Cracking Distribution - Renting vs Owning Audience
Explore case studies from OpenText and Unbounce, learn actionable strategies, and how to have a mix of rented and owned audiences. Boost your engagement, optimize distribution, and drive growth.
Should you rent your audience or own it?
Rented Audience → Target audience available on other platforms and you reach them through organic or paid means.
Owned Audience → Target audience subscribed to your emails or are a member of your community i.e. they are a part of your own distribution engine and you are not relying on any other platform to reach them.
Typical POV (Conventional)
It's all about quick wins — experimenting with different channels and getting all potential customers before moving on to the next channel.
Expert POV (New)
It's about building a sustainable distribution engine — transitioning audiences from rented platforms to your own and nurturing them either into customers or brand advocates.
Here's how the process looks like:
Conventional Way (Always Renting):
Identify Channels: Where does your audience hang out?
Promote: Push your content or product there.
Create Value: Offer something useful.
Promote Again: Keep your brand top of mind.
Wait for Transaction: Sit back and hope for sales.
New Way (Renting to Owning):
Identify Channels: Find your audience.
Create Value First: Get their attention.
Invite for Exclusive Value: Offer something they can't resist.
Create Community Value: Build a space where they get continuous value.
Nurture for Transaction: Develop the relationship until they're ready to buy.
Which Distribution Cycle Do You Follow?
- Conventional: Quick, transactional, more straightforward.
- New: Takes time, predictable, complex but builds stronger and lasting connections.
Whichever path you choose, understanding the distribution is important to make strategic decisions and drive better results.
Case Study: OpenText — Conventional Distribution Way
OpenText, a global leader in Enterprise Information Management, follows the conventional distribution way through its content marketing and social media strategy. We researched and collated valuable insights into the effectiveness and challenges of a rented audience model.
OpenText's distribution strategy included several key components:
Consistent Content Creation: They regularly produced high-quality content, such as blogs, whitepapers, webinars, and case studies, to engage their audience.
Social Media Engagement: Actively engaged on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook, sharing industry insights, company news, and thought leadership content.
Influencer Collaborations: Partnered with industry influencers to broaden their reach and enhance credibility.
Targeted Advertising: Used targeted ads to reach specific audience segments and promote their content effectively.
1. LinkedIn Post Example:
2. Webinar Promotion:
What were the outcomes?
OpenText saw a significant growth in brand awareness and customer acquisition,
1. Increased Engagement: Steady growth in social media engagement metrics, including likes, shares, and comments.
2. Lead Generation: Successful lead generation through gated content and webinar registrations.
3. Brand Awareness: Enhanced brand visibility and recognition in the Enterprise Information Management space.
Where did OpenText lack?
Despite their efforts, OpenText faced several challenges:
1. Owned Audience Development: Struggled to convert their rented audience into an owned one, heavily relying on social platforms.
2. Content Diversification: While their content was high-quality, it often lacked diversity in format and delivery, which could limit engagement.
3. Engagement Consistency: Although their posting was consistent, engagement levels varied, indicating a need for more unique and personalized content strategies.
OpenText's conventional distribution approach through content marketing and social media showcases the typical challenges of engaging a rented audience.
Is it sustainable and scalable to rent an audience?
The answer is a big NO.
With a rented audience, you need to engage them every time on external platforms while tackling their changing algorithms. Your engaged audience doesn't get the chance to associate with you for the long term and be your advocates.
You can always invite followers (or rented audience) to your own circle i.e. members of your community, and nurture them to convert into advocates.
However, your owned audience would be limited and have a less impact on target growth metrics. It just solves for sustainable distribution.
So what is the solution to build a sustainable and scalable distribution engine?
The answer is
a healthy mix of rented and owned audience.
Audit your distribution
You must ask these 5 questions to audit your distribution.
How many distinct value touchpoints do we have in our current distribution cycle, and are they effectively engaging our audience?
What feedback have we received from our audience regarding the content and value we are providing through our distribution channels?
Are we directly sending our audience to our website, or are we first bringing them into our owned distribution engine (such as a community or newsletter) to nurture them before conversion?
Which distribution channels are driving the highest engagement and conversions, and which are underperforming?
How well are we nurturing our audience from followers to subscribers, members, and ultimately customers or advocates? What gaps exist in this nurturing process?
What’s working
Here's a step-by-step process to turn an unknown audience into customers, building value and trust at every step.
Followers → Subscribers → Members → Customers / Advocates
And here is how I plan for distribution and it is working today …
Identify channels → Create Value → Invite for exclusive value → Create value → Community value → Nurture for transaction
Case Study: Unbounce — New Distribution Way
Unbounce, a leader in landing page optimization, has successfully moved from relying on rented audiences to building a strong owned audience.
This strategic shift allows Unbounce to reduce dependency on external platform (like Linkedin, Twitter, Google) algorithms while maintaining continuous engagement with both new and existing audiences.
Unbounce implemented several strategic initiatives to effectively manage and grow their audience:
High-Value Content Creation: Focused on producing valuable, actionable content tailored to their audience's needs.
Engaging Social Media Presence: Heavily invested in social media platforms (Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook) to drive traffic and capture leads and then moving them to owned channels i.e. newsletter, webinars or community..
Newsletters: Sent regular newsletters to keep their owned audience engaged and informed.
Community Building: Built a strong community of users and advocates through forums, webinars, and user groups.
1. Blog Post Example
2. Linkedin Engagement
3. Newsletter Example
4. Community Forum
What were the outcomes?
1. Increased Engagement: Enhanced engagement metrics across owned and rented platforms.
2. Lead Generation: Significant growth in lead generation through gated content, community initiatives and social media initiatives.
3. Brand Loyalty: Strengthened user advocacy through community-building efforts.
4. Reduced Algorithm Dependency: Less reliance on platform algorithms due to community, webinar and newsletter initiatives.
Unbounce's strategy of shifting from rented to owned audiences provides valuable insights for founders and marketing leaders.
By leveraging content marketing, social media, newsletters, and community building, they not only increased engagement and lead generation but also reduced dependency on platform algorithms.
Plan your distribution
Next time you plan your distribution for your product / service or a new initiative, just answer these 5 questions
Which channels are most relevant and effective for reaching our target audience, and how do we prioritize them?
What unique value can we offer through our distribution strategy that will attract and retain our audience?
How can we create exclusive value or content that incentivizes our audience to engage and become part of our community?
What strategies can we implement to transform followers into subscribers, and subscribers into active community members?
How can we ensure our distribution strategy is both sustainable and scalable over time, supporting long-term growth and engagement?
What are our validation metrics before we relook at these questions?
What have been your experiences with distribution? Mention in the comments…
Free tools that you can try:
Best Linkedin Posts
If you’re not a subscriber, here’s what you missed earlier:
Subscribe to get access to the latest marketing, strategy and go-to-market techniques . Follow me on Linkedin and Twitter.
