How To Implement A Content Syndication Lead Generation Program
In the digital landscape, content is king. Producing high-quality, engaging, and relevant content is crucial for attracting and generating leads and converting leads into customers. However, creating enough interest and traffic to engage your audience correctly can take time and effort. This is where a B2B content syndication lead generation program comes in.
B2B content syndication strategy for the complex sale, is the process of allowing other websites and publishers to republish your content while still retaining ownership. Publishing your content on other high-traffic sites exposes your brand to new audiences and generates more leads.
A content syndication campaign and marketing strategy can be a prolific lead generation program when appropriately implemented.
Benefits of B2B Content Syndication
There are several key benefits of using the content syndication campaign process for lead generation:
Leads - Syndicating content is a force multiplier when using a piece of content to generate leads. The more traffic a piece of content generates, the more opportunities to convert readers to leads.
Increased Reach - Related to leads, syndicating your content allows you to get in front of a larger audience of potential buyers that you may have yet to be able to reach on your own. You can significantly expand your reach by leveraging the traffic and audiences of publishing partners.
Brand Awareness - Getting your content in front of new eyes increases awareness of your brand, offerings, and expertise. Readers who enjoy your syndicated content will likely visit your site and engage further, especially if you can create syndication opportunities on high-quality, high-trafficked industry web properties.
Credibility - Having content published on authoritative, well-known industry sites lends credibility to a brand by associating it with respected platforms. When high-quality content is syndicated on reputable sites, it helps establish the author and their brand as a trusted thought leader and reliable source of information in their field.
Backlinks/SEO - The content syndication process allows you to gain backlinks from high authority sites, which can help boost your site's search ranking. This improved SEO also aids lead generation efforts.
Guaranteed results - When using paid syndications, which means you pay to have your content promoted on a web property, it’s possible to guarantee the number of leads you receive from the partnership.
Not all websites and publications are equal regarding a content syndication campaign. You want to align content syndication to generate high quality leads with reputable content syndication partners that reach your target market and audience. Consider content syndication on:
Industry publications - Get your content featured on authority sites that align with your niche. This provides credibility while putting your content in front of an engaged audience. You can ask most industry publications about both free and paid placements.
Influencers - Influencers' online publications and social media properties are often eager for expert content from other industry experts and thought leaders. Securing a guest post or dedicated space can provide rich lead gen opportunities.
Forums/communities - Pay attention to active industry forums and online communities. You can provide valuable insights from your content and refer people to your thought leadership, which positions you as an expert.
Content Syndication Agencies - Content marketing agencies can be a great content syndication provider. They are experts in using your content to generate leads via free and paid syndication. Consider tapping into this expertise and forming a partnership.
Aggregator sites - Sites like Medium accept syndicated content while providing author credits and backlinks.
Content syndication platforms - The significant advantage of content syndication platforms like Outbrain is they provide access to an extensive network of partner sites and publishers, allowing you to amplify your reach easily. Additionally, their self-serve interfaces make it simple to promote content. However, these platforms can be expensive, with difficult minimum spending and opaque pricing models. There's also little control over exact placement, so your content may end up on spammy or irrelevant sites. While networks like Outbrain can expand your audience, poor targeting can lead to low engagement and negative brand associations. Careful testing and optimization are required to ensure Cost Per Click pricing is justified by lead value.
Opt-in lists - Purchasing paid access to a publisher's opt-in email lists can be an impactful way to generate leads fast. You can generate highly qualified leads by promoting your content directly to engaged subscribers who are already interested in a topic. Using a standard model called Cost Per Lead or CPL, you can negotiate to pay only for leads, not clicks. Ask your top industry publications if they offer CPL-based B2B content syndication services.
Optimizing Content for Syndication
Source: Wordstream
You'll get the best results from the content syndication process by optimizing your content marketing budget and team accordingly:
Focus on quality over quantity - Lengthy posts with truly useful information perform best. Google calls this content E.A.T., which means Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Content syndication works best and is most appealing to other web properties when you start with E.A.T. content.
Make it evergreen - Contents should not be time-sensitive, so it remains relevant indefinitely. Evergreen pieces have a longer shelf life for your target audience.
Include keywords - Use relevant keywords in titles, subheads, text, and URLs, to help with SEO and discovery. But don't over-optimize by stuffing keywords into your content.
Include multimedia - Images, videos, charts, and infographics help break up text and engage readers.
For ungated, use lead magnets - it's crucial to include relevant calls-to-action and lead magnet offers within the piece to generate conversions from new audiences. An example is mentioning a free guide, template, or other gated resource that provides additional value and incentivizes readers to opt in. Well-placed lead magnets and CTAs encouraging readers to engage further can significantly boost lead generation from syndicated content.
For gated, use landing pages - When promoting gated content like ebooks, templates, or guides, it's critical to have optimized landing pages for readers to access the content. These pages should load quickly, follow best practices for copy and layout, and have a clear path for visitors to enter their information to register. Optimized landing pages reduce the lead capture process friction and result in higher opt-in and conversion rates, enabling you to generate more leads for your sales team from your syndicated gated content.
Self-Syndicating Your Content
You don't always need a content syndication vendor to generate new leads and more traffic from your content. You can look to your existing platforms to get potential leads and extend your reach:
Share on social media - Promoting new blog posts, articles, and other content via social media expands visibility beyond just your owned channels. Driving traffic from social platforms allows you to put content in front of relevant audiences, spark engagement, and boost interest in the material for lead generation. Break down your E.A.T. content into smaller, digestible bites and post them on your social media accounts.
Highlight on your website - Display syndicated articles prominently on your site. Many sites now put their most recent articles on the front page. This creates brand credibility for new site visitors.
Link internally - Link to syndicated content from relevant pages and posts on your site. One such method is called the Pillar/Cluster. The pillar-cluster content organization model involves creating pillar content that covers broad topics and serves as a foundational post, then developing clusters of supplementary content that link to the pillar page.
Email subscribers - If you have a list, notify subscribers when new syndicated content is published.
Paid promotion - Consider pay-per-click, such as Google Ads or social media advertising, to get syndicated content in front of target audiences. Partnering with publishers to get access to their opt-in email lists to promote your gated content is a great way to generate targeted leads.
Multichannel promotion - Promote content across every channel - email, social, SEO, PPC, PR, etc.
Setting Objectives and Key Results for a B2B Content Syndication lead generation strategy
To determine the success of your content syndication campaign, it’s essential to identify specific objectives and measurable key results (OKRs) to track performance.
Source: Intuit/Mint
Here are some examples of OKRs you may want to set:
Objective
Grow overall website traffic through B2B digital content syndication growth marketing partnerships.
Key Results
Achieve 5+ new syndication partnerships per quarter
Increase website visits driven from syndicated content by 25% quarter-over-quarter
Obtain syndication placements on three high-domain authority sites
Objective
Generate more marketing-qualified leads (MQLs)
Key Results
Attain a 10% increase in monthly site MQLs from syndicated content
Improve opt-in conversion rate from syndicated posts by 15%
Syndicate content to channels focused on target buyer personas
Objective
Build brand awareness through email marketing and thought leadership
Key Results
Get featured author placement in one major industry publication
Increase social shares of syndicated content by 30%
Secure backlinks from syndication sites to improve domain authority
Tracking performance data like traffic leads generated and engagement metrics against clear OKRs allows you to continuously refine your content syndication campaigns and promotion strategies over time. Setting actionable objectives drives consistent execution and improvement in future marketing campaigns.
Takeaway
B2B content syndication can also be pivotal in expanding reach and generating quality leads. But it requires carefully selecting a content syndication program and outlets, developing high-quality evergreen and content syndication leads, promoting syndicated pieces, and measuring performance. Content syndication campaigns can become a top lead generation tactic with the right strategy.