Lots of content marketers spend 90% of their time creating content and 10% promoting it. The reality is, it should be the other way around. Content marketing isn't over when you hit publish. In fact, hitting publish is just the beginning.
The Myth of "Build It and They Will Come"
There's a persistent myth in content marketing that if you create great content, people will find it organically. While this can happen occasionally, it's the exception, not the rule. The reality is that millions of blog posts are published every day. Without a deliberate promotion strategy, even your best content will get lost in the noise.
Think of it this way: creating content is like building a shop. Promotion is like putting up signs that tell people where the shop is. No matter how good your shop is, if no one knows it exists, you won't get any customers.
The 80/20 Rule of Content Marketing
A good rule of thumb is to spend 20% of your time creating content and 80% promoting it. This doesn't mean you should rush content creation. Quality still matters. But it does mean that promotion deserves far more attention than most marketers give it.
When you flip the ratio, you start to see content marketing as a system rather than a series of one-off posts. Each piece of content becomes an asset that you can promote across multiple channels, repurpose into different formats, and re-promote over time.
Channels for Promotion
Where should you promote your content? The answer depends on where your audience spends time, but here are the main channels to consider.
Email: Your email list is one of the most valuable assets you have. Send new content to your subscribers, but also re-share older content that's still relevant. Segment your list so the right content reaches the right people.
Social media: Share your content on the platforms where your audience is active. Don't just post once and move on. Share multiple times over a period of weeks, with different angles and headlines each time.
Outreach: Reach out to influencers, bloggers, and journalists who might be interested in your content. Personalised outreach is far more effective than mass emails. Build relationships before you need them.
Communities: Participate in relevant online communities like forums, Facebook groups, and LinkedIn groups. Don't just drop links. Add value to discussions and share your content when it's genuinely relevant.
Paid promotion: Consider using paid advertising to amplify your best content. A small budget on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter can put your content in front of thousands of targeted readers.
Repurposing Content
One of the most effective ways to get more mileage from your content is to repurpose it. A blog post can become a video, a podcast, a series of social media posts, an infographic, or a slide deck. Each format reaches a different audience and extends the life of your original content.
Repurposing also helps you maintain a consistent publishing schedule without having to create everything from scratch. You can take a deep, comprehensive blog post and break it into several shorter pieces, or combine several short posts into a more comprehensive guide.
Measuring Success
How do you know if your content marketing is working? Don't just look at vanity metrics like page views. Focus on metrics that matter: leads generated, email subscribers gained, social shares, backlinks earned, and ultimately, revenue influenced.
Set up tracking from the beginning. Use UTM parameters on your links so you know which channels are driving traffic. Use Google Analytics to understand how visitors interact with your content. And check in regularly to see what's working and what isn't.
The Long Game
Content marketing is a long-term strategy. It's rare for a single blog post to transform your business overnight. But over months and years, a consistent content marketing effort, combined with deliberate promotion, compounds into significant results.
The marketers who win are the ones who understand that content marketing isn't over when you hit publish. It's only just beginning.