In previous posts we have talked about how to create and implement a content strategy. We have gone over the basic of content planning and how to adapt it to the customer journeys. Now it’s time to talk about how to distribute your content.

After all the work that we have put into creating a great content, it will be a shame if you don’t promote your content through the right channels. And it’s now when your customer persona plays an important role. How do you think your customers and prospects will access your content?

Here you must understand that there are three types of distribution channels: your own channels, external channels and paid channels.

Your own channels

These are the channels that you control. They can be your website, a blog that your company has, different landing pages or specific websites that you can create for your products, your newsletter, your magazine, mobile apps, etc. Here you can even consider your social media profiles, but nowadays they are mixed with the paid channels.

A good example is the IKEA magazine that we all get from time to time or the newsletter that you subscribed to a while ago.

When I started working on the content strategy for Thermomix in Spain, one of the actions that we took was to create new blogs with recipes, ideas and tips for our customers. We created content for both beginners advance users, basic tips, international recipes and a long etc. The idea was to have different levels of content so that our users could navigate and find what they found most interesting at any given moment, interlinking the information to encourage them to move from one content to another.

External channels

These are the channels that you don’t control. Everyone would quickly think of many magazines and newspapers, maybe also radio and TV programs. But you should also include influencers, Youtubers and bloggers. Here you have little or no influence over what people say or share.

Paid Channels

This is a mix of the previous two. You don’t own those channels, but you pay for the content that is shared and have a lot of influence on how these content is published.

Unpaid Channels

Here we must consider all those channels that can talk about our brand, but are not paid content. This category includes forums, Facebook pages created by fans of our product, anonymous customer recommendations, etc. Keep in mind that in many cases, an influencer can fall into this category.

How to combine the different channels with your customer journey

Now the question is, how do I implement my strategy and increase conversion, loyalty, retention, etc… Well, in the previous post we talked about how our content has to adapt to our customers, both fitting our customer journey and being suitable for our customer persona.

You have to think about how your potential customer is going to find the information, what is he or she going to do with that information and what should do next?

When we were defining the digital strategy for the Thermomix brand in Spain, before we started creating content and sharing it on blogs and social networks, we thought about what a new prospect would do, a person with little or no idea what Thermomix is. So we imagined the scenario: you’re browsing Instagram, when you see a nice cheesecake recipe and think “I want to try it at home”. You click on the description and discover is a Thermomix recipe. “What is Thermomix” you ask yourself. Then you Google it. You discover the website, but this doesn’t say much. But you also find some videos that give you a nice overview of what Thermomix does. Then you search some more, checking out what kind of recipes Thermomix makes. You might visit Facebook and check comments and maybe read couple of articles or even a post in a cooking blog.

You don’t know it, but most of that content has been generated for you. In the end, if the content marketing team has done a good job, you will like more information about the product, ask your friends and maybe attend a demo.

Many times, companies don’t pay much attention to content strategy. But when done correctly, it can support the business and generate new leads and improve the company’s bottom line. Now think again if you consider that generating content a waste of money and time.