Content Marketing Outreach: The Key to Reaching a Wider Audience

Great content doesn’t always mean great readership. While you may strongly believe that the content you’re putting out is worthy of becoming viral, sometimes it just doesn’t happen that way. Content marketing outreach could help you to reach a broader audience so that your hard work pays off.

Content marketing outreach is similar to influencer marketing. You’re asking people whom others trust to share your content. The hope is that the recommendation from the influencer will be enough to catapult your content’s views to the stratosphere.

Growing a brand is tough. Simply creating high quality content and posts does not seem to make the cut anymore. Despite the fact that you’re promoting your content on social media, your email newsletter, and a variety of other channels, you’re still seeing low readership and views. The whole idea of content marketing outreach is actually pretty simple. You want to tap into the reputations of others to help reach a wider audience – ideally, an audience that is interested in what you have to say.

Benefits of Content Marketing Outreach.

Perhaps the biggest benefit of content marketing outreach is it convinces people to trust your brand. Nielsen’s Global Trust in Advertising study found people are more likely to trust recommendations from people they knew. If someone’s friend or colleague recommends a video or blog post to that person, it’s likely that person will check it out.

Content marketing outreach can also help your brand expand its audience. One example of content marketing outreach on a large scale is celebrity book clubs. Oprah Winfrey might have started the trend of propelling novels and books to the bestseller list by recommending them to her millions-strong audience.

Other celebrities, such as Reese Witherspoon, have also jumped on the book club bandwagon. These celebrities launch their own “clubs” by recommending books to readers. EW reported that Witherspoon’s online book club had nearly 400,000 members.

Forms Content Marketing Outreach Can Take.

The person or influencer you ask to share your content doesn’t have to be a big star.

Content marketing outreach can take a variety of forms. It could be anything from having influencers share a link with their followers, to having satisfied customers talk you up to their friends.

Here are some of the forms that content marketing outreach can take:

Posts or recommendations from influencers

One way to expand the reach of your content is to find an influencer who is happy to share it with their followers or to collaborate with your brand. The influencer can do this in a variety of ways. They could share your content on social media through a newsletter or partner with your company and give your products his/her stamp of approval. An example can be seen in the app Cladwell. The app helps women plan their wardrobes and clear clutter from their closets. Cladwell partnered with Caroline Rector, of the blog Un-Fancy. Rector shot to fame and influence a few years ago for promoting a “capsule wardrobe”. Her stamp of approval on Cladwell helped to convince her followers to give it a try.

Shares from happy customers

A great strategy to use with content marketing outreach is to ask people who like what they’ve read or seen to share it with their friends. After sending out an email newsletter, ask people to forward it to their friends if they liked what they read. According to MarketingLand, email newsletters sent to a niche audience and email marketing with a personalized, custom message is the most likely to be shared.

Links from bloggers

Another way to expand the reach of your content is to have bloggers in a similar niche share a link to it on their own sites. It’s fairly common practice for blogs to “piggyback” on each other; writing about stories covered by other publications. For example, Architectural Digest took a tour of the Manhattan loft of influencer/fashion blogger Leandra Medine. Apartment Therapy shared a link to the article on its blog and provided a summary of the story for its own readers. While it’s not clear whether Architectural Digest asked Apartment Therapy to share, the post helped direct Apartment Therapy’s readers to the publication’s site.

Create content about your customers/employees

One more way to use content marketing outreach is to create content about your happy customers or to share stories of your employees. For example, Codecademy shares stories of successful graduates on a testimonial page. When an average person is profiled on a website or in a piece of content, they are likely to share it with everyone they know. Directing people who wouldn’t ordinarily see it to your content.

Who Can Benefit From Content Marketing Outreach?

Although brands of all shapes and sizes can benefit from outreach, it’s usually the smaller or newer companies that stand to gain the most. When you’re just starting out, you typically don’t have the clout or name recognition of a company like Pepsi or Toyota.

You need to work from the ground up to establish trust with your audience. If you can show a well-respected influencer has an interest in your content or a blogger thinks what you’re producing is interesting, then you’re on your way to establishing a customer base.

How to Incorporate Outreach Into Your Content Marketing Strategy.

Typically, content marketing outreach falls under the content promotion section of your content marketing strategy. But, the Content Marketing Institute argues it’s something that can be worth considering through each phase of your strategy.

When you’re laying out your goals for content marketing, it can help to think about two things. First, is who you’ll reach out to to share your content. Second, is why reaching out to those people will help you reach your goals. When you’re planning your content, having an idea of the influencers you’ll connect with can help you create content that they find interesting and valuable.

Once the content is out there, tracking your outreach efforts is a great idea. This will give you an idea of what’s effective and worth trying again, and what didn’t work as well.

How to Promote Your Content With Content Marketing Outreach.

Now that you understand the basics and benefits of content marketing outreach, it’s time to give it a try. Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you:

Find your influencers

Choose people based on their reach, engagement levels and areas of expertise or interest. The content you’re trying to promote should be a natural fit for the influencer.

Set your budget

In some cases, outreach is free. But if you are working with influencers, then they might want to receive some compensation for their efforts.

Track the results

Not all types of outreach will be a success, unfortunately. Pay attention to how much traffic an influencer or blogger produces and the quality of that traffic. Knowing what works and what doesn’t will help you plan for future outreach efforts.