B2B Content Syndication: Popular Tactics and Metrics for Success

Summary

What is Content Syndication?

B2B content syndication refers to the process of publishing or republishing proprietary content across third-party websites and platforms. As such, part of ensuring the success of effective content syndication relies on finding the right syndication partner and establishing a relationship that is mutually beneficial.

The purpose of B2B content syndication is to take advantage of a syndication partner or syndication network to expand the reach of proprietary content with target audiences. The CMO’s challenge for finding a content syndication partner begins with establishing their reach within a shared audience or a ready-to-buy audience that their company stands to benefit from.

Depending on the intended objectives of syndicating content and the partner chosen, the potential of content syndication and results may vary. Each syndication partner has different protocols. They may choose to simply republish your work, edit it down to a shorter version, or link to the full piece with an excerpt.

In any case, numerous content formats stand to benefit from content syndication:

As such, B2B content syndication can be integral to the success of targeted content marketing campaigns by expanding the exposure of content and increasing the likelihood of it reaching its target audience on its preferred channels. Content syndication can also grow audiences and increase website SEO. This helps to boost brand image and awareness, as well as establish companies as authorities in their space.

Most Popular Methods of B2B Content Syndication

Effective content syndication is not only facilitated by finding the correct partner or platform for your content, but also by determining the right tactics of syndication to meet your content marketing objectives. There are various syndication methods to choose from to maximise both inbound and outbound marketing strategies:

Co-Marketing

Co-marketing is a partnership between two non-competitor companies with the same or similar audience.

Both companies work together on a piece of content or an entire campaign and then promote it on their website and across their platforms with backlinks. Co-marketing content is typically gated, with generated leads being shared between the two organisations resulting in both gaining double the leads they normally would expect.

Co-marketing agreements can be adjusted to meet the results desired by both parties. For example, co-marketing may also include two companies sharing costs, profits, and leads from running a live event or webinar. Smaller agreements may include guest blog posts on each other’s websites.

When searching for the right co-marketing partner, it is essential to first determine how their reach, audience, and expertise stand to benefit you. Factor in their reputation in the industry to determine if a partnership is worth the investment and establish a suitable agreement for the number of leads you would receive.

This is necessary to avoid collaborating with another company that may lead to your own reputation or standing as a thought leader being affected negatively.

Demand Gen vs Lead Gen: a Breakdown of Both

Content syndication is an effective tactic for both lead generation and demand generation, however, these terms are often confused with one another.

Guest Blogging

Blogging, in general, can be beneficial as an inbound content syndication method. However, where guest blogging and managing an in-house blog differ, is that guest posts are guided by a third party.

Different blogging platforms have different guidelines and style models that need to be followed before allowing guest posts to be published. Some restrictions may include features such as backlinks or topics covered.

As a result, it is imperative to find a platform that is not overly restrictive, has a good reputation, and boasts an optimal audience. Guest blogging is symbiotic and has the potential to benefit both the writer and the publisher with traffic.

Additional benefits such as social media growth, improved visibility, and brand awareness make guest blogging a powerful content syndication tactic. However, be sure to negotiate the terms of the agreement to maximise the benefits for both parties.

Paid Syndication and PPC Promotion

Paid content syndication methods such as pay-per-click promotions (PPC) can be an effective way of quickly boosting the reach of content on websites that add credibility. Popular platforms for running PPC campaigns for B2B content typically include LinkedIn and Facebook, but there are many paid syndication partners that can boost content.

The true success of PPC promotion comes down to a few different factors. For paid promotion to be effective, content first needs to be of high quality. Well-researched, insightful content that creates value for prospects is most likely to have the greatest impact.

Additionally, companies need to determine their budget for paid syndication and PPC promotion as the results of both strategies will likely depend on the investment made. Finding the right partner who will syndicate content across multiple channels, integrate PPC into campaigns, and provide access to performance data is crucial.

Determining whether paid syndication is worth the investment relies on the individual goals of a company, their budget, and assessing the results that a partnership would yield.

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Successful content syndication can result in the expansion of target audiences. However, to fully take advantage of this growth in reach, marketers should employ market segmentation to learn more about the needs and preferences of the market segments within their audience.

Telemarketing

Telemarketing is an effective form of content syndication for lead generation that can provide companies with many benefits. Telemarketing for B2B content syndication is the process of identifying and sharing content of interest with prospects via sales/SDR teams that confirm their interest.

The benefits of telemarketing for content syndication include building relationships with prospects, identifying intent faster, and verifying contact information. However, to take full advantage of these benefits, it is essential for salespeople to be adequately trained for carrying out successful telemarketing.

Not everyone is adept at talking on the phone to prospects, and blanket cold calling can often be damaging to a company’s reputation if mismanaged. Calls and scripts must be handled very carefully. As a result, telemarketing relies on tactful outreach and accurate contact information to be impactful.

Cold Emails

Cold emails are an efficient way of beginning communications with prospects or capitalising on successful telemarketing efforts. Fuelled by the right information about target markets and their various segments, sales teams can create customised and automated outreach email cadences to create or take advantage of interest.

Successful cold email tactics focus on providing educational opportunities for their target audiences by providing prospects with information that is relevant and valuable to their interests. This makes emails a prime candidate for syndicating content, due to their ability to boost reach by delivering content directly to your intended audience.

In the same way that telemarketing strategies face the challenge of avoiding unintentionally dissuading leads from making a purchase, cold emailing requires the same tactful approach. For cold emails to succeed and boost content syndication, they need to be crafted to stand out in a crowded inbox.

Cold emails and telemarketing can be influential as both sales and content syndication tactics but require the right strategies to successfully yield results.

Leverage Intent Data

Many of the challenges of outbound marketing and communications come from accurately determining the right time to contact leads, their level of interest, and what that interest is. As such, campaigns and their respective strategies are reliant on correct data for marketers and sales teams to make informed decisions together.

Intent data, when handled correctly, can serve as a filter for large groups of prospective clients. Data can be used to identify who is visiting the proprietary website of a company or researching the brand and its products on search engines and social media. This requires interpretation, but through proper examination, marketers can gain valuable insights to inform many strategies, including outbound marketing.

When data is used correctly, sales teams can better ensure that contacts receive content they are interested in, at a time they might benefit from it. Not only does this further content syndication efforts but also helps to nurture leads through the sales funnel.

Intent data, in theory, can be very insightful. However, it is important to recognise the limitations of intent data to understand its applications and determine the hype from reality, rather than using it as a one-step, fix-all solution.

Outlook 2022: What’s Next in B2B Marketing?

Tracking and measuring the intent of buyers is a constant challenge for marketers seeking accurate data. With the loss of Google Chrome cookies in 2023, this is set to change even further.

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Benefits of Content Syndication

Well-executed content syndication strategy can provide multiple benefits for companies looking to maximise the influence of their content.

Increase Reach to Target Audiences

By republishing and distributing content on third-party sites and platforms, as well as with additional tactics such as outbound marketing, B2B content syndication allows marketers to increase the reach of their content. This, with the guidance of multiple data sources, can help companies get content in front of their target audiences and compound its influence.

Lead Generation

Companies can use content syndication for lead generation purposes by effectively syndicating gated content with the right partners on third-party sites. With the right data, content can be adjusted, created, and personalised to attract warm leads. B2B content syndication leverages content libraries to nurture relationships with leads and streamline lead generation by boosting content’s reach.

Prospect Qualification

Brand Awareness and Brand Authority

Increased Traffic

Backlinks can drive more traffic to proprietary websites, improve SEO rankings, and facilitate lead nurturing. While this is hugely beneficial, it is important to choose the right partner, as each has their own policies and guidelines for the number of backlinks possible per syndicated piece.

Tracking the Success of Your Efforts

Determining the success of a B2B content syndication strategy requires knowledge of how to measure content syndication and the right variables and metrics to track.

Return on Investment (ROI)

Determining the ROI of content syndication marketing strategies can be a complicated and time-consuming process, as various tactics can take time to yield results. Due to the distribution and added utility from B2B content syndication, less investment is required, as content can be repurposed and adapted with relatively low costs. As a result, despite the difficulties of identifying ROI, lower costs often result in positive returns.

Lead Volume & Lead Quality

One of the main methods of tracking the success of distributing on various content syndication platforms is measuring engagement (lead volume), conversion, and qualification rates (lead quality). These metrics can take time to measure but can be influential in ensuring that content and syndication strategies are effective for lead generation and qualification.

Traffic

Tracking increased traffic can be an excellent starting point for evaluating the impact of content syndication. Findings from analytics can then be used to develop B2B content syndication strategies and choose the correct content syndication platforms. Driving more visitors to proprietary content and websites is a powerful way of boosting lead and demand generation.

Brand Lift

Although challenging to quantify, brand influence and standing as a thought leadership authority are another method of measuring the positive impact of content syndication. Tracking brand lift can be determined by the sharing of content and interactions. Brand lift can also be defined by increased and improved responses to content syndication marketing that lead to business opportunities.

Conclusion

B2B content syndication has its own challenges but when executed successfully, can compound the reach, effect, and ROI of content. Much like with other strategies, knowing how to measure content syndication is important to guaranteeing its success and ensuring that campaigns are regularly updated to maximise their effectiveness.

Content syndication, with the right partnerships and platforms, has the potential to continuously boost the reach of content, drive lead generation, and create demand that will lead to future sales and growth.

letstalk

At INFUSE we go beyond simple syndication. Our demand generation experts employ our proprietary Content Marketing Engine to develop targeted content marketing.

We leverage our in-house publishing platform to reach over 138+ million decision makers across 24 verticals and fill your sales funnel that we build with you.

LET’S WORK TOGETHER TO BUILD A STRATEGY THAT DRIVES YOUR GROWTH.

Get in touch with the team at [email protected]