Content syndication is a crucial lead generation approach for B2B enterprises. It allows you to showcase expertise and authority to a larger audience while generating leads and revenue for the business.
In short, content syndication helps transform your content into the most powerful lead generation move. Let’s find out how.
What is Content Syndication?
Content syndication distributes content on third-party publishing websites to increase brand awareness and reach. This includes formats like videos, whitepapers, blogs, eBooks, and research reports, which showcase the brand’s authority in its industry.
B2B lead generation focuses primarily on generating new, qualified leads. A secondary but also key objective is to grow the database of the brand.
For B2B leads to pass to the next level, lead generation specialists qualify the prospects based on a list of targeted questions. Depending on the campaign, specialists also work towards nurturing these leads for conversion.
But how can lead generation achieve this?
Buying groups are spending as much as 27% of their time making a purchase on researching independently online. It’s imperative that demand generation teams provide relevant solutions for customer problems through focused campaigns. They run these campaigns through social media, emails, telecalling, display ads, press articles, blogs, and other formats – driving traffic to syndicated content. Once the leads are interested in purchasing, they’re sent forward to the brand.
Content syndication plays a significant role for B2B brands to maintain an active online presence, generating and converting leads for business growth.
Why do you need content syndication for B2B lead generation?
Because content syndication has proven results. 30% of B2B marketers rate it as the most effective lead generation strategy.
This is why growth-focused brands should leverage content syndication.
- Amplified reach
It’s simple, the more platforms you can publish content on, the more it amplifies your reach. Reposting a blog or article on third-party websites can help you tap into and drive leads back to your website. And each time you publish a piece of content, you draw new sets of visitors, giving yourself increased exposure.
Not just reach. You’ll build an authoritative presence in your industry with valuable, helpful content for your audience.
For instance, Microsoft and Adobe syndicate high-quality content through Marketboats and our partner websites, growing their network of leads.
- High-quality lead generation
You can capture valuable lead data by syndicating lead magnet content (such as whitepapers, ebooks, and case studies) where prospects need to fill out an opt-in form.
Since the information is gated, only highly interested leads will download your content pieces. The details captured from prospects can be used for retargeting and nurturing warm leads with personalized offers.
Leads that don’t convert immediately can be moved into a nurturing funnel. To continue with the earlier example, Marketboats qualifies leads for its customers and offers customized lead nurturing services.
- Multiplied ROI
Syndicated content uses content marketing to promote content relevant to buyer pain points and highly contextual. This creates value for prospects, blended with lead generation.
If your focused strategy is done right, content syndication can move the audience towards conversion, bringing progressively higher ROI with each campaign.
But all’s not hunky dory with content syndication
Here’s what could go wrong:
- Not syndicating valuable content
While the result you’d expect from content syndication is acquiring more leads, you can’t push content that’s promotional and not valuable. Promotional information doesn’t seem helpful; it may move your audience away.
It’s better to share relevant topics with your ICP and educate them about available solutions for their needs.
- Incomplete qualification of leads
Before syndicating content on the web, it’s essential to have a defined process. Your sales or business development team should understand a qualified sales lead.
If a prospect downloads your syndicated content, they may not necessarily be ready to purchase your product right away. Having a lead nurture strategy in place becomes, therefore, essential.
- No direction for follow-ups
It may happen that a prospect downloaded your content piece. But there’s no saying if they remember your brand name or website a few days later. Handing over such leads to your sales team sets them up for failure.
Unless a process for strategic follow-ups, that focus on content rather than your product, is in place.
So, how do you run a successful content syndication campaign?
Setting up a Content Syndication Campaign
For an effective content syndication campaign, we recommend the below steps.
Step 1: Set realistic goals
You can start by defining your ideal customer profile (ICP) to set a clear value proposition for each target group. It’s also important to align your campaign goals (lead volume, lead quality, ROI) with the ICP and overall business objectives and benchmark them against your competitors.
Step 2: Choose content asset
The content you syndicate is a product of user intent. For example, if your audience includes large tech companies, you may want to include whitepapers in your strategy which shows expertise in your industry. Other content formats could include case studies, thought leadership articles, webinars, eBooks, infographics, and more.
Content assets also depend on the touchpoint you target. You can syndicate content to well-known press publications if you’re a construction company. But if you’re a CRM solutions brand targeted toward startups, social media could be a better touchpoint.
Step 3: Incorporate personalization
Use inbound and outbound personalization to full effect with relevant content for your target audience(s). You can present one topic in different formats or you could direct focused content pieces to different groups and different individuals in a group with ABM.
Step 4: Measure and analyze performance
Use metrics like propensity to close, time to close, win rate, and revenue potential to measure lead quality and closely assess your performance and partners. If a content piece isn’t working, you’ll know precisely why it’s not successful and take corrective action for better reach.
We’ve put our clients on the path to business growth with successful content syndication by following these 4 steps. If you want to discover the secret behind acquiring high-quality leads with every demand generation campaign, get in touch with us.
FAQs
How does content syndication differ from content distribution?
Content distribution deals with the dissemination of your content over various channels. Content syndication amplifies this content for lead generation through third parties.
Is guest blogging the same as content syndication?
Unlike content syndication, guest blogging involves creating unique content for third-party platforms without directly marketing your product.
