Last week, we discussed the importance of B2B content syndication and offered strategies to optimise your content syndication results. However, before you dive right in, there are some planning and preparation steps that you need to perform.
The following is a look at some of the most critical actions to employ before you start with B2B content syndication.
Define Your Content Syndication Goals
As with any form of marketing, the best place to begin is with goals. Setting objectives will help with the following:
- driving effective implementation of core strategies,
- giving you measurable outcomes to evaluate success, and
- helping you guide the efforts of employees in carrying out their various roles.
Increased market reach, more site traffic, more subscribers, improved response rates and higher return on investment are all shared and useful goals with content syndication.
However, I would suggest you dive deeper into your goals. Ask yourself why. Why do you want more traffic? Why do you want more subscribers? Don’t apply marketing metrics to your program, apply business metrics.
Your CEO doesn’t want to know about reach and clicks and traffic. He wants to hear about new leads, sales & customers that your content syndication program is producing.
Identifying Your Top-Performing Content
Also, given the complexity of putting a successful content syndication strategy in place, focus on your best-performing content. Spend time researching and reviewing the performance of your content. Make a note of markets, topics, products, formats, channels, and features that contribute to the best results.
In some cases, you can repurpose existing content as part of your strategy to get it in front of more prospects. Your research will offer insights on the best types of content to produce to attract and retain visitors and clients.
Define Your Content Syndication Target Market
I’m sure your business has a general perspective on its target audience. However, you should get as precise as possible in defining the marketplace for your content. Typically, the most effective content syndication programs distribute your most relevant content to your ideal business target. You could have multiple target personas within the same organisation. Particularly if your company offers a range of solutions that appeal to different firmographic profiles.
If you choose a loosely-defined marketplace, prospects have to sift through content that may not be as relevant to them. And this can lead to disinterest, unsubscribes, and a negative vibe towards your company. Instead, define your ideal target for each piece of content so that every item is valuable to each of your recipients.
Determine What Content to Syndicate
Now that you know your market and the content that has performed best in the past, you can prepare your content creation plan. Unless you have a team that has already built a series of guides and eBooks, figure out which of your existing articles to repurpose. Come up with new title ideas, and assign them to your team to convert them into a series of eBooks or guides.
Next, set up a delivery schedule with the right sequencing of content. You can also include your follow-up conversations via telemarketing and email to target the most qualified prospects. A clear schedule helps you avoid mistakes that are common with spontaneous and poorly coordinated development and distribution.
In addition to selecting the content to syndicate, part of your strategy involves deciding how to present it. For instance, you can distribute content with headlines only, with headlines and excerpts, or in full-length. A variety of factors contributes to the most appropriate approach. If you want to drive traffic to your site, a headline and excerpt are sensible. To get your full message in front of a recipient, with planned follow-up communication, delivering the full article is a better option.
Simplify The Most Effective Distribution Method
Assuming you prefer to work with an expert content syndication partner as opposed to going it alone, you want to have this partner in place well before you begin to execute. In fact, ideally, ensure your partner is in place as you go through these other preparation activities. Their advice could be extremely helpful throughout the whole process.
Identifying a partner that offers substantial capabilities with firmographic and intent data, allows you to target prospects more effectively. Intent data gives you much more insight on how your targeted prospects go about their buying journey. This makes it easier for you to match the right content with the right prospects.
In addition, you also want a partner that understands the various paths to distribute your syndicated content. Including both paid and unpaid channels. Experts in syndication normally have well-defined processes that maximise research, content selection, distribution, and follow-up.
Wrap Up
The planning phase of content syndication is as crucial to your long-term success as the quality of your prospects and content. Take the time and effort to follow all of these outlined steps to achieve the best results possible.
If you would like assistance with your content syndication strategy, talk to us about how we work with similar companies to yours. Drop us a line below.
