Without distribution, the Content King has no clothes. Here are three ideas to fix that.

As someone who's always considered "storyteller" my foundational talent, I danced with joy at the rise of the content marketing trend. I looked forward to this new world in which everyone was working to the basic tenants I'd been following since journalism school. But joy quickly turned to hand-wringing.

With the global marketing community using content to sell everything from botox injections and gardening supplies to professional services and B2B mega-contracts, every channel is now flooded with thought leadership. 

Look no further than your LinkedIn feed: I wager the majority of it is shares of content created by a third party, right? Similarly, your e-mail box no doubt offers a library of reading material, updated daily. Much of this content is useful, high-quality stuff. But there's so much it's overwhelming people, so they're consuming less. They simply don't have the hours to wade through the deluge to find what they really want.

How do we avoid the pain of spending time, talent and money crafting kingly content that nobody sees? We need to deploy as much effort on the distribution as the creation. And I don't mean old-style mail blasts or ad campaigns. Here are three modern, salient ways to cut through the flood.

ONE: Drip-Feed Campaigns
Remember when today's news was tomorrow's chip wrapper? No more. A good story can run and run if repeatedly promoted by a variety of news hooks. In fact, with our audiences' busy lives and short attention spans, twenty enticing, differentiated promos leading back to the same article may be what you need to get one click through. Check out the way monthly magazines use Twitter; they're masters at this approach. Consider breaking a major white paper into different lists of bullet points: questions, facts and statistics, opinions. Add images. Start the drip. By connecting to current events you can re-invigorate old stories and refresh content long after its expected sell-by date. (If your content is obviously dated, of course, be sure to update or pull it.) Related content adds to the drip. Consider short videos from the author or interviews with people who have different perspectives. Encourage and post commentary. But keep everything pointing back to your original story, creating a virtuous circle of promotion.

TWO: Person-to-Person Channels
The same generation that turned marketing on to content has, ironically, turned off to marketing. They may want that useful Top 10 List on the highest-margin uses for their new MBA, but they'll ignore it if it looks like it's part of a targeted campaign. It's time to turn to our most powerful and under-utilised channel: our own employees. I am far more likely to read something endorsed by a friend, colleague or the real person I buy stuff from than someone's lofty CEO. But we need to go further than the current default of asking them to forward stuff on LinkedIn. It adds no value if I think they're doing it to meet their in-house marketing targets. At the minimum, I want some context from them. Why do theythink it's worth looking at? Ideally, I want a personalised e-mail, from someone I know, with the content attached and some bullet points just for me, where my contact tells me why I, uniquely, should spend time on this. That's a feat of personalisation impossible for a marketing department, but simple for any one individual to do for another close contact. The trick here is giving your employees the training, materials and permission to pass things along.

THREE: Print
You thought print was dead? Endangered, perhaps, but its rarity means it's punching far above its weight. I attended a conference last week that pulled in a speaker far above its profile, simply because the organiser had sent a thoughtful, hand-written invitation on quality writing paper. It was such a highlight of his day, he favoured her over the stack of requests in his inbox. I'm not suggesting you draft in a team of monks to hand-letter your marketing materials on vellum; print has modernised with its online offspring. Digital printing offers reasonably-priced, small runs that can be highly customised. Link it with a web page and you can get as sophisticated as a personalised magazine sending a reader to a personalised, digital, interactive experience. Integrate QR codes into print so readers can quickly move online, or download a related app. Mixing media enhances an experience, just as using multiple channels amplifies it. Ultimately, however, the appeal of print is the basic magic of the rare and beautiful standing out in a crowd.

Face fear, find happiness in professional prime

It's been a year since I left the comforting security of full-time, contracted corporate employment, and I've never been happier.

Partly, that's because today's big jobs in big companies are rarely comfortable, nor secure. You perceive that you're safe because of your contract, your benefits and the predictable pattern of your work life. But you often pay for that in a host of stresses, from the threat of redundancy to long-embedded corporate politics to the lack of mobility inherent in top-heavy old corporates.

But mostly, I'm happy because I'm calling my own shots, and have returned to the kind of work I love
doing. I've joined a growing host of marketing and communications specialists with 20+ years under our belts who no longer fit the profile of in house teams (young, cheap, unquestioning) but have a wealth of experience and skill to offer. London's contractor market is keeping us busy, and, in most cases, is giving us more fulfilling work than we were doing in house.

I hesitated longer than I should have before making the jump, Fear of the unknown, especially after years of a regular pay cheque hitting your account at the end of the month, is a potent inhibitor.  For those out there who feel hostage to their in-house jobs, but don't feel brave enough to change, here are three good reasons to make the move.

ONE: Empowerment reduces stress
It's a sad fact that marketing and communications staffers are often the first to get the chop when the downsizing starts. Inevitably, staying employed becomes the No. 1 objective. That's often at the expense of taking risks, being creative or doing the right thing. Once you become a consultant, the whole paradigm shifts. Yes, you still need to make your clients happy. But they're hiring you for your experience; they want to hear what you have to say. The nature of your employment changes. You don't expect long term, and can walk away at any time. That actually takes the stress out of tough times, and makes the whole nature of the relationship easier. You might choose to be a serial monogamist, taking one long-term contract at a time (the route I've chosen). It feels almost like an in-house role, but your retained independence is liberating.

Sure, there are other stresses. Your income is more variable, the future less known, the hassle of employment admin great. (Oh, how I miss an HR department!) But those are stresses you can plan for, and administrate your way out of.

Two: You're free to do what you're best at
Most great marcoms practitioners I know love to get their hands dirty. They love digging into a business problem, then getting involved in the solution with a bit of copywriting, a storyboard, dreaming up some campaign concepts, etc. Inevitably, the higher you get inside a corporation, the less actual marketing communications you get to do. At best, you're coming up with ideas and coaching younger team members as they take on the work. At worst, you're channeling ever more energy into administration and corporate politics. Once independent, you're back in control of the kind of work you do. I'm at the coal face again, mixing strategic advice and fresh ideas with practical deployment. With that comes joy. The nature of contract work generally means more discrete projects with set time frames ... leading to a greater and more regular sense of accomplishment. And your clients want the same thing you do. They're paying you for a specific skill, thus are far more conscious than in-house bosses of not wanting to waste your time (and fee) on work that doesn't fit your brief.

Three: You'll be at the cutting edge of a new in-house marketing model
While I question the long-term wisdom of their choices, experience shows that most corporations want to get rid of their older marketing communications staffers. I've seen this my whole career; it kept me employed as a cheap 20-something while early employers collapsed. The trend, however, seems to be accelerating, with 50 as the gateway to the employment danger zone. Sure, this is keeping marketing costs down, but I think corporations will increasingly feel the pain of that lost experience. They inevitably tend to repeat their marketing mistakes of the past, because there's nobody left in-house with institutional memory. The upside, however, is a new and growing army of highly experienced freelancers, usually working at or well below the rates of equivalent agency people. A savvy, brave brand could now almost completely virtualise its marketing department, selecting the individual freelancers best for particular needs, flexing up and down at will without any of the hassles that come with permanent employment. All while spending far less than with an agency, while getting a higher match of the exact skills they need. My current client is brilliant at using contractors strategically, and I strongly believe this will become the norm in marketing. Those of us in today's freelance market can help bring about the revolution.

I'm not saying I'll never consider a contracted, in-house role again. Merely that it's not the only summit of the career ladder. Think hard about what you want, and be brave. Job satisfaction is much under-rated and too often ignored. Ironically, embracing your fear may be the path to true happiness at work.