Distribution

Content distribution software: a buyer's guide for agencies

Content distribution software turns a published post into the pieces each channel needs. For an agency, the one worth buying is the one that keeps every client straight.

That second part is where the decision lives. A tool can look perfect in a demo with one brand and still fall apart once several clients share it.

What the software is for

The job starts the moment a client's post goes live.

Someone has to turn that post into a LinkedIn update and a newsletter section. Some clients also want a thread or an outreach note. Then each piece needs approval, and then it needs posting.

Distribution software can take over parts of that chain. Which parts is the real buying question. It helps to split the chain into stages, because each category of tool covers a different slice:

1. Adapting the post to each channel's length and format.
2. Making each piece sound like the client instead of the tool.
3. Getting the client's sign-off before anything goes out.
4. Posting approved pieces to the right accounts at the right time.
5. Keeping a record of what went out, for which client, and when.

Call them adapting, voice, review, posting and record. Decide which ones you want software for before you open a single pricing page. Otherwise the demo decides for you.

Why an agency buys differently

An agency buys distribution software for a whole roster.

A single brand has one voice, one approver and one set of channels. You have one of each per client. Every stage in that list gets harder as the roster grows, and voice gets hardest.

Adapting is mechanical. A LinkedIn post has a shape, and software can learn that shape once for everyone. Voice is different for every client, and it has to be kept somewhere between posts.

When it isn't kept anywhere, your team starts every client from the same blank window. They paste in the tone notes and explain the audience again. Then they fix the output by hand, because it came back sounding like nobody in particular.

That re-explaining is the real cost of distribution at an agency. It's also the first thing to test for.

Five questions to ask any tool

Ask these in the demo, then check the answers in the trial.

Where does each client's voice live?

Ask where a client's voice is stored between one post and the next. You'll hear one of two answers. They behave differently over time.

The first is a description you write yourself. It might be a brand notes field, saved instructions or a pasted style guide. That works if someone writes it well and keeps it current.

It also means the voice is only as good as those notes. And the notes go stale when the client changes how they write.

The second answer is a voice learned from the client's own published writing. It updates as the client publishes more. Nobody has to maintain it by hand.

Ask one follow-up about that second kind: does it learn only from the client's published posts, or from its own output too? You want the first. The client's real writing is the only thing that should teach it how the client sounds.

Can a client approve without making an account?

Look at approval from the client's side, because that's where distribution stalls. Every account you ask a client to create is one more step before a yes.

Check these things in the trial:

• Whether the client can review and approve from a link, with no login.
• Whether you can see who approved what, and when.
• Whether you can withdraw a link that went to the wrong person.

Reminders matter too. Chasing sign-off by email is a job in itself. A tool that nudges the client for you takes that job off someone's plate.

Does it post for you, and do you want it to?

Some tools publish straight to social accounts, and that's a trade-off. Direct posting saves a step. It also means the tool holds access to every client's accounts.

That access is an offboarding question as much as a convenience. When a client leaves, you need to be sure their access leaves with them.

Other tools stop at approved copy. They leave posting to you, or to a scheduler you already use. Neither approach is wrong, so pick the one you want before a demo picks it for you.

Scheduling tools themselves are out of scope here. They're a separate purchase with their own trade-offs.

How does the price move as your roster grows?

For an agency, the pricing structure matters more than the headline price. The same monthly figure can look cheap today and expensive in a year.

• With per-seat pricing, the bill grows with your team and stays flat as you add clients. It tends to suit a small team running many clients.
• With per-client or per-workspace pricing, the bill grows with every client you sign. It tends to suit a short roster, or an agency that bills the tool back to each client.
• With flat pricing per agency, the bill stays the same as the team and roster grow, within the plan's limits. It tends to suit a growing roster, so check those limits.
• With usage or credit pricing, the bill follows how much you produce. It can suit uneven volume, though it's hard to forecast.

Which structure is cheapest depends on your roster and your team. Run the numbers with your own client list and growth plans. The worked example on a pricing page was picked by the vendor.

What record does it keep?

Ask what you'll be able to see months after a post went out. Sooner or later, a client asks what you did for them last quarter.

A useful record shows which pieces came from which post. It shows which were approved, by whom, and which went out. That's the page you open at renewal time.

The record is also what makes a tool harder to leave, and that cuts both ways. Ask how you'd get your records out if you ever switched.

Who on your team will use it

Think about the people before the features.

The buyer is often the owner. The daily user is usually someone else: an account manager or a writer who works on several clients before lunch. The tool has to work for that person on a busy afternoon.

So bring them into the trial. Watch where they hesitate. A setup screen the owner finds easy can still be the step a busy account manager skips.

Pay attention to handovers, too. When someone is on holiday, can a colleague pick up their clients without a briefing? If each client's voice and history live in the tool, the answer is mostly yes. If they live in one person's head, the tool can't help much.

This is the voice question again, seen from the staffing side. A voice kept in software survives a team change. A voice kept in someone's memory leaves when they do.

What happens when a client leaves

Every roster loses clients, so check the exit before you need it.

A tool built for one brand has no reason to plan for this. An agency tool should make it boring. Ask the vendor to walk you through it:

• How to pause or archive a client without deleting their history.
• How to cancel any review links still sitting in the client's inbox.
• How to export that client's records if they ask for them.
• Whether your bill changes when the roster shrinks.

The last one ties back to pricing. On a per-client plan, losing a client should lower the bill. On a flat plan it won't, and that's fine if you knew it going in.

Archiving matters more than it sounds. Some clients come back, and a returning client's voice shouldn't have to be learned from scratch.

The categories you'll run into

Each tool on your shortlist will probably fit one of these categories.

They overlap, and vendors move between them. Treat this as a rough map, and check any one product for yourself.

• A general-purpose chat assistant is built for open-ended writing and thinking. It's good at adapting a post. Keeping each client's voice, approvals, posting and the record stay with you.
• A social scheduler is built for posting on a calendar across accounts. Writing each piece and keeping the voice stay with you.
• A content marketing suite is built for planning and publishing for a brand's own team. Voice across many clients and approval from the client's side stay with you.
• An agency distribution tool is built around a roster of clients, with voice and approval per client. Posting may stay with you, if it stops at approved copy.

The sensible default for an agency is two tools. One holds each client's voice and handles approvals. The other is a scheduler you already trust.

A single tool that claims all five stages sounds simpler. If you go that way, find its weakest stage and test it hardest.

How to run a trial that tells you something

A trial is only useful if it looks like a normal week.

1. Pick two clients who sound nothing alike, like a law firm and a lifestyle brand.
2. Use real published posts. Skip anything written for the demo.
3. Create only the channels each client uses.
4. Read the results side by side with the client names hidden.
5. Try to tell whose is whose.
6. Send one piece through approval to a colleague playing the client.
7. Edit each piece into something you'd send, and notice how much editing that takes.
8. Look at what's saved afterwards, and ask if it would answer a client's question about last month.

Steps 4 and 5 are the voice question from earlier, tested instead of asked. If you can't tell the two clients apart, the tool isn't holding their voices. That's true whatever the demo showed.

A trial won't show everything, though. A voice learned from a client's writing needs several posts before it settles. So early results can undersell it. Ask the vendor how many posts it needs, and judge the trial with that in mind.

What to skip

Some features demo well and rarely change the decision.

• A long list of formats. It looks good on a pricing page, but you'll use the few your clients' audiences read.
• Dashboards that promise to prove ROI. Tracing a LinkedIn post to a sale is hard for anyone, so treat a tidy number with suspicion.
• A pitch built around the writing itself. Adapting a post is the easiest stage, and every category above already does it.

None of these are bad to have. They're weak reasons to pick one tool over another.

The short version

Start with the stages you need software for.

Test voice with clients who sound nothing alike. Check approval from the client's side, and pick a pricing structure that fits how your roster will grow.

If a tool gets the voice right and misses the rest, you can add the rest later. If it gets the rest right and misses the voice, your team is back to re-explaining clients. The interface is just nicer.