Finding the right balance between content creation and distribution spends

The right content distribution strategy ensures that the brand’s hard work pays off. While it is true that without a distribution strategy in place the high-quality content piece can be lost in the clutter, it is also important for marketers to understand that distribution isn’t the only area they should focus on.

Experts time and again have emphasised why marketers need to spend half the efforts in promoting content and the other half creating content. Both content creation and distribution are equally important whenever one plans to reach out to the target audience.

But what happens when this balance of efforts and ad spends between the two is highly polarised?

Undeniably content creation is a time-consuming process. Coming up with a stellar piece that entices the audience and drives traffic and higher page ranking requires a lot of research and strategy. On the other hand, the various operations involved in distribution also need proper time for collecting the important information while focusing upon promoting the content piece; the brand must be well aware of customers’ interests.

Joy Chatterjee

Joy Chatterjee, General Manager, Sales and Marketing, Mankind Pharma, believes it is unjustifiable to say that one requires more time than another. Spending 80% time on the quality of distribution and lessening the quantity of content without compromising on the quality will garner many effective results.

He said that the spend between content creation and distribution must be allocated after taking into account the various factors such as whether one wants to create brand awareness or wants to create demand generation, there will be different cost considerations.

Achint Setia

Achint Setia - VP and Business Head - Social Commerce at Myntra, said that if one makes a great piece of art and is unable to tell anyone about it, all efforts are in vain.

“To find the right partners to distribute the story is extremely important. It is not about the spends sometimes, it is about the strategy and being smart about how you emanate that story through various platforms, through partnerships and get a lot of earned media. The ratio of the spends between two depends upon the IPs- if it is a large IP, the distribution earned and paid should be at least the 2x of production. Put at least 1:1 at the beginning,” he said.

Umang Puri

Umang Puri, Creative Director, North, FoxyMoron, said that in today’s age of content shock, the content is not just competing with other brands, but with all content and therefore it is critical to understand distribution as much as creation.

“While there is no single rule to follow in terms of the split, with each case having to be analyzed for specific objectives, a good place to start out is the 1:3 rule. Where for every one rupee you spend on creation, you should ideally spend 3 in its promotion and distribution,” he said.

Imagine a scenario where one has spent Rs 10 lakhs to create a piece of content, but is spending only Rs 2.5 lakhs to distribute.

Deepti Karthik

Content creation comes naturally to a marketer and distribution to those who handle media and in scaled organisations these are often handled by teams who are at loggerheads, said Deepti Karthik, Vice President Marketing, DaMENSCH.

She said, “The brand team wants a narrative slow cooked whereas the performance team wants a 10 seconder that only talks about functional benefits all with a brand mention in the first 5 seconds and a CTA slate in the last two. There is no ideal formulae a good ratio of spends on production to distribution. I have also seen the ratio being as skewed is 1:4 or 1:1 in some cases where a celebrity is involved. The logic has always been that a celebrity would have greater recall and hence if a creative need 15 OTS (opportunities to be seen) online it could be registered in just 3-4 seconds with a celebrity thus bringing media cost down for same impact.”

It is a world of content overload. There is more content than there is an audience for it, and that dilutes quality to a large extent.

Nikhil Sharda

Nikhil Sharda, EVP- Creative and Digital Communications, Scroll Mantra, believes in “write less, promote more”.

He said, “Creating less means that more energy and time is spent on quality and promoting it on every platform possible, with changing content formats. Distribution is as important if not more than what you invest in content creation. Good content is a failure if it fails to reach its potential audience. The ratio should be 50% each at least, a good content deserves to be seen and critiqued.”

Content marketing is never enough until one measures its reach, and consider the factors that determine how much attention consumers are paying to the piece of content that one has produced. One can’t just sit and assume that consumers will explore the content themselves in one or another way.

Shradha Agarwal

Shradha Agarwal, COO and Strategy Head-Grapes, said “Whether you do paid or earned media marketing, optimising your search campaigns takes a little more time, care and finesse. The marketing strategies for every campaign produced has to be different. At the same time, generating content without knowing your target audience is a waste of resources and time.”

“Imagine having an amazing and unique piece of content, which took a lot of effort in production, but you aren’t promoting it in the right way. How would consumers be able to know about that specific content? It makes no sense making an awesome content piece and expecting it to go viral by itself. You can’t always bet on the virality of your content alone. If the quality of content is great, then equivalently the quality of distribution plays a critical role because then you get the opportunity to connect with more audiences, which in the end increases overall reach,” she added.

Does this also mean the imbalance of spends between these would not negatively impact the customer engagement?

The debate around how much time and budget should be allotted to both is a waste of time, said Chatterjee of Mankind Pharma.

“By understanding the different aspects of content creation and distribution, one will come to know that there is no law or rule defining the ratio of time or money to be allotted to both. Flexibility in strategising the execution depending upon the various factors affecting them is the key to seizing maximum output,” he said.

However, Karthik of DaMENSCH added that brands cannot afford to create low quality assets. Everything from a great idea to a great execution costs money, iteration and sometimes high costs.

“As marketers one must continue to push the envelope on creative excellence veering towards quality and not fall into the trap of refreshing creatives or underspending on creating assets. Assets created through quick repurposing don't deliver impact and don't carry any brand signature,” she said.

Agarwal of Grapes too believes that the shortcoming in a content distribution plan will result in losing out on audiences present in relevant platforms, and losing out on impressions means little engagement.