Content Distribution is the act of promoting content to an online audience in multiple media formats through various channels.
Creating great content is not enough and would be such a waste if your audience doesn't know it exists. Therefore the distribution of content is an essential part of your marketing strategy-if, not the most critical part.
Content Distribution Channels can be categorized into three groups:
Owned Content Distribution (owned media):
This includes distributing content to web properties that belong to you, like your blog, email newsletter, or social media.
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Social Media
Social media is one of the channels that can help your hotels in terms of organic following, driving traffic to your website, and even encouraging sales. Once your hotel has an audience of its own, then marketing to that audience over and over again becomes easier and cheaper than ever before.
But bear in mind and never forget that they follow you because they like the content you’re providing, not just your products.
Social media is a way to reach your target audience. It is a vehicle that is fueled by good content.
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Hotel Website
The hotel website is one of the important channels where you have full control of the contents. With that, you can include multiple types of content on the website such as:
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- Blog post
Blogs can include content in the form of text, photos, infographics, or videos. It plays an important role to attract your customer to a website through google search. Just make sure you write content that relates to your hotel. For Blog posts, you should also have good copywriting skills.
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- Pop-up forms
Pop-up forms are small windows that ‘pop up’ over the top or any other place of your web pages in your internet browser. Advertisers use them as a way to get the user's attention.
Pop-up forms are such a popular marketing tactic for promoting content, driving blog subscriptions, growing email lists, and fueling lead generation.
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Email (Newsletter)
Newsletters normally include periodic updates, news, promotions, and events. Hotels send newsletters weekly, monthly, or quarterly, depending on their goals and business activities.
The key benefit of newsletters is to keep your brand in front of customers who rarely book. A hotel can send monthly newsletters to travelers and guests with tips on how to plan a perfect vacation.
Click here for an example of a newsletter.
Paid Content Distribution (paid media):
When you explicitly pay to get your content distributed, such as running Google Ads campaigns and social media ads (Facebook Ads) for your content.
Google Ads campaigns allow you to show your content to people who are searching for keywords that are relevant to that content.
Let's say that you’re running a hotel in Langkawi Island and running google ads for your hotel. Whenever a user searches for related keywords to your content such as “Hotel in Langkawi Island with swimming pool, Spa in Langkawi, hotels with hot tubs in Langkawi, etc” they will always get your hotel listed in the options Google will view.
Facebook Ads are the No 2 most popular Network after Google Ads when it comes to Ads and Advertising.
Despite Facebook’s increasing focus on native ads and keeping traffic on its site, you can still be successful in sending users to your website. Facebook ads are targeted to users based on their location, demographic, and profile information. This means that you can play with whom you want to see your ads and where using Facebook ads targeting options.
The key to succeeding in Facebook Ads is targeting the right audience and this can easily be made with the options Facebook ads provide:
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Location
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Age
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Gender
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Interests
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Languages
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Education
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Workplace
All options are useful. However, location, age, gender, and interests are the most useful options marketers should focus on.
Earned Content Distribution (earned media):
This involves the distribution of your content by third parties such as guest blog posts, social media shares, comments, mentions, retweets, reposts, and recommendations by others.
How to choose the right Distribution channel:
If you want your content to do well online, you’ve got to be strategic about what you publish and where you publish it. If you want your content to do well online, choosing the right channel is the first step to success. Before you start, ask yourself the following questions:
- What are the objectives of your campaign?
- Who is your audience, and whom will you be talking to?
- What channels are your target audience using?
- What channels are your competitors using?
- What kind of content do you want to create?
- How many channels will you be able to manage?
- Here is a list of some business goals and the possible distribution channels that could be used to help reach those goals:
Conclusion
You need to create content that aligns with your audience’s expectations on each distribution channel. Distributing your content wisely and promoting it the right way will lead your hotel to enjoy improved results from every piece of content you create and you will be able to restore trust in your hotel because your content will be more based on educating the audience than on selling it to them.
To ensure that you promote your content right, make sure to consider channels that fall into the Owned, Earned, and Paid categories.
