According to SEMrush’s “The State of Content Marketing 2020 Global Report,” 79% of marketers indicate generating more quality leads is their top content marketing priority. This makes sense given that content has the ability to sway a potential lead into making a purchase when it speaks to what your audience is looking for. Of course, it’s important to effectively and efficiently get your content to the right people. That’s where content syndication comes in—it’s a potent tool that should be a part of your marketing campaigns.
What is Content Syndication?
Content syndication means taking your best content—the pieces that have already proven effective and useful in your SEO marketing efforts—and republishing it across different platforms. It’s vastly different from guest blogging, which involves wholly new and original content likely tailored for whichever website you’re for a guest of. It’s really all about getting more and greater mileage from content that already works by putting it in front of fresh eyes.
Almost any kind of digital content can be syndicated. Most commonly, it’s written material like blog posts, articles, white papers, and the like—but you can also syndicate infographics, videos, and even webinars. The only real requirement should be that it’s already has a track record of effective performance in your marketing and sales efforts. Otherwise, what’s the point of redistributing it?
Why You Should Syndicate Content?
- You gain more mileage out of existing work by expanding your audience
If you have a particularly successful piece of content—an eBook that has already converted more leads than similar works, for instance—you should try to get even more use out of it by getting it in front of more of the kinds of decision-makers you want to attract as customers. When you syndicate your content to other industry websites and platforms, you can build awareness and improve reach. You have several options when it comes to content syndication. First, you could go for a company blog that caters to the industry you operate in—provided they’re not competitors, naturally. Second, you can opt for industry news websites. Lastly, you can go for dedicated content syndication websites.
- You can better qualify existing leads
When you opt for dedicated content syndication websites, there’s an added benefit of being able to better qualify existing leads based on interest. How a lot of these platforms work is to take an existing customized list of yours as a target for syndication. They then take your content and place it in front of them—tracking such key metrics as engagement, interest based on readership, and even social shares. The last step is to give you a list of the most interested—sometimes the most intending to purchase—to guide further engagement.
Getting the Most Out of Content Syndication
Content syndication success stories abound, and the barrier for entry is not very high. If you want to be successful at it, you should follow these steps.
Step 1: Select Your Winning Content
First, you need to decide which content to syndicate. There are several criteria you should consider. The content has to have been published before. It has to be evergreen and still relevant. And it has to have successfully generated leads, converted readers, or boosted sales—or all of the above, really. Note that while you can certainly expand upon the paper you want to syndicate (or even edit it down to a shorter piece), you don’t want to lose the essence of what made it successful for you to begin with.
Step 2: Choose Your Target Audience/Decide Where to Syndicate
Zeroing in on the right audience often determines which websites you will syndicate to. The exception to this is if you go for a dedicated syndication service like PureSyndication, which allows you to choose the audience you want to target. If you opt for the former, you should next prioritize the websites that cater to a suitable audience—and then reach out to these websites to see if they will publish your content. Finally, you can also syndicate on your own website by re-distributing relevant pieces via email or your social networks.
Step 3: Track Key Metrics
To determine the success of your campaign, there are several key metrics you need to track. The most obvious of these is engagement, which depends on whatever mechanism you’ve provided for your readers to connect with you, such as an email address, a link to a landing page, or a built-in form. You can also request readership and social sharing statistics from some websites to get an idea of the audience’s depth of interest. All of this is easier with a dedicated content syndication partner—the best of them track these metrics as part of their SLAs.
Step 4: Compile Qualified Leads
Make sure that you make a note of which leads come in—or are qualified—as a result of your content syndication efforts. If possible, segment them into their own list in your database based on level of interest or even intent to purchase. It’s critical that you reach out as soon as you possibly can to ensure you convert those leads into buyers. Again, this is a lot easier again with a dedicated content syndication partner, because they often do this for you—with qualifications based on your specific requirements and fast turnover.
Step 5: Develop a Nurturing Program
While not strictly a part of content syndication itself, it’s worth mentioning that you should have a nurturing strategy in place to make the most of the quality leads you harvest. Your nurturing strategy should specify who should handle further contact with your qualified leads, what additional content should be used to further develop the lead, and a detailed process flow to check how effective each step is. After all, content syndication is only one part of your overall marketing campaign.
Content syndication is a great way to get the most out of great material you already have. It’s also a great way to reach more people that could potentially become paying customers. With the right content syndication platform, it even becomes an amazing tool to qualify your existing leads lists to uncover who’s interested and who is more likely to buy what you have to offer. Approach content syndication with the right content—and even the right syndication partner—and it’s sure to help your bottom line.
Realize Greater ROI with PureSyndication
DemandScience’s PureSyndication platform lets you start your syndication efforts on the right foot. With our list of over 131 million verified B2B contacts, we can find the right people that fit your criteria—and even offer look-alikes that expand your reach. When we syndicate your content, we track key datapoints that signal not just interest but intent to purchase—which will help your further nurturing efforts. Talk to us. We’ll be more than happy to help your campaigns realize greater ROI.
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