Lack Of Distribution: The Hidden Killer Of Content Marketing

Bill King

Even if you’ve been thoroughly embracing content marketing, content distribution remains critically important. It doesn’t matter how good your latest article is if no one gets to read it. This remains of real significance in the water and wastewater industry where much of the work is done in the field or around the plant. In a work environment away from the computer or magazine, how do you get your expert content in front of your audience?

It seems to me that there are two ways audiences find you. The first is when a reader is actively searching out information, pricing or help. And the second is when your message interrupts their activity.

The first of these scenarios is perhaps simplest to address. Logically if you supply the answer to your audience’s question or request, you’ve satisfied their need. Most independent sales reps or consulting engineers in our business would hope that their customers will pick up the phone or call them in when they need a question answered. It’s fair to say that many operators still do that. But the fastest way to information is now an online search, often performed using a cellphone. 

Moving from one task to another across multiple locations, the fastest way to get to information is to dial up a search, using the work-laptop mounted in the cab of the pickup truck or via the cellphone. Think about your own information-sourcing behavior. Anything from how long to bake a chicken breast, what time the Cowboys game kicks off against the Eagles and how many pounds make up a metric ton can be learned instantaneously using your cellphone. Why make the call?

And most of us are using Google. A few are using different search engines. So to reach your audience when they need information, you need to successfully anticipate their information needs and likely search query. We build personas and visit treatment plants, water districts and labs to try to map out what we should write about based on what might get searched for. I encourage you to do the same. There’s lots of literature out there challenging you to “walk in the shoes” of your customers. We’ve even developed our own software to help our customers “become their customers.”

But remember that you also need to influence the senior plant personnel, engineers, consultants and contractors who review, recommend or specify your products and solutions. Their information needs are different as they need to keep up-to-date not only on what they’ve specified in the past but what they should be specifying now and in the future else they become irrelevant. These individuals tend to be more office-based and likely to keep up-to-date on the industry through publications and networking with experts. 

In terms of interrupting your audience’s activity, you still need to be producing content that they will stop what they are doing to engage with it. It’s not simply a case of popping up in their social media feed with a display ad (although that has its place if you’re pushing a new product or brand). The secret here is to not only answer your customer’s information need but anticipate where he or she is spending their time.

Staying updated on social media trends is useful but think outside the box. Could you insert copies of your content with your products? How effectively are you arming your sales reps with the content you are producing? Are you only promoting content on your website or have you located third-party websites where your audience resides?

Don’t let your investment in content go to waste by sitting on some of your most valuable marketing assets. Get creative and figure out ways to force it into the hands of your potential customers.

Image credit: "SEO Page Rank," India7 Network © 2014, used under an Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/