9 Effective Content Promotion Tactics

Even the best content will not succeed if it isn’t promoted properly. That's why we’re providing tangible tips in this article to help you promote your content in the best way.

In our beginner's guide, we listed the three basics for content promotion. Let’s summarize them to recap:

Determine your target groups and segment them: For an effective content promotion, you should segment your target groups - otherwise you could end up delivering content to the wrong channel.

Align your content with the needs of your target group: Remember: your content is intended for your customers, prospects and users, not search engines. Therefore, always try to align your content with the user's needs.

Optimize your content for the respective channel: Users respond differently to content promotion when they see it on a social network, or as a recommendation after reading another article.

Now let's get to the hands-on tips:

1. Publish your content in your newsletter

If you regularly send a corporate newsletter, this channel is ideal for your content promotion. By subscribing to your newsletter, customers or users have already shown their interest in your content. The willingness to read it is therefore higher than with new users.

Another advantage: by analyzing the opening rate of your newsletters, you can determine which topics are more clickable. Using heat maps, you can also analyze which position within a newsletter attracts the most attention. If you have already segmented your target groups, you can now address individual user groups with your content.

You shouldn’t place the entire content piece in the newsletter, but tease it:

• Summarize the content of your content briefly and concisely.

• Use an appealing headline for your teaser. (This can of course be the original title of the article)

• Add call to action. People are often lazy, and need to be encouraged. At the end of the teaser, place a prompt to act, such as “Read More Now”.

Figure 1: Newsletter "Think with Google" with clear design and CTA

Who's this for?

This form of content promotion is perfect for all marketers who already send their own newsletter to a fixed group of recipients. There’s little effort required, as the layout and form of the newsletter have already been developed.

Should I promote my content via newsletters from other companies?

In this case, you should always ask yourself whether it really offers added value for other users to be led from a newsletter to your content. Since the newsletter recipients are unlikely to know your company, the bounce rate will be higher and the click through rate low.

2. Create custom snippets for social media

What happens if your content is shared on social media like Facebook or Twitter? The social network creates a preview. This can be crucial regarding what reactions a posting will generate.

Using Facebook Open Graph and Twitter cards, you can determine the preview when your content is shared on social media. These are markups or protocols that you can embed in the source code of your content URL. In this article, we describe how to use Facebook Open Graph.

If you share your articles on social networking sites, you should do the following:

• Vary the title of your post and see which title generates the most clicks.

• Summarize the content briefly and concisely.

• Quote memorable sections of your article in the post.

• Use eye-catching numbers or statistics from your article.

• Use expressive images that encourage users to click or share the post.

Figure 2: Newsletter "Think with Google" with clear design and CTA

Who's this for?

Embedding the Facebook Open Graph Protocol or Twitter Cards is always useful if you want to control which information is automatically filled in by networks when your articles are shared - not necessarily by you.

3. Reference your sources in social media

If you're already using Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook to promote your content, this tip can help you extend your reach. If you have used certain sources in your content piece, you can directly mention them in your social media posts and link to their profiles. This will make them aware of your content, and they might reply or repost your content, especially if the content is high-quality with other trustworthy sources. Who doesn't like to give something back if they have received recognition?

Who is this for?

If you already promote your content on your social media channels, it won’t take much more effort to reference your sources with functions such as @[profile name].

4. Use platforms like Slideshare for slides

Lectures or events, for which you have already created presentations, can also be used for content promotion. For example, you can upload your presentation to Slideshare to increase the reach of your content. There is also a good chance that users will click on links in the presentation to your website.

You should:

• Use catchy titles for your presentations

• Use important keywords in the process

Slideshare can not only convert presentations into so-called "decks", PDFs or videos can also be promoted via the platform.

5. Link your new content internally

Linking your content internally can also help to promote your content, for example linking on the homepage of your website. You can also use a web analysis tool such as Google Analytics to see which of your URLs have the most visitors. Limit the time frame to three months maximum to make sure you’re getting the most current data.

• Place links to your new content on these high-traffic URLs. This way you not only strengthen the keyword relevance to your new content piece through internal linking, but also direct internal traffic to the new content.

• Use a good call-to-action as anchor text to increase the probability that users will click on them.

• Many CMS also offer the function “related articles” or “similar articles”. Of course, this function is also useful for content promotion on your own website.

Who's this for?

This form of "internal" content promotion is suitable for all website, big or small. If you already have your own blog or news section on your website, it's even easier to link to new articles.

6. Use Instagram to promote your articles

Instagram is a social network which specializes primarily in visual content. But there are also ways you can use it to promote written content.

• References with a link in your bio to the latest content.

• Publish teaser images or pictures from your articles on Instagram and link to your content in the commentary.

• Also mention your sources on Instagram by linking them directly in the posting. This increases the chances that your article will also be shared via Instagram.

Who's this for? Even if Instagram is primarily a photo network, posters can achieve high reach there with a corresponding number of followers. Active followers are an important prerequisite for the success of your content promotion on Instagram. If you don't have your own channel or access to high reach channels, this option is less suitable for you.

7. Create ads for your new content piece

To optimize the distribution and popularity of your content, you can place ads for it. The content must exactly match the user intent of the target group if this method should be successful.

For targeted content promotion, for example, you can use advertising networks such as Google Display Advertising or services such as Outbrain or Taboola, which specialize in marketing content on different platforms.

Of course, you can also complement your content promotion with sponsored posts on Facebook. But always keep an eye on the cost-benefit ratio.

Who is this suitable for?

If your content offers the opportunity to specifically complete conversions or generate leads, for example as a classic landing page, it can be worth switching ads. Because then you can easily determine costs and benefits. Ads can be useful if you want to support a marketing campaign with your content piece. Ultimately, the placement of ads is of course only worthwhile if the necessary budget is available.

8. Use Retargeting

Content promotion can be very well integrated into remarketing campaigns. If a user of your website is already interested in a certain content on your site, there is a high chance that they will also be interested in additional information or content.

You can start remarketing with Google Ads, for example. To do this, your Google Analytics account must be linked to Google Ads. Remarketing lists can then be used to place ads in text or picture form that refer to your new content.

Figure 3: Create audiences for retargeting in Google Analytics

Whi is this for?

If you already have Google Ads and use Google Analytics, remarketing with Google Ads is a great way to optimize content performance. Another advantage is that you can check the performance of your ads directly and also perform A/B tests with the tool.

9. Create a distribution list for recipients of your content

Depending on the topics, your new content piece can be interesting for different target groups. For example, it may be worthwhile to report on a new product from your company and send this information to the local press in a "classic" way. It can also be worthwhile to establish connections to bloggers in order to promote your content.

• Create a distribution list for it. You can organize this with a simple Excel list.

• Enter your name, contact details and contact details.

• Also add the topic with which you contacted these people to the list.

• Always write down the recipients personally. Use also the very "analog" possibility and get in contact by phone. The better contacts you maintain with the press, bloggers or influencers, the more opportunities you can use for content promotion.

Who's this for? If you have information that could really be of public interest, e.g. statistics from your industry, a new product, a new start-up idea, then it might make sense to set up a mailing list. Note, however, that press and PR work takes a lot of time, more than just writing a short mail to a recipient. Most press people receive these kind of emails every day. It's best to start small and ensure an individual contact. This way you will increase your long-term performance in content promotion.

Conclusion

Those who produce great content with added value for customers, prospects and their target group should also ensure that this content is promoted accordingly. There are many different ways to promote content. You don't always need a lot of budget. However, as with all methods of content marketing, it is important that content, medium, address and target group match. Then you can be successful with any of the methods presented here.

Comment on this article and let us know how you promote your content!