New research confirms a well-known, hard-to-swallow fact: 75% of web users never go beyond the first page of search engine results. To get on that first page, let alone in the coveted top three spots, is a victory typically reserved for larger brands who publish many, long-form posts.
So what does this mean for the budding marketer?
It means that you’ve got a huge opportunity to ramp up your content distribution game beyond search and to get your articles in front of as many eyes as you can, on a variety of channels.
If nobody sees your work, nobody is going to love it or learn from it. You’ve got to have a plan for distribution. To help you start building one, here’s an overview of a few content distribution tools you might like to use. Happy distributing!
1. Buffer Publish
Type: Social media content distribution tool
The Basics: Buffer’s simple and intuitive interface lets marketers manage all of their social media accounts in one place. Not only can you schedule posts across all of your profiles, you also can set them to publish automatically according to your preferred timings. Buffer’s integrated metrics dashboard lets you review and compare your performance, so you can improve your results and create professional-looking reports for your manager.
What people love: The Buffer browser extension. See a post you’d love to share? Forget the copy and pasting, clicking on the browser extension lets you cue up and schedule a post in under thirty seconds.
From the Happy Customer:
“The workflow has been considerably better from the standpoint of always having content ready to go. Plus, our engagement on Facebook has been way better too, because now we’re posting way more.”
– Paul Szoldra, West Coast Editor, Business Insider
2. Hootsuite
Type: Social Media Content Distribution Tool
The Basics: Hootsuite is a sophisticated social media content distribution tool that allows large teams to schedule and publish content across multiple networks from a single platform. There are tools integrated into the platform’s core offering that allow users to respond to and interact with connections. Its helpful search functionality lets you find and filter the social conversations that matter most to your brand.
What people love: The 250+ apps and integrations.
From the Happy Customer:
“Hootsuite allows us to better understand the impact of social media and engage customers more strategically through social channels. As social media becomes a more important part of how our customers communicate, we will continue to invest here.”
– Sanjay Dholakia, Chief Marketing Officer, Marketo
3. MailChimp
Type: Email Marketing Content Distribution Tool
The Basics: According to Salesforce, email marketing has an average ROI of 3,800%. That means that there’s a $38 return for every $1 invested. Mailchimp aims to make it easy for small businesses to grow by helping them to create and automate email marketing campaigns that allow customers to engage, buy, and stay loyal.
While Mailchimp has always been known for its email tools, it’s actually a full-fledged marketing automation platform that integrates all aspects of the marketing cycle — from purchase data to advertising.
What People Love: Google and Facebook retargeting capabilities.
From the Happy Customer:
“MailChimp has continued to raise the bar again and again for agencies, small businesses or non-profits, and e-commerce companies alike. We have no doubts that they will continue to do so and inspire us all along the way.”
– Nick Blackmon, Director of Marketing, Whiteboard
4.Emma
Type: Email Marketing Content Distribution Tool
The Basics: Emma is an email-centered digital marketing tool that shows off sexy templates, a user-friendly experience, and an ability to hyper-target your content to specific segments of your audience. Not only can you segment your list before you send an email, you can go deep and change the emails depending on a user’s behavior. Best of all, you can use a drag and drop editor to create that flow — visually seeing the audience journey is a huge help to a new marketer.
What People Love: The bounty of beautiful templates. These unique drag and drop designs save you time developing in HTML and they win customers over with their good looks.
From the Happy Customer:
“Since the launch of our campaign in 2015, more than $2.6 billion has been raised to support students, faculty, colleges, academics and athletic programs.”
– Diana Tomlin, Marketing Manager, Texas A&M Foundation
5.Xink
Type: Email Signature Content Distribution Tool
The Basics: Xink is a cloud-based email signature tool. Its primary job is to help companies ensure brand consistency across their organizations. And, Xink’s also got special features that let you create marketing campaigns for your email signatures. It enables you to use the space beneath the signature to drive website traffic and promote your best articles. Depending on the size of your company, that content might be seen by hundreds or thousands of people a day. It also facilitates data-based decisions by providing click-through tracking and analytics for all your signature campaigns.
What People Love: The straight-forward interface, ample integrations, and stellar customer support.
From the Happy Customer:
“Xink is a great tool to maintain standardized signatures for our users. Now they have their current signatures automatically wherever they login. The signature has links to our web site, bio information and contact information. It has made everyone’s life so much easier.”
– Patti Bentley, IT Director at Ropers, Majeski, Kohn & Bentley USA
6.AddThis
Type: Onsite Content Distribution Tool
The Basics: Many of the tools we’ve shown you so far ask you to take your content and put it on another channel so it gets some traction. But AddThis lets your readers do the work for you. You still have to get readers to the page initially — whether that’s through social, search, or email — but after they’ve arrived and loved your content, AddThis makes it easy for them to share your piece with the world by putting share buttons within reach.
What People Love: It cuts down on your work and it’s easy to use and install.
From the Happy Customer:
“Easy to use and configure. Minimal configuration needed. Love the reporting feature. This stuff JUST WORKS.”
– @craigiswayne
An Ahrefs study earlier this year showed that 91% of content gets no traffic at all from Google. Be in the other 9%!
No matter what type of content distribution tools or which of the content distribution companies you choose, remember that distributing your content is just as important, if not more important, as writing it in the first place.