The Real Reason Your Blog Posts Aren’t Driving Pipeline, According to Ross Simmonds

In a recent LinkedIn post, Ross Simmonds addresses a common frustration for content creators: the disconnect between producing high-quality blog posts and seeing tangible business results. Simmonds, founder of Foundation Marketing, highlights a frequent scenario where significant effort is poured into content creation, only for it to yield minimal traffic and no pipeline impact.

Simmonds points to a recurring pattern he’s observed among marketers, detailing the all-too-familiar experience:

“Every marketer has had this moment:

You spend 3 weeks on a blog post. It’s genuinely good. You publish it. You share it once on LinkedIn.

Then you move on to the next one.
6 months later it has 200 pageviews and zero pipeline impact.”

The Core Issue: Distribution, Not Creation

The central argument presented by Ross Simmonds in his post is that the root cause of underperforming content is rarely the quality of the writing itself. Instead, he posits that the issue lies squarely with how the content is distributed after publication. Many marketers, Simmonds observes, invest heavily in the creation phase but neglect the crucial post-publication promotion and amplification strategies.

As Simmonds argues:

“You didn’t have a content problem.

You had a distribution problem.

You always did.”

This perspective challenges the common inclination to blame the content itself when it fails to meet expectations. Simmonds suggests that a genuinely good piece of content, if left with minimal exposure, is unlikely to achieve significant reach or generate business opportunities.

Rethinking Content Strategy: Beyond Publication

Simmonds’s insights prompt a re-evaluation of what constitutes a successful content strategy. He implies that the work doesn’t end at the ‘publish’ button. Effective content marketing requires a robust distribution plan that ensures the content reaches the intended audience and resonates with them over time.

In Simmonds’s view, this means dedicating as much, if not more, effort to promoting content as to creating it. This could involve:

• Repurposing content across multiple channels.
• Engaging with the audience around the content on social media.
• Implementing SEO strategies to ensure long-term discoverability.
• Building an email list to directly share valuable content.
• Actively seeking opportunities for backlinks and mentions.

According to Simmonds, a single share on a platform like LinkedIn is insufficient. A sustainable content strategy requires ongoing effort to keep the content visible and relevant, thereby maximizing its potential to drive traffic and generate leads.

The Takeaway for Marketers

Ross Simmonds’s message is a clear call to action for marketers to shift their focus. While content quality remains important, the true driver of impact is effective and sustained distribution. By acknowledging and addressing the distribution challenge, businesses can significantly improve the return on their content marketing investments and ensure their efforts translate into measurable pipeline growth.