Great content marketing is not just about creating the best content. The secret to successful content marketing is being able to promote that content to the right people. Too many marketers think their job is complete once they hit the publish button. For the best marketers, this is when the majority of the work begins. This session is going to be packed full of amazing tips on how you can grow both your traffic and leads by learning the art and science of content promotion. It will include a content promotion framework, a formula to work out the right goals for your content and a whole bunch of content promotion tips.

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4
The Art & Science of
Content Promotion
Kieran Flanagan
Marketing Director (EMEA), HubSpot

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Content Marketing?

3. You know what frustrates the
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hell out of me?

4. “Build it and they will come”
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Guess what?

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No one’s coming

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and ...

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“Content is King”

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There are
27,000,000 pieces of
content shared every
day

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There are
27,000,000 pieces of
content shared every
day

11. Those phrases are relics from the past
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Just “doing content”
is no longer your
competitive advantage.

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93% of B2B marketers
and 90% of B2C
marketers are using
content marketing
today.
Source: http://bit.ly/1njPq0e

14. Content is proving a struggle for marketers.
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Only 42% of B2B
and 34% of B2C
marketers believe
they are effective at
content marketing.
Source: http://bit.ly/1njPq0e

16. Content Marketing is Simple
Right?
Come up with an idea – I’m a marketer, I am an ideas machine
Put idea into content – This is easy, it should only take a couple of hours
Hit publish – Great, this is all pretty simple
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17. What actually
happens is a
lot different.
You hit publish
You cross your fingers
No one cares
You look sad
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18. When it comes to content, the
best marketers know that …
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… self promotion is good!

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@Tweet this
To be truly
effective at
content marketing,
we need to excel
at promotion.
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@searchbrat

21. The notion that you can simply create
interesting content people will
magically find is a lie. If you build it,
they won’t necessarily come. You have
to treat your content executions like a
product and launch them the same
way you would launch a product.
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@jaybaer

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The Science

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The success of your
content campaigns
starts with creating the
right goals.
Do you want to generate awareness, inbound links,
qualified leads, blog subscribers or grow your social
following?

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We want to generate 200
qualified leads for the sales
team.
Let’s figure out the right metrics to aim for.

25. We know that 10% of all leads
we generate are qualified.
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What’s the total number of
downloads we need?
Qualified Leads / Qualified Lead
Rate = Downloads

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What’s the total number of
downloads we need?
200 / 10% = 2000 downloads

28. We know the average
conversion rate of our landing
pages is 50%.
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What’s the total number of
views we need?
Number of downloads / Landing
Page Conv Rate = Views

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What’s the total number of
views we need?
2000 / 50% = 4000 views

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We need a promotion plan to
generate 4000 visits to our
landing page, which will result
in 2000 downloads and 200
qualified leads.

32. Plan where to get those visits and downloads
from.
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Distribution
Channels
Available
Audience
Engagemen
t (CTR)
Engaged
Audience
Blog 50,000 6% 3,000
Email 10,000 3% 300
Facebook 8,000 2.5% 200
Twitter 1,000 0.5% 5
Co-promote 30,000 1.5% 450

33. Experiment with ways to add more distribution
channels.
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Distribution
Channels
Blog
Email
Facebook
Twitter
Co-promote

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Grow your available audience on each
distribution channel.
Distribution
Channels
Available
Audience
Blog 50,000
Email 10,000
Facebook 8,000
Twitter 1,000
Co-promote 30,000

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Optimise conversion paths to improve
engagement CTR of each channel.
Distribution
Channels
Available
Audience
Engagemen
t (CTR)
Blog 50,000 6%
Email 10,000 3%
Facebook 8,000 2.5%
Twitter 1,000 0.5%
Co-promote 30,000 1.5%

36. The bigger your engaged audience the more
successful your content campaigns will be.
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Distribution
Channels
Available
Audience
Engagemen
t (CTR)
Engaged
Audience
Blog 50,000 6% 3,000
Email 10,000 3% 300
Facebook 8,000 2.5% 200
Twitter 1,000 0.5% 5
Co-promote 30,000 1.5% 450

37. Segmenting your data like
this can help you make better
decisions about your
promotion plan.
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The Art

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In HubSpot, production and
promotion are treated equally.
If we spend 10 hours creating a piece of content, we spend at
least that amount of time on the promotion of it.

40. There are 3 key parts in the launch of any content
campaign:
Prior to Launch Week of Launch Ongoing
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Prior to Launch
#1

42. The best promotion plan in the
world can’t save bad content.
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Even if you are a distribution ninja, you can’t save content that
sucks.

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You need to ask:
Who are we targeting with this content?
Why are they going to love this content?
What action do I want them to take?
How will they find it?
Why would they share it with their friends?

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Gather insights to make your
content better.
There is a lot of data we can use that will help us publish
content that is more likely to get shared.

46. Socialcrawlytics identifies your competitors’ best
content and top performing social networks.
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47. Buzzsumo will show the most popular content for
chosen keywords and selected domains.
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48. It has an alerts feature that will tell you when content
from selected domains is getting shared a lot.
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49. Open Site Explorer will let you see what content from
competitors is getting linked to most.
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50. Quora can help you find questions on relevant topics
that have gotten a lot of engagement.
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Get Advanced!
Using free tools to scrape
information from websites.

52. On average what content categories result in the most
social shares on Moz?
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53. On average what content categories result in the most
thumbs up on Moz?
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54. On average what content categories result in the most
thumbs up on Moz?
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If you want to try it,
read this post.
http://bit.ly/1nbdDp1

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Consider your promotion plan
before ever hitting publish.
What can you include in your content that will help it get
shared more widely?

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Have industry experts provide quotes and
commentary for your content.

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This will help it get a lot more shares.

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Include some unique data in your content.

59. It will help generate more shares and engagement.
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60. Co-create content. There needs to be value for all
parties.
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61. Create your outreach lists well
in advance of your launch.
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The more time and effort you put into choosing the right
people for your outreach lists, the better your results will be.

62. Find ways to split your bloggers & experts into
tiers.
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Create a promotional pack
for your high priority
bloggers. Help them to
look awesome.

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Create a promotional pack
for your high priority
bloggers. Help them to
look awesome.

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Prepare email
templates for your
different tiers.
Outreach is time consuming. You want
to have templates that convert well and
can be easily reused by your team.

66. The Pre-Launch Checklist
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Ask the right questions
Gather insights
Plan promotion early (quotes, stats, data, co-create
content).
Create outreach lists (break them into tiers)
Create blogger promotional packs
Prepare email templates

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#2
Week of Launch

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Do a soft launch of your
content.
Start by seeding the promotional packs to your priority list.
Make them look good by letting them leverage the most
valuable parts of your content first.

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Then make your big splash!
Your campaign’s main launch should be treated as rigorously
as a product launch. All your efforts should be heavily
coordinated.

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Make sure your launch
email is successful.
Yeah, email is still a really important distribution
channel in 2014.

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1. Consistent
branding ensures the
receiver knows who
it’s from.

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2. Have a clear
value proposition.

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3. Dominant
call-to-action
(CTA).

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4. Include a
relevant image.

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5. Make it easy to
share.

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6. The personal
touch really helps.

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Make sure your launch
email is successful.
1. Consistent branding
2. Clear value proposition
3. Dominant call-to-actions (CTAs)
4. Include a relevant image
5. Make it easy to share
6. Personal touches really help

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Launch your content on
Facebook.
You can only launch the content once on
Facebook, so make it good.

80. Use an image. Photos generate 53% more likes &
104% more comments than the average post.
Source: http://bit.ly/ITzLHt
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81. Keep your post length short. They result in better
engagement.
Source http://bit.ly/1k8Bomc
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Launch your content on
LinkedIn.
LinkedIn is increasingly becoming a platform that
has content and user engagement at the heart of
it.

83. Follow the same guidelines you used to post on
Facebook.
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84. Use LinkedIn groups and blog posts to help promote
that update.
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85. Use LinkedIn groups and blog posts to help promote
that update.
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There are 200 conversations
taking place per minute in
these groups.
http://bit.ly/1nwvJCr

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Organic promotion on Twitter.
Unlike other social networks, promoting the same content a
number of times is a good thing on Twitter.

87. The life of a tweet is
really short. 18
minutes of potential.
Source: http://bit.ly/OdCfTL
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Use Followerwonk to analyse
when your followers are online.

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Use a tool like Social Inbox to
schedule tweets for those times
across the week.

90. Tweets with visuals have 5x
more engagement when
compared to text-based tweets.
Source: http://bit.ly/1heAEWw
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91. There is a 17% increase in
retweets when you include a
stat.
Source: http://bit.ly/1lTruRq
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92. Even better, include an easy
way for people to tweet stats
from the blog posts launching
the campaign.
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93. There is a 19% increase in
retweets when you include a
quote.
Source: http://bit.ly/1lTruRq
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Paid Content amplification
Sheeedilnpg cson.tent through paid channels is a great way to get
an initial bump in interest. But remember, great promotion
can’t save sucky content.

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For paid Twitter ads the same
rules apply. Remember:
Visuals in tweets have 5x engagement
Stats get 17% more retweets
Quotes get 19% more retweets

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These are real people actually
sharing our paid ad.

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Experiment with your targeting.
1.23%
0.79%
1.40%
1.20%
1.00%
0.80%
0.60%
0.40%
0.20%
0.00%
Twitter Engagement
Increase by
55%
Niche Broad

98. Find niche topic experts to target, and then target
their audience.
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99. Find niche topical experts to target and then target
their audience.
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100. Facebook has a lot of targeting
options.
You need to invest a lot of time & effort
Test different ad placements & formats
Test different audiences to target
Yes, that’s a whole lot of testing 
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Certain Facebook ads are better for
content amplification.
Right-Hand Column
Low performance & price.
Good for retargeting.

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Certain Facebook ads are better for
content amplification.
News Feed
Highest CTR & Engagement.
Far better ad type for content
amplification as it can
generate additional organic
results.

103. Custom Audiences allow you to get more granular
with your targeting.
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[To Add]

104. Target by interest lists to get your content seen by
the right people.
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On LinkedIn keep your target
audience really tight.
Clicks are costly so narrow down your audience
Create 8 sets of ads and continually refresh them
Like Facebook, keep testing ads & targeting

106. Keep targeting really tight on LinkedIn, your cost per
click tends to be higher.
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[To Add]

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There are a growing list of
options for paid content
amplification.
StumbleUpon Paid Discovery
Reddit’s Self Serve Platform
Outbrain & Taboola Content Discovery Platform

108. Leverage your online web real estate to promote your
content.
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109. Don’t forget there is a good chance your customers
already like you and will share your content.
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Guest blogging isn’t dead.
Look for opportunities to create valuable content for blogs
within your industry to help promote your content campaigns.

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Bufferapp wrote 60
guest posts that helped
them generate 100,000
customers.

112. There is a growing number of platforms you can add
valuable content to.
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Complete the rest of your
outreach for the lists you
created in the pre-launch
phase.

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Remember, that’s all to be
executed in the week of
lYaou uwannt cto hcre.ate as much interest as possible in that first week.
The quality of your content will then ensure that interest gathers
pace organically.

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The Week Of Checklist
Launch email
Launch on social (organic)
Content amplification (paid)
Promote across online real estate
Guest blogging opportunities
Complete outreach

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Ongoing
#3

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Don’t just love your
content for a week and
never think about it again.

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There is a whole lot of
leverage in re-promoting your
content.

119. Look at content that has performed well and where
opportunities to repurpose exist.
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120. You can leverage existing content that has already
proved to be popular.
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Extra leverage from
existing content.

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Look for opportunities to improve the organic
performance of that content.

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The Ongoing Checklist
Create content leaderboard
Revamp popular content
Optimise historical content

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Now put it all together …

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Plan for goals & metrics

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Prior to
Launch
• Ask the right questions
• Gather insights
• Plan promotion early
(quotes, stats, data, co-create
content)
• Create outreach lists
(break into tiers)
• Create blogger
promotional packs
• Prepare email templates
Plan for goals & metrics

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Prior to
Launch
• Ask the right questions
• Gather insights
• Plan promotion early
(quotes, stats, data, co-create
content)
• Create outreach lists
(break into tiers)
• Create blogger
promotional packs
• Prepare email templates
Plan for goals & metrics
Week of
Launch
• Launch email
• Launch on social (organic)
• Content Amplification
(paid)
• Promote across online real
estate
• Look for guest blogging
opportunities
• Complete outreach

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Prior to
Launch
• Ask the right questions
• Gather insights
• Plan promotion early
(quotes, stats, data, co-create
content)
• Create outreach lists
(break into tiers)
• Create blogger
promotional packs
• Prepare email templates
Plan for goals & metrics
Week of
Launch
• Launch email
• Launch on social (organic)
• Content Amplification
(paid)
• Promote across online real
estate
• Look for guest blogging
opportunities
• Complete outreach
Ongoing
• Content leaderboard
• Content revamp
• Optimise historical content

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