Many B2B buyers are getting a lot more savvy nowadays. No longer are they content to rely on marketing and sales materials that make amazing promises—they like to do their own research on the products that they want to buy. Because of this, it’s become important to not just create quality content that addresses their pain points and questions, but also to place this content in front of the people who actually need it.
That’s exactly what content syndication is all about. Sure, you could place your best content in your company blog or even share them on social media platforms of your choice and you will get readership. The question there is: are the ones seeing your content the people who need it? Are they the ones who are likely to be swayed to become paying customers? You might snag a few out of many, but that’s hardly the most efficient way to go.
Content Syndication Allows for Specificity
Every business has an idea of who they want to talk to. They have ideal customer profiles that define the demographic, firmographic, and even technographic characteristics of the people who would want to know what you have to say. With content syndication, you can target these people specifically—saving you time, money, and effort that you would otherwise spend sorting through leads or prospects that don’t match. Here are the most effective platforms to go for that you probably haven’t thought about using.
1 – Telemarketing
Telemarketing saw its hey day in the 60s and 70s. While its utility is in somewhat of a decline given the more modern means to reach out, it’s still a lot more useful than many give it credit for. For one, provided you have an updated leads list, you can actually be talking to the people most likely to be interested in what you offer from the get-go. For another, you get a more or less immediate response to your offering them content—allowing you to react accordingly.
The key to success when using telemarketing to get your content out there is really to have a carefully thought-out nurturing plan in place. You need to have your telemarketers prepared to approach your leads effectively—that is, knowing how to get an “in” without being particularly obtrusive. More than that, they need to be able to provide just the right bit of information to whet the appetites of your leads so they want more content when it is offered to them.
The only real downside to telemarketing is that, if you get your timing off, you could really risk turning away a potential customer. Such is the case if you catch them at a “bad time” when they aren’t in quite the mood to be disturbed—no matter how interesting what you have to offer might be. Also, you have to have really good sales reps who can adapt to the unique circumstances that each call will place them in—reacting to objections properly and the like.
2 – Email
Another effective platform that many are quick to label as dead or dying is email. Much of the rhetoric behind that thinking stems from the fact that there really are quicker means of communication—particularly online. Video calls, messenger application, and social media chat boxes spring to mind. The truth is that, like telemarketing, there’s still a lot of utility to be had with email. The biggest advantage is getting to carefully think out and craft your message to suit each target specifically.
This personalization allows you to strike a chord and build rapport—and at a comfortable pace too, especially for the recipient. That’s because emails can be read or temporarily ignored at the whim of the recipient. There’s none of the in-the-moment pressure of a telemarketing call—your lead can dive in when they want to. Additionally, you can provide more links to all manner of content—even embed a video or two—as part of your strategy.
The key to success with using email for content syndication is to start with a verified list of leads with updated contact information and verified for accuracy. This will increase your open and read rates because you’re ideally sending content, again, to those clearly interested. Remember, though, that email syndication is a bit of a waiting game. You might even need to send out a follow-up email or two to speed things along. It’s a lot of work, but it’s worth it.
3 – Dedicated Platforms
Finally, you should also consider dedicated content syndication platforms. These are websites that actually host B2B content exclusively—and provide the means by which people can reach this content when searched. To reach the desired content, potential leads have to provide email addresses and other contact details as well as consent to being reached out. It’s a great way to gather new leads and even verify existing ones you send to the platform.
A particularly great advantage with dedicated platforms is that the best of the bunch provide you with key data that may include how much time was given to your content, which sections were focused on, and whether or not your content was shared by the reader. These data points actually help you better gauge interest as well as what areas were of particular interest. You can use this information for follow-up calls or emails—whichever is your preferred approach, really.
You’ll notice that dedicated platforms require the incorporation of others on this list for follow-ups and nurturing. You’ll also notice that, while there is a need for a leads list, it also actually helps expand that list. So, yes, there’s a lot of work involved, but it’s a whole integrated, self-supporting system at the end of the day. This makes it worth utilizing as a primary means to get your best, most relevant content out there and read—which is what matters anyway.
Work With the Experts
Unsurprisingly, at Internal Results, we host content on a dedicated platform so that our clients’ leads get the information that they need to make an informed decision on their purchases. We also provide the key data points that we mentioned above (and more) in order for you to better qualify your leads to focus on those who are most likely to buy.
More than that, we can help you from the get go by providing your quality leads from our own verified and vetted database of over 60M+ contacts from a wide range of industries and just about all countries in the world. This will help you expand you target list to those people you might not even have to considered—increasing your chances to close a sale.
Interested? We’re here to help you.
