It is very frustrating when the content you have worked hard to create does not have the impact you want it to. While the quality of the content may be a factor, it is more likely that your content distribution plan was not effective.

If you want people to pay attention to your content, you have to do more than just publish it and hope for the best. Even if you have a plan for distributing your content, simple mistakes can ruin your efforts without you even realizing it. (It’s okay, we see this happen to brands all the time.)

You can improve the impact of your content even if it is already published. You just need to know what mistakes to avoid when distributing your content.

How to Fix the Top 10 Content Distribution Mistakes

After having a decade of experience, we have seen almost every mistake that can be made and that is why we have put together this guide (with our best tips) to help your content be successful. If your content hasn’t been working well or has become less effective over time, double check to see if you are making any of these common mistakes.

1) Creating a Plan After Content Is Finished

A lot of times, a content team will send a new piece to the promo team and expect them to get it out there right away. But when things don’t work out, everyone gets upset.

If you want your Public Relations team to be successful, you need to involve them from the beginning of the process so they can offer feedback about your content idea. They need enough time to connect with their contacts, arrange exclusives, and prepare a launch plan.

You could also try reaching out to a publication to see if they would be interested in creating tailored content. This would guarantee that your content would be featured.

Different types of content may require different promotional tactics. For example, motion graphics, e-books, interactive infographics, and infographics may each require different approaches. Our tips can help you get started on the right foot.

2) Targeting the Wrong Channels

Your goal in content distribution is to get your content in front of as many people as possible. Different content is better suited for different channels. it’s important to have these conversations from the get go.

Not optimizing content for the channel you’re using will make it difficult to connect with people.

Think about who you want to target and what methods will be most effective for reaching them. Plan this out with your team before creating any content, so that it can be modified to fit each channel well.

If you want to be successful on social media, you should focus on the platforms that will help you achieve your goals, instead of trying to be active on every platform.

3) Tracking the Wrong Metrics

If you want to be successful, you need to have a way to measure your progress. Metrics are a crucial part of any distribution plan. However, many brands make the mistake of either not tracking any metrics, or tracking too many. It’s important to figure out which metrics are most important to your brand, so that you can focus on what is and isn’t working.

The solution: Finding the right balance and only focusing on metrics that give the most useful information.

4) Not Optimizing for SEO

This is a very common mistake that is very frustrating to see. A lot of traffic comes from SEO, yet many brands do not properly optimize their owned properties or content for SEO.

If you want your website, blog, and content to be successful, you need to make sure they are optimized for keywords and social sharing.

5) Trying to Reach Everyone

Your content should be focused on the specific group of people who need your product or service. If your content is too vague or your distribution strategy is too broad, it will not be as effective as it could be.

To improve your marketing strategy, create detailed marketing personas that include information about your target audience, what they care about, and how they prefer to consume information. Having three personas to refer to will help you vet content ideas and choose the best distribution channels.

6) Making It Harder for People to Access Your Content

The text is saying that while it is beneficial to increase keyword rankings and deliver more site traffic, if the content on the site is poor or could easily be published on social media, it will damage the brand’s reputation in the long term.

The solution: Make it as easy as possible for people to find and share your content. For example, post your videos directly on Facebook (instead of making them go to your site), add social media buttons to your newsletter (so people can follow you more easily), etc.

Make sure that when you are teasing content on social media, you are also giving your audience something of value. For example, you could tweet an interesting data visualization from your latest white paper, and include a link to the white paper if your audience wants to learn more.

7) Promoting Your Content Once

You should promote your content more than once to get the most out of it.

The solution: Look for ways to renew, reuse, and promote your content. For example, you could turn an old e-book into a new infographic or use a content strategy that produces lots of smaller pieces from one larger one.

Content that is always relevant to people, like comprehensive guides and FAQs, is a smart way to get more value from your content over time.

8) Not Building Strong Relationships

If you want to be published by influencers and in magazines, it is important to have a good relationship with them before you try to get your content published. Even if you think you have a good relationship with them, if you make a bad pitch, they may not want to work with you for a while.

The solution: Develop relationships with key people, create excellent pitches, and stay up to date with what publishers want so you can deliver it immediately (or in the future). Seek out opportunities to cross-promote, guest post, etc.

9) Not Testing Your Tools

There are a lot of tools available to help with distributing content, but like all technology, there are bound to be some difficulties. Some brands do a big launch and then find out later that their tracking links were broken or social buttons weren’t working.

Checks and balances are key to making sure your website is running as seamlessly as possible for both you and your users. Make sure to test your tools and double check everything before you launch to avoid any issues. This goes for everything from tools to links to popup modals. Having regular checks and balances is key to making sure your website runs smoothly for both you and your users.

10) Blowing Your Budget on an Ineffective Paid Campaign

Paid content distribution can be beneficial for increasing your content’s reach, but it’s important to test it out first to see if it’s effective. Many brands pay for campaigns without testing them first, which wastes money and leaves them with nothing to show for it.

To avoid wasting money, first run a small test and refine according to the results.

How to Succeed in Content Marketing in 2022

I have been working with data in the organic search sector for nearly a decade. I have talked to agencies and clients extensively about their marketing objectives and their frustrations.

Two of the primary issues that seem to hinder companies from being successful with their content marketing are data and people. It’s seldom an issue of money. I began to wonder what the top 10 reasons are that prevent companies from publishing content that would help them succeed in the market.

I checked in with some of the talent that’s doing great work in digital marketing to see if I was right about my reasons for why digital marketing is important.

This is what we came up with.

Strategy

Your plan talks about content strategy, content marketing channels, landing pages, social newsrooms and lots of other aspects of content creation. What is not stated explicitly is that you should have published high-value content that satisfies what searchers are looking for, and that the quality of this content should be excellent.

This could be backed up with an objective. It’s not unreasonable to suggest that a well-funded business should target:

Within 12 months:

90% or more of landing pages that have value of over 1,000 visits a month, and should be revisited.
50% or more of landing pages are considered to be equal or better than other pages designed to answer the same query.

You could aim for a higher goal, but the above would be a great place to start.

how they want it, and how they want it to work,” he said. House insists that the key to a successful search engine is understanding the needs of the consumer. He states that the search engine must be designed to work in the way that the consumer wants it to.

Procrastination

We procrastinate on things we should be doing in favor of activities that are easier or more enjoyable. Planning takes time and can be difficult, but it is worth it to avoid getting overwhelmed by data.

We are learning more and more about what kinds of things people like and don’t like. Make sure to include this information in your research and targeting, and you will be more likely to be successful.

The key to a successful content strategy, according to Stephen Morris of TSB, is the ability to produce content that stands out from the rest and resonates with your audience.

He rightly points out that the internet is full of uninteresting content. Without setting and achieving goals, you would just be contributing to the confusion.

After auditing your content to see what’s missing and what needs to be improved, it’s important to make a plan to fill in the gaps. It’s not acceptable to have missing content, but it’s also not acceptable to have content that is just “OK” instead of great. Are there really more important things that you should be doing than creating truly great content?

Brand

The teams that create and police these guidelines help to build and disrupt other brands. By including graphical instructions and guidance on things like tone of voice and language usage, these teams help to shape how a brand is perceived.

This is why brand agencies are often the authors of web pages, and their best copywriters craft the copy to match the briefs they are given. When these pages are published, they contain exactly what the agency and brand wanted to say. However, the issue is that all too often, these pages don’t reflect what searchers wanted to find. They are not optimized for search and not designed to compete on Google. Despite this, CMOs still expect them to compete.

This lack of connection can result in lost traffic, and potentially also damage to the brand. I believe that consumers are increasingly interested in depth and detail, rather than being persuaded by advertising.

Red Tape

The larger the company, the more bureaucracy there is. More people are involved in the decision making process, meaning that there are more opinions to be considered.

As the number of people increases, the speed decreases, and content that is created by a group can often be mediocre.

There is often tension between what Skinner sees as the “group” and the “markets,” where the group wants to maintain control over messaging and tone.

CRO

Conversion rate optimization can make companies a lot of money by getting people to click on the big green button with as few distractions as possible. However, this comes at a price, and there needs to be a balance so that no one is harmed in the process.

House states that customer satisfaction and meeting business goals go hand-in-hand. He believes that experts are better equipped to understand and deliver what customers want.

Data

Determining what content is necessary in your market is not a complicated task, but it is essential to plan your content using data.

I’m not saying that white-boards are bad, but brainstorming, guessing, or assuming what your website’s most valuable content should be is not a great way to start.

Skinner says that this is a very important area to spend money on.

Two sins Skinner has seen many times:

No data on which to base decisions

and, worse,

Ignoring data when making decisions

Money

Some companies have extra budget for paid search, display ads, retargeting, social media, and agencies, but they don’t spend it. It’s strange that they would rather not use this extra money to improve the quality of their website’s content and ROI.

Talent

There is a need for a certain set of skills to make this work, as well as a team that is receptive to what you want to do.

Data munchers who find the gaps and opportunities.
Brief writers that make sure what the writers get is going to result in amazing content coming back.
Those that work on and around the CMS: Developers, design, SEO, CRO or sometimes one or a few multi-skilled individuals.
Leadership talent, who can champion the idea of what is needed, and of course get it done, removing barriers if they get in the way.

Timing

As opposed to procrastination, this is a question of timing. If the most important project in the business is another project that is taking up all of the resources, then other things that are necessary and desired can sometimes take priority. So what should always be the top priority can become a mid-range to-do.

Perception

There’s a lot of low-quality content being published by companies that should know better. Often, these companies have the mindset that if something isn’t broken, there’s no need to fix it. In my opinion, the CFO would disagree with this stance, since there’s a lot of potential return on investment from making a change.

Skinner believes that digital education is necessary for “traditional” businesses. He says that five years ago, these businesses’ online presence was just a basic website, but now they are investing money into making their digital presence better. Part of this transformation includes educating the senior team members about what is possible with digital technology.