3. Amplifying Content with Distribution and Storytelling
- Sairam Krishnan Head of Marketing, Atomicwork
There are three primary ways to get distribution. Many people write a few blogs and wonder why they see no results.
It’s because we forget that we also have to distribute the content we create.
There are three ways to get distribution: one is to build it, the second is to borrow it, and the third is to buy it.
I started my newsletter four years ago. After four years of consistent writing, I now have 5,000 marketers and founders reading my newsletter weekly.
I built my audience by writing consistently over five years. That's how you build an audience for yourself. But as you can tell, it's a long-term game.
In the meantime, you can borrow it. Go to a webinar with somebody who’s already accomplished and will talk about whatever you’re talking about. Interview them or have them interview you and borrow their audience.
This works great on social media as well.
Get guests who have never been in front of the spotlight. There are always people who are constantly being interviewed everywhere. Try to go beyond that list.
Find people who say have a book coming out, or run a niche WhatsApp group, or are micro-influencers with thousands of followers. Get those guests. They love the spotlight.
Once you've got them on your podcast or newsletter, you will start to have a pipeline. Those guests will put it up and share it on their LinkedIn. Their friend will ask them for an introduction, and you'll get the introduction.
Third, you buy your audience, which is paid. You know this. Put together a webinar, distribute it yourself, spend money on it, and you’ll get that audience. These are the three core methods of distributing your inbound content.
One more thing that works great now is Founder-led marketing. This is also why founders need to master storytelling — both for the external audience and for their own teams.
Founders need to communicate constantly, especially in a startup. The founder is like the captain of a cricket team, involved in every critical decision, not like the captain of a football team. The founder is the face, the founder is the story, the founder is everything.
A founder needs to keep communicating because even your small team of five looks up to them for direction even if they don’t say so. They want to see you tell the story, and as you keep telling it, you will also refine it.
If something doesn’t work, it’s okay. Who cares? Five years later, nobody will remember one small error when you’re successful. Don’t worry about it. Just do it.
Tell your story, try building your own audience, and borrow audiences from others. The returns are so exponential that it doesn't matter. The best way is to look at a founder that you like who's doing social media and just copy them or get in touch to learn how they do it.
You’re all founders. You can get in touch with another founder far more quickly than your Head of Marketing can because anytime they text another founder, their message will likely be read as either a sales pitch or a job application.