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If I Were To Start A New Distribution Strategy In 2024, This Is What I'd Do
Episode 509th January 2024 • Distribution First • Justin Simon
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In this episode, Justin discusses the 9 essential steps for creating a successful distribution strategy in 2024.

He provides his top strategies and valuable tips for content marketers looking to enhance their distribution efforts. Stay tuned for a full breakdown of the key components that drive successful content distribution strategies in 2024.

If you like distribution and repurposing playbooks, you'll love my weekly newsletter (it's free). Join 2,400+ subscribers here: https://news.justinsimon.co/

In this episode, you'll learn how to:

1. Optimize content marketing ROI through effective distribution assessment.

2. Enhance content quality and impact by planning distribution beforehand.

3. Integrate distribution details into your content roadmap for effective reach.

4. Refine distribution efforts by ranking content based on relevance.

5. Achieve successful content distribution through building momentum and collaboration.

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Transcripts

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So if I were going to start a distribution strategy in 2024,

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this is the exact nine step system that I would follow.

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My clients and coaching students have actually been using this

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system over the past year to ten x 100

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x, even 500 x. Yeah, 500 x

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the ROI from the content that they're creating on their marketing teams.

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But I've got a bit of a disclaimer. Distribution isn't a

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magic pill. This is not something that if you sprinkle the fairy dust on,

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is going to completely change your content marketing program

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before you can distribute effectively. You have to

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actually know your audience deeply, create content they

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enjoy, and be willing to put in the work to make distribution even

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worth it to begin with because it isn't worth actually distributing that

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content if nobody enjoys it to begin with. But if you follow this

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system, you might be surprised at how much new content

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you actually have to create every week. You might be able to go from two

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new blog posts a week to one. You might be able to go from

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multiple videos and webinars and all these things that you're trying to

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do, you might be able to actually scale those down and get more ROI out

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of the things you're creating, freeing you up to create better content,

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to be able to actually be strategic, to talk to your customers to

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understand what they want versus just assuming and thinking, hey, I've got to be able

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to get content out and the whole process goes awry.

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So stick with me because this is the first time I'm breaking down this

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entire system exactly like this, step by step. So

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let's get into number one, assess. This is the

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baseline for your distribution strategy. Assessing

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evaluating what your current distributions efforts

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are and then building a strategy moving forward. If we don't

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know what path we've been on, if we don't at least take a look back

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into the rearview mirror, it's going to be nearly impossible to know where we want

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to go, what we want to cut, what we want to change, any of those

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things. So step one is assessing where you're at. And the

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easiest way to get started is to look at the

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last, maybe 90 days. Or you could even look at the last q

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one if you wanted to get maybe two separate snapshots, or the previous year's

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quarter, whatever quarter you may be in, and take a look at that and

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understand, okay, here's what we created. Here's how much

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stuff we got out of it. Here was the Roi of us creating

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that. What were the outcomes? So when we

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created x webinar, what were the outcomes? Of this. When we created

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this series of blog posts over the last quarter, what

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happened? What was the traffic? Where did the traffic come from? Look at

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the channels. Look at all the things that go into essentially

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marketing your content. What did you do to actively market that piece of

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content? And once you have those baselines, that will allow you to actually go

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forward and say, all right, you know what? When we released

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this blog post, we really didn't do a lot. Within the first week,

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we posted something on LinkedIn and then we added

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it to our monthly email and that was it. It just allows

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you to open up your eyes and really see what's going on with your distribution

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process and know how you can evolve from there. Number two

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is planning. So actually developing

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a distribution plan before you end

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up creating your content. I talk about this all the time. You have to develop

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a distribution plan before you create your

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content, not after. You can do it after. You can go back

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into the assess phase and see what happens and see what we did and what

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did we create. But if you can build a plan to

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actually distribute your pieces of content before you even

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create them, it's going to make the actual content that you create

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even better. And I have seen this time and time again with the

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clients and the different folks that I've worked with. When you start to understand how

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you're going to distribute this piece of content and what you want to get out

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into the world, it forces you to think about what that piece of

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content is actually going to be and what makes it interesting to

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begin with. So for an example, if you're creating a

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podcast episode or a blog post, and

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you write it all out and you publish it, and you pat yourself

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on the back, and then you go to publish it out onto LinkedIn or

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Twitter or send it to your email list and you start reading through it and

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you're like, there just is not much going on here. There's not much for me

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to be able to actually get out back into the world. Like, I thought this

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was a good post. I thought this was a good podcast episode. I thought this

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was a good webinar. And it just turns out it's

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not because the content, while may be interesting

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for a particular point in time, is not actually interesting to the

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audience on those individual channels. And it's really, really hard to cut that

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up and create native content for those things. So by

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understanding, hey, we need to be able to get LinkedIn posts out of this. We

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need to be able to get an email out of this, it changes your mindset

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when you're actually creating that content. So plan ahead to know what you want to

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do. All right? And this leads in directly into number three,

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which is integrate. So then after you've assessed what's going on, you've

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started to build out this plan. You're going to integrate that plan,

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integrate distribution details into your content roadmap. So

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almost everybody that I talk to has some sort of roadmap, some sort of content

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plan. Even if it's a Google sheet or a word doc

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or something, they have a plan. They have an idea of what they want to

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create. Now what you want to do is integrate distribution details.

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There are specific things you can add and integrate into your roadmap

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and we'll get into some of those. You want to add those into your

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planning. You want to integrate that stuff back into your planning. So what are

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the things that I'm talking about as far as adding it? You need to add

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in things like the actual channels. Where

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are you distributing this? It sounds so simple, but do you know where you're going

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to distribute this piece of content? You need to be able to add things in

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like formats. What are the other types of formats we're creating this in?

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What are the other types of pieces that we can create around this? You need

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to add in things like what is the actual demand

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driver for this? Is this a demand creation type piece or is this a

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demand capture type piece? All of those things will help

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determine what type of distribution plan you actually have for

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that type of piece of content. At the most base level you can

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imagine a mainly SEO driven piece, right? You're

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creating this and you know SEO is the main driver. Great. So you will have

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categories like Google as the main distribution channel

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or YouTube as the main distribution channel. It's going to be a demand

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capture piece. It's going to be in these formats. This is how people

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are actively searching for it. This is how we are going to measure that.

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These are the KPIs around it, things like keywords, impressions, search terms,

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organic visits, all that type of stuff. You want all of those pieces around for

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each given piece because let's say you have a research report that comes out

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and nobody's searching for that topic. What are you going to do? Okay,

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you have to build out that plan. You have to integrate that plan. You have

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to understand how these distribution. Okay, how are we distributing this? How often

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are we going to distribute this? Where are we going to distribute this? We are

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creating demand around this topic. That means we might have to put even more effort

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into this to be able to create demand around this idea, because people need to

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see this seven, 8910, eleven times to be able to get the value

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out of that piece of content. All right, the next one, number four,

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is one of my favorites. It's something that very, very few

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content teams that I have ever interacted with actually do

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this or do it consistently, but it can completely change the game

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as far as your distribution and repurposing process goes. And that is

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ranking your content. So ranking every

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piece of content when you're creating something, whether it's a YouTube video to

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release a product announcement or a YouTube video

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to share a bit of thought leadership, or a blog or a press

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release, all these things that we create as content

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teams, as marketing teams, they're not all created equal. And we have to understand

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that there are different distribution methods, different levels of

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distribution impact that we want to have as we're creating those things. You

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don't want to put the same distribution stamp on a

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giant original research report that you paid

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tens of thousands of dollars to get created and then all these assets, you don't

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want to put that same amount of effort into a press release and you don't

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want to assume that your audience cares about those things on the same

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levels as well. So we'll get more into ranking content

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this year. That's one of my goals, is to be able to share more on

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how I do this framework and how this works. But the four main

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categories that you want to look at are relevance, quality,

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originality and impact. And then you can span that across however

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many tiers you want at a very basic level,

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ABC one, two, three, however you want to frame those up, and then you

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and your team can come up with the ideas of what is a tier one

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piece of content from a relevant score, what is a tier

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three piece of content from the amount of impact that it's going to have. And

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then you actually have to do the hard work of figuring out how that is.

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But again, do this ahead of time, do this in the planning phases for

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this piece of content. And honestly, we'll talk about it as

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we go down at a different step and a different level. But

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those are the conversations that really help a team understand

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the overall impact or the potential impact of a piece of content that gets

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requested, even from somebody outside of your content team and things like

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that, unless you have a more intelligent conversation around that piece of

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content. All right, number five is all about building

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momentum. So you've built out your plan, you understand what this

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piece is, you kind of even maybe understand how you want to be able to

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distribute this. But now it's all about building momentum. And I have

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a whole map, a whole framework that I use for, actually, I

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call it a momentum map. And this is something I've built out and used with

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clients and essentially lays out

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for any given piece of content, typically a larger piece of content. Think a

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cornerstone or even a bigger core piece of content, something you really want

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to be able to get more out of. Maybe it's a core idea that you

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have, and what it does is it forces you to write out the

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answers, write out what is it that you want to

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actually distribute, and then how do we plan

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those things out for the rest of the quarter or the rest of the year?

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Or maybe we're not going to be able to do all these things in this

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quarter. But hey, if we did four of the things that we came up with

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off of this original piece of content sent, and then span those off across

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the year, that just gives us excuses to keep coming back to the same idea

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and the same idea. Think about your content marketing.

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Like an author thinks about marketing their book, if

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you come up with a really good piece of content, it deserves to get

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marketed for a good amount of time. So think about any

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given author. They release a new book, every podcast they're on,

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every YouTube video they're doing, every presentation. It's all built around the same

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book. So think about your content marketing in that same way, and

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think about the impact that you can have if you actually do that

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consistently. You build momentum around your ideas, you build momentum

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around this content. How many more people, if you did that consistently, would know

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about your core ideas, your core content, what you're doing, what you're offering in

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the next two quarters than if you just hit it once or twice and kept

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trying to constantly create that new stuff? So build momentum.

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Step five, you have to build momentum with these pieces of content. And again, not

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every piece of content. I might do a momentum map for tier one content

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only, but you really think through those things and how to build that up

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so you're not constantly running on the content hamster wheel. All right, number

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six is all about focus. Knowing which

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distribution channels to focus on, what to avoid. Knowing

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which types of formats to focus on, which to avoid.

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There's so many shiny objects out there trying to get us

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to pull into many different ways. So if you can come up

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with a very base level plan, this is not rocket science.

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What two channels do we post on every single week? What

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formats do we create every single week. What formats do we want to

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try more of in the future? And which channels do we want to try on

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more on in the future? These are the very basic questions and then

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takes all the pressure off you to say, I need to be doing a podcast

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and I need to be doing carousels and I need to be doing cool graphics

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and I need to be doing shorts and I need to be doing just focus

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on a couple, just focus on a couple. Do them really well. Get your

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audience to know, okay, when I see this in my feed, when this email comes

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in my inbox, I know what to expect. You want to create consistency and

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expectation from the audience. When you create this piece of

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content, you know what to do on your end, but then your audience knows what

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to expect from it as well, which is super underrated

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from a marketing perspective. Just in terms of consistency makes sense

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from a creation standpoint of like, okay, I know what I'm doing every single week,

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but it's so underrated from an audience perspective of the

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companies and the creators who do things so consistently. You just come to

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know what they're going to talk about. You come to know what types of formats

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are going to be in, and they might experience and expand and grow and

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try different things as they go, but overall, those things stay the

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same. So I think that having that laser focus in terms of what you're

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going to create, how you're going to create it, and then be able to do

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that every single week really leads into number

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seven, which is launching. So when you launch a piece of

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content, sort of like building momentum, but I would think of launch as more of

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like that consistency. So think about this as your core level

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content, the content that's

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driving your engine. When you think about those things, how are you going to

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launch? So at a most basic level, when you

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launch podcast episode every week, what

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does that look like? What is your standard operating procedure?

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Template, distribution template for a podcast?

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I've talked about mine before, and I'm sure I'll do a little bit more deep

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dive on how I'm evolving that for 2024. But at a base

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level, it's release. The podcast. Podcast email goes out on

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Tuesdays after newsletter goes out on Saturdays.

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Based on that podcast episode, different clips get cut up into

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social pieces. So you're creating the very basic plan

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for how that goes to be able to launch. And again, so it's not to

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say this is the end all, be all, this is the perfect plan, but just

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to give you a baseline to start with, that hey, when we launch a blog

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post on Tuesday, what happens when we launch a podcast?

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What happens when we do a webinar? What happens? So build a launch

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plan for distribution to understand how this content is actually going to get out in

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front of your audience. And number eight, one of my

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favorites, number eight, can't live without it.

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Remixing, repurposing how do you take your best

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ideas and create, quote unquote new content

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off of those throughout the year? So whether you are

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going top down and you're taking that content and

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repurposing it throughout the year, in terms of taking a blog post and

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cutting up into a social piece of content, that's a very basic one, or a

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video and cutting it up into clips, are you even doing that? Or

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how can you take several of those things and

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remix them into something even bigger? But you could take a

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series of blog posts that you've done and turn that into course

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material. You could take a series of podcasts that you've done and turn that

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into an ultimate guide with expert interviews. There are these ways

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that you can take smaller pieces and remix them into larger ones

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going forward. So think about how you're going to be able to remix

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the stuff, remix the ideas again, when you think about building

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momentum, that all goes into that, whether it's a launch, whether it's building momentum,

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whether it's ranking, all this stuff ties together to be able to build a cohesive

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plan to where you are marketing the content that you create,

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where you're not just creating it and hoping people hit your website, but you are

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being proactive. You are actively getting in front of the audience with the

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content, with the message, with the ideas that you want in their face

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every single day. And you are actually building a plan

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for that. You're not letting that just happen by chance. Because part

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of the reality that we have to understand with remixing as well is that not

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everyone wants to watch, listen or read

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your original piece of content. There are lots of creators

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that create YouTube content and also have a

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podcast, and I'm never going to listen to the podcast, but I'll watch their YouTube

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video. Or there are lots of great folks

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with great content on social that have newsletters, but I'm not interested in following their

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newsletter. I've got enough newsletters, but I like their stuff on social. That's great.

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If you think that you only need to do one, you're missing out

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on a whole opportunity of other touch points, other

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impressions, other places where these people who may

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actually fully enjoy your content could be customers, could be potential

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clients. But because you don't distribute that content

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and cut it up and remix it in those different ways, you're completely missing out

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on them. So don't fall for the trap that a lot of folks

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fall into, which is, well, I'm doing a newsletter

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and the people who really want that content, they'll see it in my

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newsletter, or I already posted that on social, why would I write a longer

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newsletter about it? Well, that's just not true. There are people, I see it

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across my stuff all the time. There are people who enjoy LinkedIn content, there are

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people who enjoy podcast content, and there are people who enjoy the newsletter,

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and there's crossover there. That's great. If you're following all these

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things, let me know. Leave a review,

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say you read every newsletter

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and check out LinkedIn and listen to the podcast, that'd be amazing.

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But I know full well there are people who do one or

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two, and that's great. That's great. If you just follow on one place

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and not another, that's no problem because I am going to actively get that content

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out in those places every single week. Number nine, this is

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more of a bonus, but I couldn't skip it. It's

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not something I necessarily have to worry about right now. But

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working with teams and working on teams,

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you cannot skip number nine, which is collaborate.

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Collaboration is one of the hardest things when it comes to distribution,

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because a lot of times there's just not a lot of insight into how these

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things work. There's a lot of complexity with distribution,

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depending on platform, depending on format, depending on what you're

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creating, you might not be the one creating the content, but in charge of

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distributing the content. I've been there.

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Product team creates something and says, hey, we want to

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share this with our audience, share it out, you will consume the

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content. This isn't very good. So it's hard. It's hard

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to understand those things. And so I think just being aware of how

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you're going to collaborate, make distribution a collaborative effort. Understand

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it's not going to be an overnight switch. It's definitely not going to be an

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overnight switch. It's probably more realistically going to be months and years

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of fine tuning and adjusting. Because everything within

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this I can tell you from working with dozens of

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companies, every single company is different.

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How they create content is different. How they create

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briefs and frameworks and structure projects, it's all

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different. So understand, there's no perfect framework.

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Even if you followed these nine steps to an absolute t

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and you said I hit every single one. I rank my content. I'm building momentum.

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I'm launching. I'm following your exact templates. I

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can guarantee you following the exact templates and following the format,

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it will still look different for your company than it will for somebody else's, than

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it will for mine. Because just how you create that content, how you can

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successfully amplify that and talk about that amongst your company, it's going to be

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totally, totally different. The key is not to have some perfect plan,

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it's to just do it. The key is to just do it. To

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have the internal awareness of what we're creating, of how we're getting that in front

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of the audience, and why it matters to begin with. And just having

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those things is going to be a baseline for success. So I really hope you

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enjoyed this episode. It's been a super fun one for me to do, to walk

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through. Like I said, I've never gone through these steps in public like this,

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to go through each of the nine, but these are the areas that you have

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to focus on this year in particular. If you want to get more

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roi out of the content that you're creating, and if you want more help with

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that, if you want some hands on help, feel free to reach out. It's something

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I work with teams all the time and actually help them build a

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consistent momentum for the content that they're creating. And that would be something

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I'd be more than happy to help you out with. So until next week, we

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will chat again, but thanks for listening to distribution first and I'll see you all

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next time.

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