As marketers, we know a lot of time and effort goes into creating content, so when we hear that 65% of B2B content goes unused, it can be a bit of a kick to the gut. More content doesn’t equal better engagement. Instead, focus on making sure the content you create is getting used and, more importantly, being seen by your prospects. 

You likely found this article because you're having trouble getting your content noticed. Well, just like you, your customers are looking for answers to their problems. Don't worry, you're in the right place—we'll share secrets about how we got you here!

While creating ad hoc pieces to generate traffic might get you a lot of views, there’s no guarantee you’ll reach the prospects who will convert. When we surveyed 250 B2B buyers about their experiences, they said that content personalized to their problems and content they might be interested in create a great experience. Knowing your audience allows you to create relevant and captivating content. But once you’ve created this perfect material, how can you ensure your buyers are finding it?

Once you’ve curated the ultimate, binge-worthy content journey for your customers, implement these seven distribution tactics to increase your content's reach:

1. Optimize content for organic search

When writing your top- and middle-of-funnel content, your goal is to cast a wide net to get on your prospects’ radar and identify those interested. A strong organic SEO strategy can help you be a part of the right conversations as prospects search for answers to their problems. So, how do you implement this strong organic SEO strategy? Ensure you’ve created a relevant keyword list, then mindfully include those keywords in your page titles and URLs. Adding alt image tags, implementing an SEO title, and writing a compelling meta description as a preview for your content can all help to fully capitalize on organic search. Ticking these items off the list will help you to optimize your content and rise through search engine ranks.

2. Power your social media strategy

Sharing your high-value content on social media is a great way to drive top-of-funnel traffic to your content hub or website. But there should be more to your distribution plan than just posting a link on your social channels. Move beyond the spray-and-pray approach and lean into providing value for your audience on social media.

Let’s say you have a brand new Sales Engagement Report that you want to share with your audience. Your LinkedIn audience may be most interested in the key insights and prove willing to click through to the full report whereas your Instagram audience might be more interested in bite-sized statistics that they can consume on the go. In fact, you might decide Instagram isn't the right fit at all as your audience might not be looking to click through and read any sort of report. When you're planning your B2B content distribution plan, think about how your content might resonate differently on each platform.  

3. Nurture prospects in email

Your email subscribers are a base of contacts who have expressed interest in keeping up with you. They want to know more about your brand and see you as a credible voice for information on the topics they’re interested in, so handle them with care! Use your high-value content to nurture and engage your contacts—this is where the strategy comes into play—without inundating their inbox. 

You might be reading this with a frown, given the cluttered nature of the average email inbox. But email is a vital part of the prospect nurture journey. When you distribute the right content to a well-targeted audience, you create an exclusive touchpoint that feels personal to your subscribers. You’ll boost your open rates and engagement with your content!

4. Empower your sales teams

Marketing and sales alignment only improves your buyer experience. A well-oiled smarketing machine encourages insight and knowledge sharing, achieving a smoother and more successful customer hand-off from marketing to sales. Marketing can also leverage sales insights to create higher-value content to arm their sales team.

Your sales teams have built relationships with prospects and buyers, they know what content will engage them best. So it only makes sense to leverage your sales team when you're trying to distribute your content—especially as it could be content you worked with sales to create. 

When you create a new piece of content you know your sales team will love, ensure they can easily find it. Tools such as Sales Assist make this quick and easy. Your sales team can search via tags to find and pull content into an email or create a stream. No matter where they engage with prospects, they can share content from within the applications they use every day, such as Salesloft, Outreach, Gmail, and more. Your sales team is vital to getting your content in front of your target audience.

5. Build awareness through a link exchange 

Link exchanges not only help drive traffic to your hub but are also beneficial to your SEO. Having links on sites outside your own tells search engines that your content is trustworthy and helps to give more credibility to your content.

There are a couple of ways to do this:

• Implement it as part of your PR strategy and submit content to external publications or blogs outside your own channels with links back to your hub and content. 
• Enter into link swap agreements with business friends. This would involve you providing an article for them to host on their website in exchange for you hosting one of theirs on your hub or website—both would contain links back to their own assets. Link swapping with a business with a high page ranking can also help improve your SEO ranking.

6. Tap into brand ambassadors’ networks

Getting your customers and subscribers to advocate for you is a great way to increase your reach and be introduced to other networks by someone with clout and credibility. Brand ambassadors are people who have experience with your brand or product and are happy to share their positive experiences or support your brand with their network. A well-defined customer marketing strategy may include fostering brand ambassadors. No matter how large or small their following, or the frequency of their activity, leveraging their audience adds up to a bigger audience for your content.

To regularly engage your advocate community, you can also explore offering rewards or other incentives.

7. Leverage high-value content in digital ads

A great way to target audiences based on specific characteristics is through paid distribution on social media, search, and display ad placements. But as you're investing more than time here, you should have a clear strategy in place.

Use your premium gated assets and events to drive lead generation. Use your top-of-funnel content to drive traffic to your hub and increase discoverability. Just make sure you choose assets that complement your campaign objectives at the appropriate stage in the buyer journey. Try investing in your premium content (ebooks, webinars, white papers, etc.), so you can strategically gate it for a higher lead generation rate. And ensure the content on the other side of the gate is worthwhile! 

Content amplification isn’t about volume

There are endless opportunities to distribute your content, and while you want as many prospects and buyers as possible to see it, don’t fall into the volume trap. An audience that's a million strong is no good if it's not your target audience. Your goal should be to create content with purpose and define your distribution strategy before you start creating it. Answering simple questions like "who's it for?" and "why do they need it?" will help you create a better content experience. 

It’s important to leverage these distribution tactics to create a compelling journey. Distribution is one part, but the focus should be holistic, centered on distributing to the right people at the right time, with the right level of personalization. When we surveyed 250 marketers we found that they prioritize creating social media, email, and video content, in that order. Conversely, social media didn’t even make it into the top three for the 250 B2B buyers we surveyed. If marketers are not meeting the buyer where they are, with the content they want to consume, they might completely miss out. 

No matter how your prospects find you, make sure there will always be somewhere else for them to go next. Not sure how to perfect that next step? Don’t worry—we’ve got you covered with our CTA best practices.