1. Content Falling Flat?
How to Overcome the
Distribution Hurdle in 8 Easy Steps

2. Why Distribute?
Buyers are 60% down the buyer’s journey before they engage
with a brand or person. You have to be proactive in reaching
them early on.*
*Research by Rishi Dave, Dell’s Executive Director of Digital Marketing via newscred.com

3. In order to be heard over the noise that is the Internet, you have
to hand deliver your content to your target audience.

4. Understanding the Channels:
Owned vs. Earned vs. Paid
Owned Earned Paid
Email newsletter list Forums Facebook ads
Social media channels Blogs
(guest blogging) Twitter ads + Promoted Tweets
Slideshare Newsletters AdWords
Podcasts + Webinars Communities
(i.e. Linkedin Groups, Medium, etc.)
Social media groups Distribution apps
(i.e Buffer Daily)
RSS Feed Podcasts + Webinars

5. 1. Define Your Goals
WHO? END GOALS
- existing community
- broader audience
- visits
- signups
- conversions
- social shares
- followers
- brand awareness

6. 2. Find Your Audience
Determine
the Problem
Ideate
Search Terms
Check usage
with Google
Trends
Track terms
with a media
monitoring tool
Make a list
of channels &
influencers
Identify
influencers with
Buzzsumo

7. 3. Develop a Process
Make a spreadsheet of every earned channel with tabs for
forums, blogs, newsletters & influencers.
Create a column for category -> sort each sheet by category.
Publish content -> send to each channel in the relevant category.
Pro tip: Ask friends and colleagues to post to forums and groups
for you, rather than do it yourself. Eventually, you’ll have a big
enough audience that you won’t have to ask.

8. 4. Research + Measure
TRENDING CONTENT GOOGLE ANALYTICS
See what headlines are trending on
relevant forums and buzzsumo.com
See existing top referrers; stop wasting time
on non-performers. Make note of landing pages
In GA, go to -> Acquisition -> All traffic -> “Secondary Dimension” drop down -> Landing Page

9. 5. Build Your Owned Channels
Don’t forget to start building your own vehicles via RSS and email subscribes.
TEST & ITERATE
Subscribe bars (hellobar.com, manycontacts.com, sumome.com)
Pop-Ups
Twitter Cards
Promoted Tweets
Promote with other email channels (one-offs, customer newsletter)
In-app messages (we use Intercom.io)
A/B test different messaging and call-to-actions.
Try attracting people with the headline of the most popular article in your popup.

10. Design matters
Consult a UX pro.
Do informal user / visitor testing.
Keep it simple and easy to read.
Keep newsletters brief and visually pleasing.
Make your Slideshares and presentations attention-grabbing.

11. 6. Measure Conversions
Tag content by category.
Track posts with KISSmetrics.
Determine which topics drive the most relevant audience for signups or sales.
Focus on elaborating and repurposing those.

12. 7. Share Multiple Times on Social
Spread posts over a few weeks at different times throughout the day.
Pull quotes, headers, and subheads as copy.
Include Click-to-Tweets in the posts (CoSchedule has a great plugin).
Include the handle of the author and their company in most tweets.
Include different images.

13. 8. Reach Out, Build Relationships
High quality content + Strong relationships = Shared Content
1. Identify influencers with media monitoring and buzzsumo.
2. Look at what they share - topics, tone, commentary.
3. Only share relevant info.
4. Figure out the value you add for them, and offer a lending hand.
5. Find something personal to talk about. Be friendly.
6. If it’s not happening, don’t push it.

14. Bonus: Our Fave Channels + Tips
As a SaaS company and media monitoring tool, here are the distribution channels
(or amplification networks) we’ve seen greatest success with:
Buffer’s Daily App: Drives a ton of shares with a trickle-down effect of visits, but still very high.
growthhackers.com: Our second biggest referrer. Make content relevant and valuable.
Ask someone else to post. Follow up on comments.
inbound.org: Very content and community focused. Smaller traffic driver, but lower bounce rates
and more time on site from visitors.
Hacker News: High quality content trends. Tech and investment-related posts seem to do the
best. Upvotes restricted to 1 from each IP.

15. Bonus: Our Fave Channels + Tips
Designer News (designnews.layervault.com): For design-related content only.
Strong community; drove significant traffic.
reddit: Our tech posts have done remarkably well. All about choosing the right sub-reddit.
Many of the smaller ones aren’t worth the time.
The Next Web: For syndication. Drives a significant amount of traffic (not huge), but allows us to
reach broader audience.

16. 8 Steps to Overcoming
the Distribution Hurdle
1. Define Your Goals
2. Find Your Audience
3. Develop a Process
4. Research + Measure
5. Build Your Owned Channels
6. Measure Results
7. Share Multiple Times on Social
8. Reach Out, Build Relationships

17. Read more about overcoming the content distribution hurdle at:
https://blog.kissmetrics.com/overcome-content-distribution/