I know, I’ve hounded you about creating content – can’t I just give you a break? No, I can’t. You have more to give.
The annoying thing about content is that, while it’s sitting there looking pretty and hopefully dragging people in off the Google street, it’s still just SITTING there.
We need to give it some legs so it can pootle off and make friends all over the internet.
This is where the scary word ‘distribution’ comes in. It’s all about spreading your words/pictures/podcasts/videos far and wide so you can get more eyes on your brand, which will hopefully generate links back to your site, more traffic and more money. Yay!
One way to distribute content that I think doesn’t get enough attention is email. Yes, silly old-fashioned email. Might as well send it by carrier pigeon, amirite? Well, don’t be too quick to judge. I have four ways to distribute content by email that you just might like.
1. Purchase triggered email chains
Your lovely visitor turns from prospect into BUYER: cha-ching! Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner. How brilliant. But beyond the potential to buy your kids new school shoes, you have another opportunity now. Don’t just let your buyer wander off into obscurity – reel them in for a lasting and meaningful relationship with your brand.
They’ve provided you with their email address and you’re probably going to use it to send them confirmation of their purchase, plus maybe some delivery information. Then it’s fairly likely you’ll leave them alone.
Well DON’T.
They liked you enough to give you money and their contact details – I’d say you’re in there. Now’s your chance to keep them engaged with your brand through content that may have a lot of value for them.
Say they’ve just bought a garden hose from your outdoors section. They’d probably appreciate a series of tips for keeping their garden B-E-A-UTIFUL over the coming months. I see this as a chain of emails a couple of weeks apart, based on the type of products that they bought and the time of year. If they bought a child’s bed from your homeware section – how about tips for organising and decorating children’s rooms?
2. Newsletter
Hear me out. (And don’t for goodness’ sake call it Newsletter.)
You may think newsletters are for aunts and solicitors – neither of which you read – but if it isn’t called a newsletter, doesn’t read like a newsletter and doesn’t LOOK like a newsletter, you could be on to something.
Use your newsletter to give the darling people who willing supplied their contact details extra special content. It keeps brand sentiment up and means you’re on their minds. And that means sales.
Here’s a few ideas:
- Product launch (limit yourself to one per email)
- New content
- Round-up of the best content this month
- Exclusive voucher codes
- Customer testimonial
- Best customer tweets this month
Tip: If you’ve gone to the effort to create a newsletter, make sure you’re collecting people to send it to. You can gather email addresses by putting content download and newsletter signup buttons on your website. Just make sure your emails have an ‘opt out’ link in them – it’s the law.
Check out Goodbits and MailChimp for easy email building.
3. Email signature
This is a good one for when you’re courting prospects – the people who are interested in your services and expecting personal contact. Anywhere you have an externally-facing email signature, put in some great content you think people will benefit from.
WiseStamp is a FANTASTIC way of automating this so you know people are always getting your latest and greatest content.
Go forth and distribute.
