Effective Content Marketing Techniques : Content Amplification

Analyzing the traffic sources for our clients’ websites, we figured out that more than half of the traffic received over six months comes from many different sources: social media, paid search, display, direct traffic, or referral. In view of the most recent changes in the digital marketing world, we came to the conclusion that, if we only focused on search intent and “organic” traffic, we would miss lots of valuable traffic, leads, and conversions.

The competition for the audience’s attention has become fierce especially in competitive industries, this is why it is essential to use various channels apart from organic traffic to deliver content to the targeted audiences. But let’s see all the reasons why content promotion and distribution (content amplification) is a must for an effective content marketing strategy.

What is content amplification?

Content amplification could be defined as the use of various online channels to promote content so that it increases brand awareness and encourages users to make a purchase on your website. The purpose of content amplification is to increase your content reach to establish you as a trusted brand in your industry and create new opportunities for sales.

Content Marketing Strategies and Techniques

To attain your content marketing goals in an extremely crowded landscape (3 million blog posts are published every day), marketers and businessmen obviously need to create and follow a clear strategy based on their audience’s behaviours, interests and needs. A successful content amplification strategy should include the following:

• Defining business goals and translating them into specific objectives and KPIs. To grow your business, you need to set realistic digital marketing targets. For example, if you have an e-commerce website, you will most probably need to keep an eye on traffic volume (measured through unique visits and visitors), conversion rates, average order value, revenue per visit and other KPIs.  
• Constantly creating quality content. To achieve these goals, you need to produce the right content to support each stage of the customer journey: awareness, consideration, decision, and action. A correct strategy includes analyzing the existing content, detecting your business needs and using a calendar to track your team’s content publishing activity.
• Even if you know your targeted public very well, conducting A/B tests and split tests to improve engagement rates is also a must. This way, you can see what your audience actually responds to and create more valuable content that converts. A good marketer knows that only the best piece of content needs to be amplified. Don’t waste your budget amplifying every piece of content you produce, hoping that the ROI will be great. 
• Content Promotion must be done through the right channels (organic and paid) to reach the audience you are attempting to connect with. If you have analyzed your targeted audience’s behaviour well, you probably know exactly where your public hangs out the most and what determines the people to convert.  
• Understanding your customers’ journey is also essential for running a successful content amplification strategy. You can better understand your audience by analyzing the behavior reports in Google Analytics, or by simply interviewing some of your returning customers.
• After selecting the marketing channels you need to promote your content through, it’s time to establish the place those channels have in your customer’s journey towards making a purchase from your brand.  Consider each action taken by your audience along their path to conversion.
• Each step towards conversion will be assigned a promotional channel which will nurture the customer’s needs, according to their actions.

Content Distributions Methods

Obviously, there are many methods and ideas to distribute quality content as a goal to increase your business. According to your business needs and marketing goals, you can use any of the following:

·         Facebook and Instagram Marketing & Advertising

·         Instagram stories

·         Twitter

·         Google Ads

·         Blog posting

·         Infographics

·         Email Marketing

·         Influencer Marketing

·         Native Advertising

·         Content Distribution Networks and more

To become an authoritative presence in your niche, you need to build trust and authority across many platforms through the content you create and present in front of your audience.

For this, influencer marketing could be a winning strategy: it’s useful to create solid relationships with influencers who already have a large number of loyal followers on social media channels and start promoting your branded content to the right audiences.

Publishing interesting blogs and articles will also help your audience become familiar with your products or services. People also respond very well to interactive content such as contests or videos.

You can also use press releases and media coverage, especially if you are launching a new product/service and social proof (testimonials) for creating trust, sharing information and generating online success. There are lots of ideas and ways to interact with your audience, according to your type of business, your public’s behaviour,  your resources and your goals.

Timing is Everything

Content amplification is all about offering the right content to the right audience at the right time. That is why understanding your public’s needs and interests is the key to a successful content strategy.

“Using a cross-channel content strategy to re-engage your customers along their path to conversion is how you find success in content amplification”.

Arnie Kuenn –Content Marketing Institute

Tracking, analyzing and optimizing each marketing action are also essential steps of a good content marketing strategy.

Content distribution may not seem complicated to the inexperienced marketer, but it is actually a lot more difficult than it seems at first glance, because it requires collaboration among SEO & social media experts, content strategists, copywriters and more.

However, engaging in content amplification activities is not an option anymore. In today’s digital space, publishing content is actually just the first step of a very complex process. What matters more than ever is how you approach content after it’s been published, how you determine audiences to engage with it, how you optimise it, and how you present it in front of the right audience at the right time.