By Christina Logsdon and Kate Campbell

To ensure the right people — and as many of them as possible — hear your company’s message, you need a content distribution strategy.

First-time founders can often be skeptical about the benefits marketing serves. Some early-stage startups may not understand the how of marketing or why telling their unique story works in the first place.

But a product doesn’t sell itself — even when it’s the best product available. No one knows unless you find a way to tell them.

Content distribution is how you can shout your message from the rooftops and create repeatability to ensure that your audience hears and sees it multiple times.

Many startups have a great story. Often, they just need a friendly nudge to tell it.

How to Start with Content Creation: Messaging

Creating and distributing content doesn’t have to be hard or take up a majority of your time or resources.

You need to know who you are before you can tell the world. And startups often don’t know exactly who they are. You need to put in the time upfront and obsess over what you are and what you want to be. Also, decide what your startup is not, because when you try to be everything, you end up being known for nothing.

Your why is the foundation of your message, so start with your messaging hierarchy, the narrative that connects with an audience and drives value. It’s not just about producing content. It’s about ensuring that all that content weaves a narrative throughout the company.

You need to develop a hierarchy that’ll define exactly what your company wants to say, including:

• Who you are:
• What you do:
• How do you do it:
• Who do you do it for:
• How to contact you:
• Key differentiators:

Only when you know your market like the back of your hand can you truly define your vision, strategy and execution plans, and differentiators. This is what becomes your unique point of view.

There are thousands of AI startups, but what is unique about yours and how you disrupt the market? What’s working or not? What needs to be improved? That’s where you start to cut through the noise and find what you want to say.

Reuse, Recycle, Repurpose and Repeat

Once you have your messaging and point of view, it’s all about getting it out there with a disciplined and focused content distribution strategy. From here, even with limited resources, you can do effective, consistent marketing.

Think of the 80/20 rule: You should only spend 20% of your time creating content and 80% distributing it.

Develop a strong content strategy that breaks up the key messages in your messaging hierarchy into multiple, diverse forms of content, such as blog posts, social media posts, videos, infographics and more. Look for creative ways to tell your story from different angles. There are endless opportunities, channels and sources from which to pull.