world’s biggest content distribution channels, Outbrain.
Even if you’ve never heard of Outbrain (really?) you have no doubt clicked on some content they’ve distributed. It’s usually the articles at the bottom of the news websites like www.smh.com.au and is marked as “Sponsored” or “Promoted”.
It doesn’t come for free, but we’ve used Outbrain and its rival Taboola to help clients drive more visitors to their content, and were amazed at the results.
#5. Hubspot
This guide is particularly useful to those wanting to use content for lead generation. Hubspot has experimented with over 2000 downloadable content offers and found offers promoted via a thought-through content amplification plan resulted in 72% more leads than those which were not campaigned.
Makes a content distribution strategy seem worth the effort, yes? This guide contains lots of tips and tricks, and includes a chapter on campaign reporting and analysis.
These are our favourites, but we are willing to bet there are others we’ve missed. If you have a go-to guide you think is a stand out, please let us know in the comments section below.
Filled with pro tips, downloadable templates and summaries of the best channels and tools, check out BlueChip’s “A Complete Guide to Content Distribution for Financial Services”.
