How To Promote Content: A Comprehensive Guide for Digital Marketers

You have valuable insights and engaging ideas to share with your audience. Content marketing is the ideal way to do that while driving brand awareness, increasing traffic to your website, and generating leads. But it’s not enough to simply create content — you also have to promote it.

Content promotion is a way to attract larger audiences and achieve better results from your efforts. Use this guide to learn how to promote content as part of your marketing strategy. 

Understanding content channels

Many people now associate “content” with social media, but that’s just one of many different channels where you can share content with your audience. Consider these key content channels. 

Social media platforms

Top social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok have billions of users. Sharing engaging content on these platforms gives you the opportunity to draw in those users and start building an online community for your brand. 

Social media content can take many forms, including:

• Short-form videos 
• Long-form videos
• Static photos and images
• Infographics
• Live streams
• Polls

You have lots of flexibility and room to experiment on social media until you find the content that appeals most to your target audience. Just remember that you have to follow the rules and regulations set by social media platforms, which can change with little to no notice. You have less control over social media than other channels for sharing content and connecting with your audience. 

Email marketing

Email marketing is when you send promotional content to your list of email subscribers. These subscribers have to agree to receive your emails, so you know they’re already at least somewhat interested in the content you are sharing. 

Though emails are usually mostly text, you can also incorporate images, graphics, and even videos to make them more visually engaging. 

Blogs and websites

Your website or brand blog is another great owned channel for sharing content. Build a library of valuable content that educates and engages your target audience so they keep returning to your site. Like emails, blogs are generally text-heavy, but you can also include visual elements to break them up. 

Professional networks

There may also be industry-specific platforms and professional networks where you can share content related to your brand. Just make sure your target audience also visits these platforms, otherwise your content won’t have much of an impact on your marketing goals. 

Social media promotion strategies

More and more businesses are using social media to share content, so you need to make your brand stand out on these platforms. Try these strategies: 

Platform-specific content optimization

Each social media platform is different. Make sure your content is tailored to platform guidelines and user preferences everywhere you post. For example, TikTok is generally a more youthful, casual platform than LinkedIn, so you might use more relaxed language in your posts there. Learn what works best on each platform and adapt your posts accordingly. 

Timing and frequency of posts

When and how often you publish your social media posts can significantly affect how successful they are. Try to publish during times when your target audience is most likely to be online and keep up a regular posting schedule. Consistently posting on social media at least once or twice per week shows users that you’re actively engaged on these platforms, helping you retain and grow your audience. 

Creating shareable content

When you create great content, people want to share it. The more engaging your content is, the more users will share it, and the more your audience will grow. Try including striking visuals, valuable tips and tricks, and humor to make your posts more shareable. 

Hashtag strategies

Hashtags help you reach new users on social media by grouping your posts with other related content. Add a few specific, relevant hashtags to each of your posts to expand your reach. For example, a sportswear brand might tag one of their posts #exercise or #fitnessmotivation to get the content in front of people searching for those topics. Social media marketing tools can help you research the best hashtags for your posts. 

Engaging with audience comments

Social media content can be interactive. Your audience will likely comment on some of your posts, and you can and should respond to them. By engaging with comments, you’ll deepen your relationship with these users.

Search engine optimization (SEO)

A common problem brands encounter when sharing content on their websites is that few people actually see it. Optimizing this content for search engines can be the solution. That way, people searching related topics are more likely to see your website in the results and view your content. 

Keyword research

A big part of SEO is including keywords in your content. These keywords are words or phrases related to your content that people are searching for. For example, an insurance company writing content that explains what life insurance is might use keywords like “types of life insurance,” “life insurance quotes,” and “find life insurance.” Use a keyword research tool like Ahrefs to find the best keywords for your content. 

On-page optimization techniques

On-page SEO is about optimizing your blog posts and other website content to perform as well as possible in the search engine results. Try these techniques.

• Including links to other pages on your website in your content
• Linking to high-authority external sources
• Adding meta descriptions to your content that include a target keyword
• Improving your page speed
• Adding alt text to images  

Link-building strategies

Search engines like Google tend to rank websites higher in their results pages when other sources link back to them. Generally, the more websites link to your site, the higher your content will rank. Build links by creating high-quality content people want to share and building relationships with related websites that can link back to yours. 

Metadata and description optimization

The metadata on your website pages helps search engines understand their purpose. Include meta descriptions that summarize each page’s content, meta title tags, and alt text for any images on the pages. Add keywords in each piece of this metadata to help your content rank higher. 

Email marketing techniques

If you choose to promote your content with email marketing, you’ll need to adapt your approach from other channels. Leverage email marketing with these strategies. 

Building email lists

The first step in email marketing is always building your subscriber list. Make sure you have sign-up forms available in high-traffic areas of your website, such as your homepage and blog posts. Also, consider offering incentives like free ebooks or access to webinars to entice people to sign up. 

Aim to make signing up as easy as possible by limiting the number of boxes on your registration forms – only ask for what you need.

Designing compelling newsletters

Email newsletters are a very popular form of email content marketing because they help keep your subscribers engaged and build deeper customer relationships. Make your newsletters stand out by using a striking design and compelling headlines. 

Don’t worry if you don’t have an eye for design. With Constant Contact’s hundreds of email templates, you can simply fill in your details for a beautiful newsletter that’s ready to go. Sign up for free to browse all the templates and start creating your next newsletter. 

Segmentation strategies

One of the best things about email marketing is that you can segment your list into groups of subscribers with shared traits to send more targeted content. Consider segmenting by factors like:

• Purchase history
• Demographic information like age and gender
• Location
• Level of engagement with previous emails
• Interests and values
• Stage of the customer journey

Personalization approaches

Customers today expect brands to offer personalized experiences, even in their emails. Consider personalizing your messages by including the recipient’s name in the subject line or greeting. You can also reference products that the customer has added to their cart or viewed for even deeper personalization. 

A/B testing

It’s tricky to know what customers will respond to best in your email design and copy. Luckily, you can A/B test your content for greater success. A/B testing is when you send two similar but slightly different versions of your email to sample groups to see which performs better. Use A/B testing to compare email elements like subject lines, body copy, design choices, and CTAs. 

Paid promotion methods

You can also pay to promote your content to reach a wider audience faster than with organic marketing. Consider paid promotion methods like:

Social media advertising

Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok allow you to pay to get your posts in front of their users. You can specify the types of users you’re targeting based on factors like location, demographics, and interests on social media. 

Google Ads

Another paid method for promoting your content is through Google Ads. With Google Ads, you can choose from a variety of options including:

• Search ads that appear on Google’s search results pages
• Email ads in Gmail
• Display ads that appear on websites in the Google Display Network
• Video ads on YouTube videos
• Ads in Google Play

Google Ads also includes targeting features to make sure your ads appear in front of users who are most likely to engage with them. 

Sponsored content

You can also sponsor content on other sites like industry blogs. For example, Forbes allows business leaders to pay to share blog articles on their site. 

Retargeting strategies

Paid digital ads are especially useful for retargeting customers who showed an interest in your brand but didn’t actually complete a purchase. With Google Ads, for instance, you can show personalized ads to customers who visited specific product pages on your site. These personalized, retargeted ads help drive conversions. 

Budget optimization

The cost of paid advertising strategies like these can add up quickly, so make sure to set a strict budget. Once you learn what channels and strategies work best for your brand, you can optimize your budget by spending more on those approaches.  

Measuring content performance

After you click “publish” on your content, there’s still some work to do. Now, it’s time to track and analyze your content performance. Learn from how well each piece of content performs and adjust accordingly in your next piece. 

Keep an eye on key performance indicators like:

• Engagement: The percentage of people who like, share, or comment on your content
• Time on page: How long users spend on the content’s page on your website, on average
• Click-through rate: The percentage of people who click on a link in the content
• Conversion rate: The percentage of people who complete a conversion from reading or viewing the content
• Backlinks: The number of websites linking back to your content

Social media platforms may track some of these metrics for you. For more thorough tracking and analysis, you’ll need third-party tools for each content channel you use. Constant Contact, for example, can help you track KPIs for your email marketing campaigns. 

If your analysis shows certain pieces of content don’t perform as well as others, use that information to improve your content going forward. There’s always room for improvement in your content strategy.

Content repurposing

When you create a great, engaging piece of content, you don’t want to just use it once. Repurpose that content across other channels to get the most out of it. 

For example, if you have an interesting blog post, consider turning it into a video or infographic for social media and sending an email on the same topic that links back to that blog. That way, you maximize the content and appeal to customers no matter what channel or format they prefer. Cross-promote your content across channels. 

You can also republish or update content to bring it back to your audience’s attention. On social media and your website, reshare a post with the click of a button. Without any additional effort, you’re extending the life and usefulness of that content. 

Turning strategies into results

Content marketing is a versatile tool that any brand can leverage successfully with the right strategy. Focus on creating valuable content that appeals to your target audience across channels like email, social media, and your website. It can take a little while to see results from your content marketing strategy, so stay consistent. Keep publishing compelling content. And if you get stuck, rely on resources like Building a Content Marketing Strategy and the Be a Marketer Podcast. Optimize your efforts even further with marketing tools like Constant Contact.

Next, watch our webinar on how to craft the right content mix!