040. Content Creation vs. Content Distribution

Foreign hello everyone, how are you? This is Emilio Garcia, your host at the Mangen Studio. I'm really happy to have again the opportunity to have a conversation with you. And as I hope becomes more and more common, Gabby is joining us today. How are you, Gavi? Very good, very good. So today we are going to have very interesting conversation. Content creation versus content distribution. Fantastic topic. I think there's many, many things here to say and I think this is really important because I feel that most of the time we struggle to strike a good balance between what we produce and making sure that the right people consume it. Right. So I think that's something relevant. I don't know. Gavi, if you have a comment on that. Yes, that's right. And, and I think we shall start right. The, the first conversation will be about why content creation overall matters. And this is a conversation, if you remember that we have constantly with prospects and clients that demand generation programs in general are making an assumption. And the assumption is that there's a couple of pillars on the, on the program. And those pillars are the content creation portion and the distribution. And so it's very easy for demand generation programs to focus on the distribution channels and forget about the content itself. So for example, when people think about typical channels that demand generation cater to, like pay search and pay social and even things or activities that are like conversion website optimization, obviously on your digital assets, you are making the assumption that you already have some content, right? And so it is, it is important to mention that because if you have a great distribution channel strategy, but you really have the content to support it, there there's a very liminal, limited things that you can say beyond buy from me, right? So that's why content is important. The other thing that I think is very important to settle is that this is not really new, right? We sometimes we get confused that we think that content has to be created on a reading format only or digitally. But that's not the case. Truly, companies have been doing content marketing even when they haven't called it that way for, you know, decades already. I think I was using the example. It's pretty popular or known that Michelin, the tire company had these book so people can wander around and you know, like find restaurants or places to, to enjoy even when they're worth a tire or they are a tire company. So you will think that it has nothing to do. But the reason is that you want to create obviously content that describe the company, what you do, who do you target or who do you work with, but also you Want to address the issues and problems that someone might be experiencing before they think about your solution. Right. And that's the core of it. You create content because there is people that is beyond the fact that they might be looking for your solution. And if you don't create that content beforehand, then your distribution is going to be very limited, Right? Yes. Yeah. Now you are touching something that is really important. Right. Before diving into distribution, let's talk about what makes content attractive and high quality. And one of the important things is that you want both, but they are not the same. You can make very attractive content that is not necessarily high quality and vice versa. Right? So that's something that is important to distinguish. Most markers, and especially people that are working with markers, sometimes focus a lot on the attractiveness of the content. Right. That is brings attention especially for new channels, new formats. It's easy to think that what you have to do is just to make it attractive enough that people interact or engage with them and then your job, your job is done. And that's not true. You, at the end of the day, you need to address, as you were saying, the pain points, the things that that person is really looking to solve. And obviously if you can do that in an attractive way, then even better. But truly content, high quality content works on a reading format, audio format, video. It can be a choreography, a long version of it, as long as you are addressing the problems that your potential buyers are having. Right? So part of what makes it, what makes content high quality is that ideally comes from people that experience the same pain points that your potential buyer is experiencing. So there are some situations where marketers struggle to say, well, I don't know the problems of my potential buyers that well of is I'm not the target market. And that's when you want to bring in your subject matter experts within the company, right. If, if you are selling an accounting product or a financial product and you're a marketer and you have not good grasp of financial problems that for example, a CFO might be solving right now, then someone within the company, ideally, right. Will have that knowledge. Maybe the technical people that help to work with those CFO CFOs and those are the ones that ideally should be creating that content. Now that represents a challenge because subject matter experts or SMEs, sometimes they don't have the time or they are, they don't have the interest or even they don't are not willing to participate on some of the formats that you can create the content for. Right? Maybe they are, they don't want to show up on videos. Maybe they don't want to be part even of a podcast and so. Or they struggle to write or they don't have the time. So one of the recommendations here to really create high quality content is to extract, or I don't know if the word extract is the best one, but to elicit that content from the SME in the format or the way that they feel more comfortable and then transform it into something that you can create, make more attractive and appropriate to the distribution channel that you're going to use. For example, you might say, well, my SME is not comfortable on an interview or something like that. Well, put it on the stage. Maybe they feel comfortable doing webinars, maybe they feel comfortable just having one on one conversations or even small lunches or groups. If you record those interactions with them, talking to customers and talking to prospects, they won't even notice. And then you can transform that into something more appropriate. And if the, you know, the video setting is not that great, you can just use the audio. And if the audio is not that great, then you can just extract the information and create content pieces in the form of text or images and you go from there, right? So I think in this particular section really, really important to remember that, yes, you want to create attractive content, yes, you want to use the latest formats, but don't forget that at the end of the day, quality will trump over attractiveness because if not, someone will click on that ad, someone will engage because they will be drawn to it because it's different, but they will not take anything from it and they will forget about the brand, if that makes sense. Yes, it. Yes, yes. Yeah, you touched on something important which is really have conversations with your prospects, buyers to understand the three stage, those three stages that everybody knows about, which are awareness, consideration and decision. Right? What's happening, what's going on through their minds at each of those stages. And one, another important thing probably is that if you, if you start thinking about creating content, probably you will struggle with how can I do it better, right? And the, the, the recommendation number one that I have is obviously just start, right? You want to have for sure, but don't dabble a lot into the plan without execution. Execution is crucial and the best way to improve your skills is through repeating the task as consistently as possible. So here probably the best way to say, well, the way to improve your content creation skills is that you pick a format that you feel is the one that is in line with your audience as much as possible. And that your subject matter experts or yourself feel comfortable also managing and test it for a little while consistently. Right. Usually the idea is that you have what is called a long form content type that then you can use for future distribution. That can be, for example, a piece of reading content long enough to eventually make shorter pieces like a blog post, which is very traditional now in the digital world. Right. It looks like it's been ages before someone has been, you know, recommending creating a blog. It still works for some niches, but. But it's obviously a very crowded and saturated weight. You can also work out on audio through a podcast that you do consistently, ideally something that you weekly or bi weekly. If not, we'll start monthly and then step up. And obviously video is the kind of newest and also the one that is getting the most traction. But again, it's really important that you understand if you're audiences truly consuming the content that you create in that type of format because you will find that different audiences will consume different types of content on different types of formats. Right. Like I was, I was telling you, Gabby, that I usually, you know, create video content because that's something that's easier for me to create. But I myself usually read a lot more than I watch videos. Shorts are changing that. Reels in general changing that. I'm more and more consuming video nowadays. But it has taken a while and it's still not a format that I consume a lot of different types of content. So really be mindful of that portion. But once you have that long format, then you can start improving upon it. Right. Get some feedback and based on that cadence, then you decide if you want to continue with that and increase frequency or you launch a different effort to support it and have another format that you can extract content from or pause it all together and focus on something, something else. Right. If that makes sense. Yeah. Paying attention to trends for sure. Right. That's where you have the greenest pastures because you will have the lowest volume. Right. Older topics has been discussed by a lot of people and newer ones, then probably there's less people and there's more eagerness to listen to someone if that's relevant to your audience. Right. That's the one thing I remember back in the day that, you know, a lot of companies, for example, on the blogging days will talk about technology in general, like you know, the newest iPhone or smartphone, even if they had nothing to do with technology. And sometimes that happens to. Nowadays. Right. Someone will, will sprinkle some crypto will. Nowadays everybody's sprinkling some AI into their conversations just because, you know, it's, it's very, it's very, a very, you know, important topic right now happening. So it, it is true, that helps. But again, don't, don't forgo quality because just to want to make something that is catchy or attractive, for sure. Now I think now we can safely move into why content distribution matters. And again, the best thing that I can say here is that we don't want to focus too heavily on content creation and forget that at the end of the day, people need to have a easily or available or reliable way of consuming it, right? This is where distribution gets into the way. Time and time again I have seen that companies mostly create a lot of great content, but they fail at delivering or distributing in the appropriate channels. Here you have two, obviously two big places where you can do this, or there's a third one that is a little bit out of control. But the first one is you distribute on the platforms that you have organically, right? And for example here is you put it on your website in different formats. You put on social media. Once you put it on your website, it will index on search engines, right? And so that's something important, right? SEO as we know it is truly a distribution channel. It's just that we are catering to a search engine that will make some choices that are out of control. But at the end of the day, when we take that content and instead of creating a PDF and sending it by email, we post it on our website, we are truly catering to the SEO distribution channel for that content to be found. Obviously, we can also be more proactive than just waiting passively for that content to be indexed. And we go to social media and we share on the digital assets that we own on multiple platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Instagram. And here's where you have to make those choices. And that's why it matters, because it will depend on the people that follow your pages or you personally if you're doing that. But the other, the other place where you can start distribution is obviously paid channels, right? Like paid social, paid search. The biggest difference is that obviously you pay to the medium on top of the effort of someone actually, you know, formatting the content for the right distribution channel. But the benefit usually is that you can truly select the target, right, for whatever format the, you know, the medium has. So if it's search engines, then you can select keywords. If it's space social, then you can select, you know, demographics, firmographics, behavior, whatever makes sense. For you. So the trade off between organic and paid, or owned and paid, is that in one you have it free, but you depend on the algorithm to make the choices for you. And the reach will be limited to the number of people that is searching that piece of content in your locations or the number of people that is following your pages. And on pay, you have to pay, you are renting that audience, but you can control the reach. And they usually scale linearly versus organic, where you scale exponentially. But it takes a long time. A third possibility that is least in your control and is more traditional for distribution channels of the past is like the kind of PR or earn, right? Once people find that content, if that's the part where the attractiveness will make them look, but the quality will make them say, this is fantastic, let me share it. And you get that extra exposure from the community, from other networks, from other individuals, that will give you extra reach. And also it has great impact because someone else is saying, this is a content worth consuming, right? So that earned piece of your media, which is the hardest, that. And it goes into the creation process itself, that's another source. So really pay attention to the channels that you want to use. And here the usual question that we get is, well, what are the channels that I need to use? Right? And it's very similar to the content creation process. Start with one based on knowledge that you have about your customer base, right? This is the part where you go, well, where do you get the news forum or this topic, right? Do you read, do you listen, do you watch? Do you do it digitally or in more traditional mediums? And if you do so, what are the platforms and networks and the formats that you enjoy the most? And you will have multiple choices, but you will discover there are some parts of big segments of your audience that prefer some networks rather than others. And so that's the way that you make that choice. And rarely you have one network, right? Probably will be multiple platforms. So again, prioritizing and doing some segmentation here. Start with the most popular or the ones that will be more relevant and test it, right? And really commit for a little while. We're talking about weeks, ideally months, and only after you have tested this for months and you are, you know, like following some leading indicators or metrics to know if people is engaging with that content, then you make a choice and say, well, if I'm doing paid, then I want to scale the paid channel. And if I'm doing organic and I have people posting on a certain frequency and they're really engaging. Then I scale, scale the posting and scale, you know, participating in multiple groups and similar things. So if that's the case, you double down on the things that are working and if they are not working, then you can explore an additional one, pause or postpone that one and keep trying until you find your format that will be, you know, like the distribution channel that really works for you. Yeah. Yes, it. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I want to, I want us to finish with the concept of you're talking about. You see those companies that are doing very well, those individuals that are doing very well have a great exposure. You know, they post something and everybody reposts it. And as you said, it just work behind it. And there's also focus. Right. So it is true that there are companies, large companies that have large teams where, you know, they, and they have large budgets where they are maintaining at the same time multiple content creation channels or strategies and multiple distribution channels with success. Right. It's not that common, but it happens and obviously happens if you have the budget, especially if you have been doing this for a long time. Most of the time, however, what you will see is that there has been a series of content efforts that compound one after another. Right. So maybe a company invested heavily in blogging at the beginning and then mature the channel and then launches a new effort on podcasting, matures the channel and then launch a new effort on video. And you just get into the website or you get to see the company and you, you look at everything that is. Has been built already and think that they work on all of them at the same time, when in reality they started one initiative and then mature it and then launch the next one. And the same happens with the distribution channels. You will see impact across multiple platforms and multiple social media channels, both paid and organic. And you will wonder, well, how will I be able to set up that with, you know, a small team or just me doing the job or working maybe with an agency when I don't have the, you know, the budget. And it's just, you don't, you. You shouldn't start trying to create content in multiple formats at the same time and also trying to distribute in multiple places. But you need to balance though, anyway, that, that, you know, efforts between content creation and distribution and that will be, you know, I kind of like gave it up across the conversation. But the way that you balance those efforts is that pick at least one content source long format and it doesn't have to be always video, but it ideally caters to your audience that's the one key thing, right? So it can be blogging, it can be podcasting, it can be video, it can mean a combination of what you use on those. But stick to it, right? It can be webinars, it can be something in the real world like vents or lunches or, you know, seminars or something like that. And on the distribution channels it's the same. Pick an organic or a pay one, depending on the budget that you have, but start at least one, right? So you have that right balance and then test out and as you scale one or the other, then you can start adding more things. But the other thing that I can tell for sure is that if I had at least one content channel and one distribution channel and I'm having success on both, and I want to increase the impact, I rather focus on a second distribution channel rather than a second source of content. Right. Because again, it's not that you have to do 50, 50. I would rather have a piece of content that is distributed on multiple platforms two, three, four times. Right. And I bring consistency on the marketplace across channels that speeding up the content creation and leaving the distribution the same or just at the same level. So yes, at the beginning you want to have one of each of them, but once you have success, I rather improve distribution and add more distribution channels than just creating additional sources of content. Right. If that makes sense. Yes. Yes. Yeah, go ahead. Yes, definitely. You want to lead with the metrics, right? And we usually say you have those outcomes as goals, right? The revenue goes, number of opportunities, created, deals or leads that you want to create. But in while while you do that, it will take time for the strategy to pan out into opportunities. You want those leading indicators that will change depending on the content format and the distribution channel. Right. If you're social media, then you are more about followers and engagement and shares and comments. And if you are more about search engines, then will be more about, you know, positions and impressions and clicks and all that. And obviously the website, then time on the on the website, time on page, number of sessions. So any metric that can give you an idea of is people consuming the content. That's what you want to get a good gauge on. And if they are consuming it, is there any piece that is particularly interesting so you can do more of those and less of the ones that are not that interest? Now you always want to keep exploring, right? Because you never know what is the next piece that will have, if not a viral effect, at least something that is truly impactful. So you don't want to focus Just doing the things that always work because then you lose the opportunity of discovering something that works even better. Better. But, but obviously you want to balance trying out stuff versus the things that, you know, prospects are really willing to listen because it's a constant pain point. We were having this. We are. We also take the HOPSA user group for Greenville for, for the city and I was amazed that our last topic, right. Had a lot of engagement because it's a very common topic is lead management is pretty popular and it's like a lot of people have talked about it, about it. So sometimes I'm like, well, sales alignment and marketing. This is a topic that you know, is discussed pretty, pretty heavily. Lead management, contact management, account management is very heavily discussed but it is still very relevant because there's always new marketers or markers that are confronted with that situation for the first time that will want to know about it. So you want to strike a good balance between the two. Between the things that, you know, work and the things that might be, you know, like again AI advanced topics on a platform or problems that are very specific to an industry. You might discover a niche that is worth exploring. So I think that for that, Gabby, we have covered all. I just want to say, right. Don't miss the next one. Right. So if you are, you know, interested on continuing to learn more about Demand Generation Demand Gen Studio, that's our series of live events. There are, you know, episodes that we have record over the last two years. We will continue to record more on a bi weekly basis. And yeah, if you have a topic, just reach out through email or website or just on the social media platforms where we show up for this event and Gabby or me will be happy to include that as a topic. Yeah. Yes, I agree with that. Well, it's been a pleasure, Gabby. Thank you. And until the next episode, you too. Bye bye.