What Is a Content Marketing Channel?
Content marketing channels, or distribution channels, are the various channels content creators use to get their content to their target audience. There are a variety of channels, so there are more effective and profitable approaches to marketing for content creators. Understanding the various channels for your content will help make your marketing more effective and efficient because they offer you many different opportunities to reach specific audiences and pricing models to make your content accessible to a wide variety of audiences.
Why Is It Important to Have a Content Marketing Channel?
It is important to have a content distribution channel because millions of people will see the content you create. Content Marketing is a way to aggregate content and boosts traffic to your website. Some other benefits of having a content marketing channel include increased market reach, improved ranking, and a better experience for your users. Using these channels, you can find a way to gather content more effectively and reach a larger audience.
A content marketing channel allows people who don’t know you and are not in your network to get relevant content and keep them in the loop of what you do. The more channels that you have in your marketing mix, the better.
What Are the Types of Content Distribution Channels?
There are three categories of distribution channels, owned, earned, and paid. The owned distribution channels are the in-house content distribution channels that are part of the organization’s content strategy, while earned distribution channels are through shared content. Viewers who share your content on their social platforms and media pages to recommend or promote your products come under this category. Finally, the paid distribution channel is something that you pay for to distribute your content to promote your content, advertisement purposes, and sponsored ads.
The following section briefs you on the different content marketing channels that follow these three main divisions.
1. Owned Content Distribution Channel
This is the most popular content marketing channel. A company owns all of the content you produce, and you receive payment each time someone views it. You have complete control over the content, the hosting location, and how it behaves, and can make changes at any time. Owned content distribution channels include blog posts, white papers, newsletters, and applications.
2. Earned Content Distribution Channel
An earned content distribution channel is a process where someone with a relevant blog does guest posting on your site from a list of posts your organization allows. This channel is more popular because it is less expensive, free, and scalable. However, there is one disadvantage: you may find it tough to manage as this involves people promoting and influencing your product via multiple distribution channels. Earned content includes product reviews, customer feedback, social media engagement, and public mentions.
3. Paid Content Distribution Channel
Paid content distribution channels are great for spreading your message and generating traffic, but you earn clicks with great content. This content marketing aims to acquire an audience and build a relationship with them. It takes less time, but it is more difficult and is one of the most beneficial content marketing channels for monetizing your content. Pay-per-click (PPC), social media advertising, and sponsored content are paid content distribution channels.
Difference between Owned content media and earned content media
| Owned content media | Earned content media |
| Owned channels are created, maintained, and owned by your business. | They have shared content media owned by third-party vendors promoting your content. |
| You can control how to publish and when to publish your content. | You can post free on these sites, but the third party owns the content. |
| They include your website, blog space, social media channel, mail ID, and app. | These channels include social shares and mentions, guest articles, reviews, and forums. |
Content Marketing Channel Strategy
Effective content marketing channel design is a virtue when building your online brand image. Since content marketing channels allow you to target the customer effectively, it is important to have an effective strategy that maximizes revenue and customer conversion.
Content marketing channels include social media marketing, paid advertising services, SEO, and blogging. Creating content using each channel helps you reach the target customer with a configured custom landing page.
For example, suppose your client contacts you after seeing the post that you shared on Facebook, the right strategy is to have a CTA that takes them to your landing page.
A customized and targeted landing page allows easy site navigation and increases conversions.
Top 5 Content Marketing Channel Distribution Tools
The main goal of a content marketing channel is to ensure that it can reach its audience and provide them with the product or service they offer. By utilizing a third-party platform with the right marketing strategies, marketers can create, distribute, and track their content marketing channels accordingly. Furthermore, these channels may boost lead generation and sales, leading to better ROI.
Having the right analytics tool to inform content marketing efforts and marketing strategy is arguably the only way to measure ROI of the content marketing efforts continually. This is why your content marketing must never be about your team and their desire to do good. This is just one of the reasons why content marketing is a rewarding task for marketers. Conversions are better when you can use analytics tools for content marketing to inform what works and what doesn’t. Furthermore, it gives optimization tools and insights that help marketers create great content to ensure success.
The following section focuses on some of the best content marketing distribution tools.
List.ly
Listl.ly is an affordable option for beginners because it is free and easy to install on most social media platforms. List.ly helps you develop your community on the internet and grow your audience. This is an ideal option for bloggers, small businesses, and digital agencies because it’s easy to start and maintain.
Medium
Medium aggregates content from individual bloggers who write and publish articles, interact with their readers, and moderate conversations, which promotes the original blogger’s content. Medium promotes this content through social media manually or automatically. Once you register with Medium and publish your first article, you can generate a link to the article by eclipsing the article, author’s name, and publication.
LinkedIn is great for content marketing and content distribution. It is a framework for creating groups and producing quality content with a professional edge. This platform allows you to create a content marketing funnel and offers content marketing strategy guidelines because it has a content management system (CMS), where you may track your progress. LinkedIn packages are also useful on the list.ly platform and allow you to monetize your content easily.
Buffer
Buffer is a content distribution tool that helps you distribute your content across social media networks. Buffer builds links from your posts to your paid ads and eBooks. Buffer also helps you improve your public speaking skills if you’re preparing to speak at a business meeting or other speaking engagements. Buffer also helps you ensure that you deliver top-quality content and get your content noticed.
Outbrain
Outbrain helps you distribute content to several marketing channels, and you must sign up and start writing articles. Outbrain distributes them to its networks of partners, such as CNN and CNNMoney. After a few hours, Outbrain also helps you publish the article with links to your website and social media profiles.
FAQs
What is a content marketing channel?
Content marketing channels refer to how the content is taken to the audience. It acts as a medium to take the content to attract, engage, and retain your audience by creating and sharing relevant content. They can be blogs, videos, podcasts, and other media.
What are the different channels to distribute your content?
Social media channels – Facebook, Instagram, and Tumblr.
Content marketing campaign.
Video channels.
Websites.
Community publishing.
Third-party channel – guest blogging.
Give an example of content marketing.
Content marketing includes ebooks, videos, educational articles, webinars, and podcasts that answer specific questions people have and provide them with answers. For instance, an automobile website provides content about how to care for your car and how to apply for credit.
It’s the best way to turn your product into something useful and unique. By providing credible, authoritative resources, your business gets discovered by the right audience, and you earn their loyalty and trust.
How to create a content distribution strategy?
The content distribution strategy includes
– Research your target audience preferences.
– Choosing the right content channel.
– Deciding which content would suit best.
– Setting your KPIs and goals.
– Building an editorial calendar.
– Distributing your content.
– Measuring your results.
Which is the best channel for distributing content?
Social media channel best suits content marketing as you can find B2B and B2C prospects who are your potential customers. These channels have analytic tools to measure user engagement and how your audience perceives your content.
Closing Thoughts
There is a wide range of content marketing channels, and you must choose the one that suits your business model. To begin content distribution technology, you must produce the finest content for your audience. If done correctly, it is an automatic, timely, and efficient procedure. You may also consider employing a content marketing consultant to assist you with content distribution.
Content Marketing channels are no longer limited to social media and email marketing. Content sharing has more sophisticated approaches to media relations. With the right tools and experts, you can use several channels to distribute content and engage with your audience.
For more content marketing ideas and information, you may read our blogs.
