B2B marketers can’t get enough content syndication. According to Activate Marketing Services, it’s one of the fastest-growing lead generation channels, and in 2022 alone, nearly 44% of tech marketers increased their content syndication spend.
So, why all the hype? It’s because content syndication combines the power of content marketing with data-driven strategies to entice and engage target audiences across the web. And it’s a proven tactic to increase reach, generate quality leads, and improve ROI. Moreover, content syndication is one of the easiest, most cost-effective ways to drive valuable marketing revenue—you can leverage the content you already have without spending extra cash creating new assets.
But those are just the general advantages. Now, let’s talk specifics.
Here are the top five benefits of using content syndication for your next marketing campaign:
Grow Your Reach
Syndicating your content across multiple websites or publications helps expand its reach to a much larger readership. In fishing terms, it’s the equivalent of casting a wide net—the wider exposure delivers more brand awareness and increases chances for engagement.
If you opt for the cost-free approach to content syndication, your in-house marketing team can share top-performing assets across free distribution channels, including social media sites (i.e., LinkedIn) and various open syndication platforms, like Medium, Quora, or Slideshare. And since these sites garner such massive audiences, you can easily increase your content’s reach outside your immediate network. Plus, if your content is compelling enough, readers might want to share the assets themselves, which can help grow your reach even further and drive critical brand awareness.
When you choose to work with a paid content syndication vendor, however, you can experience a far more strategic approach. That’s because content syndication vendors will work with you directly to develop a thorough understanding of your target segments and ideal buyer personas. Then, they’ll use this information to find the most relevant syndication channels for your content. Not only will you be able to extend your content’s reach to general audiences; you’ll also be able to place it directly in front of people who align more closely with your target customers.
Generate High-Quality Leads
Besides expanding brand reach to larger audiences, content syndication can also help drive high-quality leads, which makes it a valuable element to your overall lead generation strategy. Plain and sweet, here’s how it works:
- You syndicate gated content to various distribution channels or networks.
- People find your content through syndicated channels.
- People click through to your landing page, where they exchange contact information to gain access to your content.
- You generate relevant downloads and capture prospect data.
- Voila—leads.
With free content syndication, you can certainly drive a good number of leads, but it’ll take some extra effort to filter through all your prospects and identify those who better meet your ICP criteria. But don’t worry, this shouldn’t be a deal breaker—you can streamline this process by developing a collaborative lead scoring system with your sales team. This allows you to quantifiably measure the quality level of your prospects and determine who, among the bunch, seem ready for sales outreach.
Working with a paid content syndication partner can get you the same results, just a whole lot faster and with much more efficiency. Syndication vendors blend key targeting capabilities with added layers of data insights to strategically suss out top quality leads from your content syndication efforts. This allows you to prioritize more profitable sales opportunities from a short list of quality leads, which ultimately accelerates pipeline growth and revenue.
Build Your Brand Credibility
Content syndication also offers ample opportunity to build brand credibility among target buyers, which helps position you and your company as trusted guides of the customer journey. To do this, focus on syndicating content that offers substantial value to your audience. This can be anything from a thought leadership-based piece to an insights-driven benchmark report, or a customer case study that validates the effectiveness of your product. The more your content can express a clear understanding of your customers’ business concerns and pain points, the more you’ll be seen as a reliable, credible source of information—and that goes a long way with buyers.
Whether you implement free content syndication in-house or with a paid vendor, the strategic formula remains the same:
- Optimize your content to ensure it offers significant value to your customer base.
- Develop partnerships with trusted industry influencers to further boost brand credibility.
Optimize content, emphasize value
The content you syndicate plays a major role in how customers view your credibility, so be sure to syndicate pieces that highlight real value. Your content should include:
- Actionable tips and practical advice to demonstrate a deep understanding of your customers’ needs and pain points
- Customer success stories that showcase how effective your product is in resolving business challenges
- Original research or insights that establish you and your brand as expert sources of industry knowledge
Align with other credible sources
You can also build more trust and brand credibility among target audiences when you support your syndication efforts with a dose of influencer marketing. Whether you align with another reputable brand, a relevant, top-authority publisher, or an influential industry specialist, you can leverage these partnerships to further boost credibility by association.
As an organization, you might already have relationships with niche industry publications that cater to your target audience, so lean on these partnerships to validate your expertise and authenticity. If one of these influential publishers happens to reshare your syndicated content, it’s an official co-sign on their part, and it extends your credible reputation to larger audiences.
Some content syndication vendors can even help you identify relevant partnership opportunities based on target customer criteria and overall campaign goals, which is the fastest and more productive approach.
Boost SEO with Improved Backlink Authority
Let’s start with the basics.
What’s a backlink?
A backlink is any link connecting one website to another. If someone publishes a blog and includes a link to a related piece of content from your site—that would be an example of an external link to your page. On the flip side, your page would consider that a backlink to the outside site.
OUTSIDE SITE
- Publishes content with external link to your site
backlink
YOUR SITE
- Contains backlink from outside site
What is backlink authority?
Backlink authority is a measurement of your website’s relevance and overall trustworthiness based on the total number of backlinks it contains. The more reputable those backlinks are, the more search engines recognize your site as a reliable, authoritative source.
How does backlink authority impact SEO?
Think of backlink authority as a big highway billboard that endorses your website’s credibility. When search engines recognize your site contains a high volume of quality backlinks, it’s seen as a stamp of confidence; as a result, search engines rank your page higher in keyword searches.
How do you improve backlink authority to boost SEO?
There are a handful of ways to optimize your content’s backlink authority and improve SEO rankings. For content syndication, especially, this is an important step to effectively generate the right kind of results from your campaign. Here are some examples of how to do it:
See what competitors are up to
To improve backlink authority, do some recon on your competitors to see how effectively their backlinking strategies are. If you happen upon a site that offers another way to attract quality backlinks, try it out and see how it works for you. But don’t just copy and paste; instead, make that strategy your own by providing additional value based on your product offerings.
Perform a backlink audit
Find and replace dead links across your website using a tool like Dead Link Checker. It’s fast, free, and can help you replace inactive or irrelevant backlinks scattered throughout your content. Likewise, you can perform backlink audits on sites that share your niche business focus. If you spot a reputable site with dead links, reach out to the site’s webmaster to pitch your content as a credible replacement.
Write a guest blog for another top-authority site
Content syndication and guest blogging are not the same thing, but they do work in tandem. While content syndication involves sharing your published content to outside channels, guest posting isn’t a reposting at all; rather, it’s when someone creates a new piece of content specifically for another brand’s site. However, once that guest post publishes, you’re more than welcome to syndicate it to your own channels, giving you double the brand visibility, boosted backlink authority, and increased web traffic.
Pitch interviews reputable industry experts
The more you align yourself with reputable industry thought leaders, the more you establish your brand as an equally credible source, and it’s a fast, effective way to attract top-quality backlinks. Pitch interviews, case studies, and testimonials (among other content types) to well-respected industry cohorts, then syndicate those pieces across your chosen channels. When audiences recognize your association with industry experts, you solidify credibility for your brand and increase the likelihood of target customers clicking through to your site.
Scale Your Content ROI
Expanding reach, generating quality leads, improving brand credibility, and boosting SEO performance—all these benefits add up to the most important measure of content syndication success: enhanced ROI. Take it from our friends at Quit Genius.
Thanks to our content syndication solution, PureSyndication, Quit Genius was able to generate over $4M in annual reoccurring revenue, achieve a 50% decrease in cost per lead, and shave precious time from the sales cycle. You can read their case study here.
Fuel the top of your funnel with content syndication
Want to upgrade your lead generation strategy and build valuable brand credibility at the same time? Try on content syndication for size. It’s one of the most effective ways to achieve several key marketing objectives at once, and the best part? You really don’t need an overload of resources to make it happen—if you already have top-performing content in your existing library, use it to your advantage.
And if you’re curious about starting a content syndication campaign of your own, make sure to check out our webinar, “Supercharge your Strategy with Content Syndication.”
