Sensonio’s Content Distribution Problem: $10K Videos With 100 Views

Sensonio’s Content Distribution Problem: $10K Videos With 100 Views

You’ve hired a production company. Shot interviews with your executives. Created motion graphics. Edited for weeks. The final product is beautiful—professional lighting, crisp audio, compelling storytelling. You upload it to YouTube, post it on LinkedIn, and wait for the views to roll in.

Three months later: 127 views.

The video cost $10,000. Your cost per view is $78.74. Something has gone catastrophically wrong, but most B2B marketers misdiagnose the problem. They think they need better content. They need better distribution.

In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Martin Kosak, CMO at Sensonio, identified this as one of the most common—and expensive—mistakes in B2B marketing. It’s not a Sensonio-specific problem. It’s an industry-wide failure that wastes millions of marketing dollars annually.

The Creation Obsession

B2B marketing suffers from a creation obsession. Companies pour resources into producing content—articles, videos, whitepapers, webinars—but treat distribution as an afterthought.

The budget breakdown reveals this bias. A company might spend $15,000 on video production and $500 on promotion. Or dedicate three weeks to writing a comprehensive guide but only one day to distribution. The implicit assumption: if you create something good enough, distribution takes care of itself.

“I think what many, maybe competitors or companies are struggling is that they create really expensive content like, let’s say professional product video, but they don’t perform very well on the distribution part,” Martin observes.

This is the distribution gap—the space between content creation and content impact. Most companies fall into this gap without realizing it exists.

Why Distribution Gets Ignored

Several dynamics conspire to make distribution the neglected stepchild of content marketing.

First, creation is tangible. You can point to the video, the article, the infographic. You can show it to leadership, get approval, feel productive. Distribution is ephemeral—emails sent, posts scheduled, outreach conducted. It’s harder to see, harder to demonstrate, harder to celebrate.

Second, creation has a finish line. You wrap production, publish the final product, check the box. Distribution never finishes. It’s an ongoing process of promotion, repurposing, and amplification that continues for months after publication.

Third, creation feels creative. It’s the “sexy” part of marketing. Distribution feels mechanical—scheduling posts, sending emails, tracking metrics. Marketers gravitate toward the work that feels more interesting.

Fourth, many marketers underestimate distribution complexity. They assume “just post it on social” suffices. They don’t recognize that effective distribution requires as much strategy, effort, and budget as creation itself.

The result, as Martin notes: expensive content “just ends on their YouTube channel or LinkedIn with some hundred views, but that’s it.”

The Unmaximized Potential

Here’s what makes the distribution gap so painful: the content itself might be excellent. The video could genuinely help prospects understand complex problems. The guide could answer questions sales teams hear constantly. The webinar could showcase thought leadership that differentiates the brand.

All that potential sits untapped because the content never reaches its intended audience.

“They don’t maximize the potential how they could work with such a video after it was already created,” Martin explains. This is the core insight: content has potential energy—value locked inside that only gets released through distribution.

Think of it like inventory. You can manufacture the best product in your category, but if it sits in a warehouse without sales channels, distribution networks, or marketing support, it generates zero revenue. Content works the same way. Creation builds the asset. Distribution unlocks the value.

The Actual Cost of Undistributed Content

When that $10,000 video gets 127 views, the cost isn’t just the wasted production budget. It’s the opportunity cost of everything else that budget could have funded.

You could have created ten simpler videos with better distribution plans. You could have invested in distribution infrastructure—email lists, media relationships, promotion channels—that would benefit multiple pieces of content. You could have hired a distribution specialist instead of paying premium rates for production value that nobody sees.

But the real cost is psychological. When expensive content underperforms, it breeds cynicism about content marketing broadly. Leadership questions whether content works at all. Future content budgets get cut. Teams get demoralized.

The irony: the content didn’t fail. The distribution failed. But because creation is more visible than distribution, content gets blamed.

What Effective Distribution Looks Like

So what does it mean to “maximize the potential” of content, as Martin describes it? It means treating distribution as a multi-channel, multi-phase campaign rather than a one-time announcement.

For video content, effective distribution includes:

Owned channels: Email newsletters to segmented lists. Embedded on relevant website pages. Featured in blog posts that provide context. Shared in customer onboarding sequences. Sent to prospects by sales teams.

Social platforms: LinkedIn posts (not just uploads—native posts with teaser clips). Twitter threads breaking down key insights. Community shares in relevant Slack groups or forums. Multiple posts over weeks, not just launch day.

Paid amplification: Promoted LinkedIn posts targeting specific titles. YouTube ads to relevant audiences. Retargeting to website visitors. Sponsored newsletter placements.

Repurposing: Audio extracted for podcast distribution. Transcripts turned into articles. Key quotes converted to social graphics. Sections clipped into multiple short-form videos.

Outreach: Sent to industry media for potential coverage. Shared with partners who might amplify. Offered exclusively to email subscribers before public release. Pitched to podcasts for discussion.

Long-tail promotion: Added to nurture sequences. Included in sales enablement. Referenced in future content. Reshared periodically as evergreen content.

Each of these touchpoints requires planning, resources, and execution. That’s why effective distribution often costs more than creation.

The Budget Reallocation

Martin’s observation suggests a radical reallocation of content budgets. Instead of spending 90% on creation and 10% on distribution, consider inverting the ratio—or at least moving to 50/50.

What does this look like in practice?

Option A: Create one exceptional video with a $5,000 production budget and a $5,000 distribution budget. The distribution budget funds promoted posts, email campaigns, paid placement, and ongoing promotion across multiple channels for three months.

Option B: Create three simpler videos for $3,000 each with $1,000 distribution budgets for each. The production quality is good enough—not exceptional, but clear and professional. Each video gets sustained distribution support.

Either approach likely outperforms the status quo: one $10,000 video with effectively zero distribution budget beyond initial social posts.

The key insight: at a certain point, incremental improvements in production value deliver less impact than initial investments in distribution. The difference between a $3,000 and $10,000 video might be noticeable but not transformative. The difference between $0 and $3,000 in distribution is the difference between 100 views and 10,000 views.

The Distribution-First Mindset

Perhaps the most important shift is moving from creation-first to distribution-first planning. Before creating content, ask:

How will we distribute this? Through which channels, to which audiences, over what timeframe?

What distribution resources do we have? Email lists, social followings, media relationships, promotion budgets?

What distribution capabilities do we need to build? Are we missing channels, tools, or relationships that would maximize impact?

What’s our distribution budget? Not just creation costs—what will we spend promoting this content after it’s created?

How will we repurpose this? What derivative assets can extend distribution across additional channels?

If you can’t answer these questions satisfactorily, you’re not ready to create. Distribution planning should precede creation, not follow it.

The Systematic Solution

Fixing the distribution gap requires systematic change, not just tactical adjustments.

First, split content budgets explicitly between creation and distribution. Make distribution a line item that gets protected, not residual budget that gets cut.

Second, assign distribution ownership. Someone needs to be responsible for maximizing content reach—not just publishing, but sustained promotion.

Third, build distribution infrastructure before creating content. Grow email lists, cultivate media relationships, establish social audiences, develop partner networks. Content created without distribution channels is content that will underperform.

Fourth, measure distribution metrics as rigorously as creation metrics. Track reach, engagement, channel performance, and cost per impression. Make distribution performance visible.

Fifth, create less and distribute more. Most B2B companies would generate better ROI by cutting content production by 50% and doubling distribution investment.

The Reality Check

Martin’s observation about competitors and companies “struggling” with distribution performance isn’t a minor operational issue. It’s a strategic failure that undermines entire content operations.

When you create professional product videos that “just ends on their YouTube channel or LinkedIn with some hundred views,” you’re not getting bad ROI. You’re getting negative ROI—spending money to produce assets that don’t achieve objectives.

The fix isn’t creating better videos. It’s building better distribution systems. Until B2B marketing treats distribution as seriously as creation—investing equivalent resources, assigning clear ownership, measuring performance rigorously—the distribution gap will continue consuming budgets without delivering results.

Your next video doesn’t need better production value. It needs a distribution plan that ensures it doesn’t become another $10,000 asset with 100 views.