Content Promotion: Are You an Expert Content Promoter? [Quiz]

You might think that the title is a tad too challenging. But we believe that a real content promotion expert wouldn’t shy away from a challenge. We’re confident that most of our readers will pass with flying colors. Let’s put that claim to test, shall we?

However, before we move forward, there’s something you need to keep in mind – our last post on content marketing tools. If you don’t, here’s a direct quote from that blog to rehash your memory:

‘What good is an amazing post if no one’s going to read it’?

A lot of us got stuck on that line. Even our pet cat Bella seems to love it. She purrs lovingly every time we discuss it. And now, she has deluded us into thinking that this HAS to be the subject of our next post. So, here we go, talking about how to get your content out there; talking about content promotion.

Content promotion is a complex term, not just because it has various aspects to it but because each aspect has even more aspects to it. Confusing right? Don’t you worry! Just sit back and let us do what we do best – help you 🙂

Let’s start by talking about the various elements of a solid content promotion strategy – 

Email Marketing

According to research, 83.8% of people use their phones to check personal email and 34% use them for business email. In fact, email is the second most important activity carried out on smartphones, with more than half of all emails read on mobile devices. This makes emails an ideal medium for content promotion. We are gonna go out on a limb here and say emails are pretty important and relevant.

The first step to create a successful email marketing strategy is to create a thorough database of your consumers. It helps to determine the right time, frequency, and the number of emails to be sent to the customers. Next comes the email content – it is ideal to create a message that resonates with the customer. Take this example of a monthly email marketing campaign from Outgrow where we share our latest blog posts, ebooks, and other forms of content with our audience:

The subject of the mail is the title of the post we want to share with our subscribers. Notice how we have kept the email copy brief and highlighted the points where we want to draw the attention of the recipient. A clear CTA encourages the readers to click on the link and ultimately helps in improving the click-through rate of the email campaign. Email marketing is an art and it’s up to you to master it.

Interactive Experiences

Take it from Winston Churchill – “to improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.” In this competitive digital landscape where campaigns deliver an average CTR of only 4.55%, you’re battling against high odds. Interactive content marketing is now being deemed as the future of the digital marketing industry, thanks to the value and higher CTRs it delivers. Why wouldn’t you want to make a switch? To demonstrate better on how interactive experiences work, we’ve created one that tests your knowledge about content promotion. Now, isn’t that a coincidence?

Influencer Marketing

Imagine this: you want to deliver a speech on how much you love your office cat. You have two options. You can organize a party, send out invitations and all interested people. Or you could deliver a speech at a Cat Love Convention.

Think of Influencer marketing as that convention. Influencers are the industry experts who already have the attention of the audience you want to target. For instance, if you want to promote a quiz on ‘What is your dream date restaurant’, you would target influencers like renowned chefs, food bloggers, and pages dedicated to love for food. Take a look at this influencer list created by the handy tool of Followerwonk.

However, finding the right influencer to promote your content is equally important. People with almost equal ‘follower’ and ‘following’ number can be eliminated. You should give more emphasis to social authority than the number of followers. A good social authority gives a higher probability of engaged audience.

Syndication

As marketers, we have to keep finding new ways to get our content to the people and make it viral. Syndication seems to show a lot of promise in that department. Instead of writing new blogs every day, your marketing team can make efforts towards publishing these blogs on new mediums. This allows you to tap into a whole new audience with half the effort.

However, all good things take time, including syndication. The path to an efficient syndication strategy starts with identifying the right channels and establishing a regular posting schedule. Thankfully, they are not obstacles, but speed bumps. Hire an efficient driver, and you’re good to go. But before hiring someone, ensure that you carefully evaluate their qualities for your specific needs by thoroughly examining resumes and assessing skills and achievements.

Email Outreach

The human being is a social animal and helping others brings us one step closer to self-actualization.

But since we’re not philosophers, we’ll stick to marketing.

In simple terms, outreach mail is a way to seek out individuals or organizations that show interest in what you want to promote. Here is a perfect example of outreach mail:

The mail is not ‘salesy’ in any definition of the term. The addition of a previously unknown insight and a few compliments gave authenticity to the sender. There is no request for sharing, but just a genuine show of interest in the recipient’s blog. The last sentence seals the deal as it asks for her opinion. The reply back is positive as the latter agrees to share the blog.

Oh hey, they did end up helping each other. Maybe we’re philosophers after all.

Paid Ads

A strategy to promote content would be incomplete if we did not mention paid promotion. The aim of paid ads is to give you better visibility and hence, higher recognition. The cardinal rule of Google Adwords is to target high value, low competition keywords. You need to target the keywords that your potential readers will search for.

Meanwhile, paid ads on Facebook are target specific and highly effective. They allow you to target age, geography, and interest-specific people. This gives you an audience that might actually be interested in your posts. Here’s a blog by Marketing Guru Neil Patel in which he gives some valuable insights on the topic.

Comment Marketing

Comment Marketing is a rather new way of promoting content. As the name suggests, comment marketing is all about getting people interested in your posts by commenting on other’s posts. But most blogs ‘nofollow’ their comments and irrelevant comments can even get you banned from sites that keep an eye on post comments. So how can you use this to your advantage? We suggest that you brew a cup of coffee and start scouring the internet for people/pages interested in the topic you’re covering. Engage in meaningful conversation that is strictly topic specific. Remember, the reputation of your brand is at stake.

We have done our best to compile a list of the ways in which you could promote your content. Until then, adhere to this, and Voila! You’ll be an expert content promoter.

Oh, Bella’s purring again.