5 Keys for Successful Data-Driven Content Distribution
More than 90% of B2B companies use content marketing as a strategy, and 38% plan to increase their B2B content marketing spending over the next 12 months. But while confidence in creating content rises, the distribution of that content is still a struggle. Only a little more than half of B2B marketers distribute content on a consistent basis, and almost one in four still outsource content distribution.
There continues to be a bit of a disconnect between creating content for the right audiences and getting that content in front of those audiences. How, then, can B2B companies distribute content in a way that gets seen? According to Jay Wilder, Director of Product Marketing at Datorama, it starts with understanding who your customers are, what challenges they face, and how you can solve those challenges. Then, it takes a complete view of the data to understand what distribution channels, campaigns and content pieces actually resonate and convert.
Here, Jay shares his top five content distribution tactics that get eyes on content and urge audiences to act.
Look at the data you’re collecting to discover deep insights about your audiences, such as how they navigate the path to purchase. Evaluate every channel to understand what drives engagement and what impacts results. “On the digital side, we bring together our paid and organic social, paid search and SEO data, for instance, with our conversion data from our site analytics, marketing automation and CRM,” says Jay. “We figure out different ways that people associate phrases and topics with the things that we do, turn those into content ideas, and look at the results in real-time.” Jay’s team at Datorama evaluates data to learn how well their strategies are working overall with how they generate demand. While opportunities may take 90 or more days to close, the team can see engagement and conversions into traffic, leads and SQLs as they happen. This allows for quick learning, while optimizing the budget for longer term pipeline impact.
Key Takeaway: Think about how to set up a consistent KPI framework for the different pieces of content you have, and use that learning to develop new content that engages and converts.
“We’re very solutions focused and serve many industries. So, we do a lot of research both within the client base, and outside of that base to determine what the key challenges are and how we can solve them. Then we look at the best channels to connect those solutions with our different audiences,” Jay says. What they’ve found is that it’s not about choosing one channel over another, but rather about finding the mix of the right channels and the right messages for each of segment of their market. “Datorama serves enterprise customers, agency customers, publishers, large global corporations and SMB customers,” Jay explains. Each of those audiences requires a different mix. Some channels may work better for reaching SMBs, but not well for enterprises, or vice versa. “Other channels, like LinkedIn, that are business-focused,” says Jay, “show us positive results for all audiences, but we use different tactics and content for each. We’re able to do this quickly using real-time dashboards to monitor results and dial in the mix per business unit and region based on results.”
Key Takeaway: Content distribution is a moving target, so it pays to stay agile.
Within the social sphere, Dataroma looks at all the channels targeted to their buyers, and tests different types of content with different audiences. “We created two different top of funnel pieces of content,” Jay explains. “One focused on analytics and the other covered how AI is transforming marketing and how companies could use it today to get an edge.” The AI whitepaper outperformed the analytics content by a landslide. “From that test, we found a way to differentiate ourselves as a company, turning a technology topic that we know a lot about into stories of practical business use cases.
