Growth resource pack / distribution

Getting your work in front of more people.

You have put real work into making something good. Getting it in front of enough of the right people, and doing it quickly, is a separate job: video, search, LinkedIn, and the rest. No single thing does it. A few different approaches work, if you keep at them. This pack goes through those, with the tools worth a look and a few things worth reading.

What's inside
01Video and packagingWhere the most attention is, and how people decide to watch. 02Show up in AI searchHow search changed, from Google to ChatGPT. 03Build tools people useThings people use, that search sends them to. 04Automations that save you timeShowing up and reaching out, without a full-time job of it. 05Community and the funnelLead magnets, email, and the reason people come back. 06More from Run with FoxesThe book, the tools, the case study.
The real challenge

Getting seen is its own job.

You are already making good work. The next job is a different one: getting it in front of enough of the right people, and doing it quickly, across the channels that matter to you. Video, LinkedIn, Instagram, search. Each one works differently.

There is no silver bullet here, and anyone who tells you there is one is selling something. What works is a handful of approaches, run by someone who keeps trying things, sees which ones work and why, then does more of those. A lot of it is not hard. It is knowledgeable, patient work. Give a sharp person on your team the time and the tools, and a lot of this becomes their job.

Lever 01
Video and packaging

Video has the most attention, and people choose what to watch.

Video is where a lot of people spend their time now. It is the biggest streaming platform in the world, the most-watched home for podcasts, and the second largest search engine after Google. It does the job television, radio and film used to do, in one place.

One thing shapes how you work on it. Your video is not pushed into a feed. A person looks at your title and picture and decides whether to give you their time. If they don't, the rest of the video never gets seen. Everything below is about earning that decision.

Rule 01

If they don't click, they don't watch

The title and thumbnail together are the biggest factor in whether a video works. Videos fall down here more than anywhere, before anyone gets to the production. A small change to the packaging has produced up to 40 times the views on the same video.

Rule 02

Respect their time

The moment someone clicks, deliver on the promise. Put the value up front in the first 30 seconds, then keep giving them a reason to stay. You have to keep earning their attention.

Rule 03

Make them want more of this

Build formats you can repeat, not one-off videos. A show people can binge sets up an expectation they come back for. Think of it as a channel with a show, not a folder you put videos in.

The biggest lever inside video

Packaging: the title and thumbnail do most of the work.

If one thing deserves more of your effort than the rest, it is the title and thumbnail. Improving the picture by 30 to 40 percent has produced up to 40 times the views on the same footage. Write 30 or more titles for every video. That sounds like a lot until you see that most are small variations, and writing them is how you land on the one that works.

Framework

Superlatives

World's fastest, biggest, smallest, best. Simple, visual words people take in at a glance.

World's fastest camera drone vs an F1 car

Framework

Versus formats

A straight comparison creates a bit of tension, and it works in any subject.

$1 vs $10 vs $100 golf club

Framework

Time comparisons

Shows the progression and the effort behind it. People click it.

10 minutes vs 1 hour vs 24 hours

Framework

Exclusive access

Private tour of, getting access to, behind the scenes at. It runs on the fear of missing out.

Private tour of a place people can't get into

Framework

Qualified lists

Being specific makes it feel made for the person reading it.

Five money habits the top 1 percent use

The 80 percent rule

Broad, then experiment

Eighty percent of what you make should interest eighty percent of your audience. Keep twenty percent for the experiments that push you forward.

ToolRiverside, record and auto-clip ToolVidIQ, title and tag testing ToolSocial Blade, channel intel
The opening

The first 30 seconds decide how the rest of the video does.

In a ten minute video, a fifth to a third of your effort should go into the first minute. If the opening is wrong, people decide early that the video is underwhelming and give you less room for the rest. That is the MrBeast principle, and it holds whether you have two subscribers or two million.

A good intro does four things in order. It delivers on the promise the title made, straight away. It gives just enough context, not a lecture. It teases something worth staying for. Then it moves into the main content without a jarring cut. Ninety-five percent of people watch with the sound on, so the audio has to carry as much as the picture.

Why brand channels fail

Treat it like a show, not a place to store videos.

Brand channels too often treat video like a storage locker. Product launches, the founder's letter, training material. You end up with a title like "Retail Fundamentals: Introduction to Mass Retail" getting 634 views in nine days. That was never going to find an audience.

The fix is to think like a TV show. Before anything gets made, three questions have to have real answers.

Question 01

Who is this for?

Name the person who would choose to watch this on a Friday night. If you can't, the video has no audience.

Question 02

Why would they watch?

What do they get out of it. Entertainment, a real answer, a look at something they can't otherwise see. Give them a reason to watch, don't just broadcast at them.

Question 03

Is it unique to you?

What can you make that others can't, because of the access, resources or authority you have.

That last question is the important one. You have some mix of three things to trade on. Access: early product, exclusive places, the people others can't reach. Resources: production, reach, technical depth, budget. Authority: genuine expertise, data, history, a credible voice. If you have spent years earning real authority in a field, that is the rarest of the three, and the one people rarely use.

The content model

Hub, help and hero: the mix that keeps a channel going.

  • 60%HubRegular content that builds the community. Weekly or fortnightly. The heartbeat.
  • 30%HelpEducational, evergreen, made to be found in search long after you post it.
  • 10%HeroThe tent-pole swings, a few a year, made for maximum reach.

Long-form and short-form do different jobs. The deeper relationship, and the better money, come from long videos watched like television. Shorts reach new people and let you test an idea cheaply before you commit. Roughly 70 percent long-form for depth, 30 percent short-form for discovery. Watch out for shorts inflation, where the view count climbs but nothing else does.

If you ever run this as paid

The creative pattern that lifts sales, from Google's own research.

Ads built this way carry roughly a 30 percent short-term sales lift. The letters are Attract, Brand, Connect, Direct.

A

Attract

  • Open with an emerging story and immediate impact
  • Several shots inside the first five seconds
  • Tight framing and pattern interrupts
  • Keep the logo out of the opening
B

Brand

  • Weave the brand into the story, not over it
  • Product first, not logo overlays
  • Say the name out loud for recall
  • Balance an early mention against skip rates
C

Connect

  • 97 percent of effective ads land an emotion
  • Relatable stories, human faces
  • Built for sound on
  • Authentic, made-by-a-person feel
D

Direct

  • Interactive elements through the ad
  • Hold the last 10 seconds for a clear ask
  • Action-oriented language
  • More than one way to respond
Video benchmarkAverageRange across industries
View rate31.9%15.7% to 51.4%
Click-through rate0.65%0.09% to 1.64%
Cost per view$0.026$0.01 to $0.19
Cost per thousand$9$1 to $23

For a trust business, the finance pattern is the relevant one: cost per view runs higher, roughly $0.40 to $0.60, but the content is educational and it converts at real value. It is credibility earned over time on camera.

Lever 03
Build tools people use

A tool answers a question in a way an article can't, and search sends people to it.

There is a useful advantage here. If Google can answer a question on its own results page, it keeps the visit. If it can't, it sends the person to whoever can. A tool, a simulator, a calculator, something people use, is the kind of thing it can't answer itself. Build that and people come to you for it.

Until recently you needed engineers for this. Now, with something like Claude Code acting as a technical colleague, deep knowledge and a bit of direction are enough to build small tools that do a real job. The rare combination is this: real expertise in your field, and the willingness to put it into something people can use.

Here are a few built this way, to show what small, useful tools can look like:

Example

A coach that grades your metrics

Drop in your marketing numbers and it sorts activity from outcomes, inputs from effects. A question answered interactively, not in a blog post.

See the coach →
Example

A diagnostician for briefs

Paste a brief and get a diagnosis in seconds. Weak work often starts with a brief that doesn't know how it wants to work.

See the diagnostician →
Lever 04
Automations that scale you

Showing up and reaching out, without a full-time job of it.

A lot of distribution work is repetitive: showing up in the right comment threads, watching the right people, reaching out at the right moment. By hand it eats a week. Set up well, a lot of it runs in the background and becomes a job for a sharp junior rather than a full-time hire. One caution first: some platforms, LinkedIn especially, fight automation hard, so this needs doing carefully and within their rules.

Automation

Comment authority

Turn up consistently, and usefully, in the comments of the people your audience already follows. Doing it regularly builds recognition, and it can be set up so it doesn't take over your day.

Automation

The watching brief

Keep a live watch on a list of people who matter to you. When one of them posts, or appears in the media, it prompts you to reach out while it's fresh.

Automation

Guest cross-pollination

Target the authors, journalists and people with a launch coming up. Warm, researched outreach to book them, and to get yourself booked on their platforms.

Automation

Lead magnet to nurture

A guide in exchange for an email address, then an automated sequence that follows up. Making the guide is the simple bit; the follow-up emails behind it are what bring people back.

ToolClaude Code, the technical colleague ToolClay, find and enrich the right people
Lever 05
Community and the funnel

If you weren't around, would you be missed?

All of this feeds one thing: a group of people who would notice if you stopped. That is the Seth Godin test, and it is a better measure than follower counts. The feeling you are building for is simple. If I don't follow this person, or I'm not in here, am I missing something.

The plumbing under it is not glamorous and not hard. The audience finds the content. The content offers a lead magnet. The magnet captures an email. The email list gets a reason to stay, week after week, until some of them are ready for what you sell. Get the housekeeping right, the flow into email and the follow-ups, and it runs in the background while you make the next thing.

L5
Activity: the posts, videos and emails you ship
L3
Memory: the pool of people who now know you
L1
Commercial: the few, later, who buy
Where to start

A twelve-month path from standing start to a system.

Months 1 to 2 / Foundation

Get honest about where you are

  • Audit what you're doing across each channel today
  • Name your access, resource and authority advantages
  • Set up how you'll measure
  • Build a content calendar you can keep
Months 3 to 4 / Testing

Find what clicks

  • Test three to five packaging and format ideas
  • Try one automation and one built tool
  • See which rooms respond
  • Gather a baseline you can compare against
Months 5 to 6 / Optimisation

Back what's working

  • Do more of the formats and channels that worked
  • Sharpen the message and the funnel
  • Bring in proper measurement
  • Start the first guest and partnership outreach
Months 7 to 12 / Scaling

Turn it into a machine

  • Put more behind what's working
  • Widen the calendar and the automations
  • Build the signature formats that become yours
  • Stand up the systems that keep it running
The traps

The five ways this goes wrong. Tap each one.

Treating a channel as a place to store corporate video. People don't choose to watch a press release.The fix: treat it like a show. Each piece earns its click, or it doesn't go up.
Over-producing until the thing loses the life that made it worth watching, and posting less because each one takes so long.The fix: consistency beats polish. A rhythm you can keep does more than the occasional masterpiece.
Running the same approach everywhere and wondering why it stalls in some places.The fix: each channel has its own rules. Do what suits each one.
Watching views and followers as if they were the goal, rather than a signal.The fix: tie the numbers to the business. Reach is a means to that, not the goal.
Holding out for the one tactic that changes everything, instead of running several and reading the results.The fix: try a lot of things, keep what works, and do more of it.
The short version

If you remember a handful of things, remember these.

Distribution is its own job, separate from making the work.

On video, packaging usually matters more than production. Getting the click is the first job.

Search has changed. Being mentioned by the AI matters as much as ranking on Google.

Build tools people can use. Search can't answer those itself, so it sends people to you.

Automate the repetitive work, carefully, so it isn't a full-time job.

A podcast spreads your name: every guest is another audience that hears it.

Real authority is the rarest advantage you have. Use it.

Try a lot of things, keep what works, do more of it. There is no silver bullet.

More from Run with Foxes

The book, the tools, and the case study behind all of this.

Book

The Fox Advantage

54 short chapters on how marketing teams thrive in an AI era. No jargon, no fluff.

Read it →
Free

74 answers

The questions marketers are asking about AI, brand, creativity and strategy, answered.

Browse them →
Tool

Effectiveness coach

Drop in your metrics and sort what matters from what just looks busy.

Try it →
Tool

AI writer

A writing system that checks brand, voice and positioning before it writes a word.

Try it →
Tool

Expert critique

Submit a plan and get it critiqued by eight expert personas. Built for workshops and teaching.

Try it →
Case study

Marketer of the Year

How evidence-based decisions took the National Lottery past €1B for the first time.

Read the story →
One last thing

None of this is secret. It just takes doing it consistently.

Everything here works when someone keeps at it, watches what's landing and why, and does more of what works. A lot of it isn't complicated. Give a sharp person the time and the right tools and this becomes their job. If any of it is worth a longer conversation, you know where I am.

More at runwithfoxes.com