Are you a B2B content marketing guru yet? After sharing our tips on building an awesome content strategy, creating quality content, and a free content planner, we hope so!
As we end our content marketing series (*sheds a tear*) we couldn’t miss out an important part of the content marketing puzzle – syndication. Content syndication is ‘the process of pushing your blog, site, or video content out into third-party sites’ which only 26% of B2B marketers are currently adopting.
When you’ve invested so much time, effort and creativity in your new article or guide, it’s tempting to reap joy watching those on-site views and social shares slowly…creep…up. But, to deliver real engagement, leads and ROI results, syndication can offer a fast-track route to getting your content in front of the right people, if done well.
So – if you’re new to syndication and eager to deliver ROI from your blogging activity, make note of these critical considerations for guaranteed content results.
1. Select your content carefully
Fear not, content marketers – another shiny new blog is not needed. Recycling existing content for syndication is an effective and efficient way to leverage your blog archive. And, if approached with care, can even benefit your SEO activity.
Before you eagerly cut and paste away, remember when we discussed the importance of making sure your content that is measurable against your business goals?
Here’s where those metrics really come in handy.
Use your measurable tactics to analyse which piece of content delivered the highest engagement, clicks or leads before you start syndicating. Choose your best performing article according to the data and you’ll have the confidence and analytical backing that it will perform even better when scaling its reach.
2. Select your publications even more carefully
Dreaming of your blog appearing on the likes of Forbes or CNN? No matter how informative and creative your blogs are, competition is fierce. Finding a balance between reputable vs. accessible publications is essential to syndication that works without wasting your time.
High reach, high competition: Creating content for the high profile publications is powerful for brand perception and substantial content reach, but higher competition for article space means you might not always be successful.
The key to standing out from the rest is credibility and relevance. Following a publication’s ‘editorial guide’ or ‘contributor rules’ is definitely a good place to start. Plus, if you can deliver content tailored to the topics they cover (in the format they like to see) you’ll have a much higher advantage over other writers. But don’t lose patience when a rejection email appears in your inbox, persistence is essential.
Low reach, low competition: When it comes to lower profile publications, less competition means you’ll have a much higher chance of your blog submissions being accepted. And because their topics generally tend to be more niche, you’ll be able to serve catered content to your target audience.
But, don’t forget the importance of relevancy when selecting your publications – will they really drive the type of traffic you want to see? Or just blind you with inflated traffic from visitors that will never convert?
Tip: Use Lead Forensics to uncover the identity of your blog visitors and how they arrived at your website. You’ll be able to qualify best performing publications and attribute leads back to your content.
Deliver more than just traffic
Once you’ve carefully selected your blog and publication, you’re almost ready to hit ‘publish’. But will your content deliver against your content marketing goals? Ensure your benchmarks for reach, engagement and conversions are firmly set to ensure visibility of performance.
Like any other campaign, creating content that converts should remain goal #1. Ensuring you optimise content for the reader’s journey is essential if you want to see those leads flooding in. Think about the journey you’re sending the reader on and consider how they will be:
- Directed to your original on site post
- Encouraged to share your blog across social media
- Guided to a gated piece of content or call to action
- Converted into a lead
By allocating relevant metrics to each point of the journey, you’ll effectively identify opportunities for improvement and be on your way to delivering real content syndication results.
Download the Ultimate Content Planner 2.0 to get deep into content metrics, measure your current content marketing activity and plan your future syndication performance.
This blog was originally posted on the Lead Forensics website. Read the original article here.
