When you are developing a marketing strategy, there is a fine line between expanding your distribution channels and overwhelming yourself with too many channels to manage competently. While it may seem like a good idea to jump on each bandwagon when you hear the whistle blow, planning your marketing strategy and developing it along your plan work much more effectively.
Adding distribution channels should not be a spur of the moment decision for many reasons including the following:
- The channel might not be popular with your target audience.
- If the channel is newly developed, it is likely that their system does not include the tracking mechanisms that you need.
- You haven’t decided how the new channel fits into your digital marketing strategy.
- You would have to divert staff to work the new channel, and your staff is booked right now.
- You don’t know the long-term plans for the new channel.
In order to add new content distribution channels properly, you and your team need to discuss the successes and failures of your current channels, and whether you should add more. Here some tips to get you started:
Examine your current strategy and graph your metrics if you haven’t already done so.
Graphing your metrics puts the numbers in visual format so that you can literally see your results. With your data, you can compare and contrast each channel and get a better picture of your ROI from your content.
Compare your original goals to your results to determine the success/failure of your current strategy.
Have you achieved your goals for your content marketing distribution? If not, how can you improve them? If so, can you make them even better? Are your goals not lofty enough? Maybe you need to set higher goals. Can you put even more effort into your successful strategies?
Brainstorm ideas for improving your current strategy.
If you think part of your strategy cannot be improved, and it is not successful, scrap it.
Put together your creative brains and think outside the box, over the box, under the box, or throw away the box altogether. Think of everything you can to work with the channels that have succeeded for you. Just because there are new channels available, doesn’t mean that they will work better than the ones you have already chosen. You chose them for a reason.
Consider new channels to add or replace current channels.
Now you can think about new channels. However, be careful when adding them. New channels, for all of the reasons listed above, may not be that great. If you want to try a new channel, then make sure you have the resources to allocate to it, and it won’t downgrade any of your already successful channels. After all, the bottom line is, well. . . your bottom line.
If you want to learn more about content distribution channels, the Content Marketing Conference 2016 is an excellent place to learn from your peers and experts in the field.