Introduction
The most common issue that most B2B marketers face is a lack of traffic. Although there are numerous methods for attracting new visitors, Content Syndication has proven to be more effective than others.
The process of republishing your content on a third-party website is known as content syndication. It could be a video, a blog post, or even an infographic. Third-party websites cherish syndicating because it generates them with new content without imposing any effort on their part.
Content Syndication is not a new concept in the content industry. Even in the days of printing, vast newspapers syndicated content from freelancers and smaller publications. Smaller players gained the attention they merited, while larger publications received content.
According to the salesbox research, here are the most popular types of content used in B2B content syndication strategies, as well as how many marketers say they’re using each type of content.
- 85% of marketers use whitepapers
- 60% of campaigns include webcasts
- 50% of campaigns include creating infographics
- 35% of campaigns include writing articles
In this article, we’ve got together 15 Top Marketing Experts from across the globe who share their views and insights on “How to grow B2B Businesses using Content Syndication?“
Here’s Our Expert Panel
- Jon Miller
- Salvatore J Tringali
- Ken McDonald
- Courtney Kehl
- Jon Miller
- Matt Janaway
- Mark Lennon
- Mark Hunter
- Jon Miller
- Matt Janaway
- Mark Lennon
- Mark Hunter
#1 Jitendra Vaswani
Content syndication is one of the best and effective ways to share your valuable and compelling content to new audiences from time to time. Content syndication involves third-party platforms promoting your content like Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Scoop.it, Tumblr, Pinterest, Podcast and many social media platforms which allow content syndication. So B2B businesses can use this strategy to distribute their content on these platforms. Content can also be syndicated using blogs, articles, recordings, infographics, etc.
The B2B content syndication goals involve creating high-quality leads for their business and prospects while improving all the SEO objectives(on page & Off page SEO activities) to drive quality traffic to the brand’s website. B2B , it is an effective way to build a wide customer base all across the globe.
Author Bio
Jitendra Vaswani is a Digital Marketing Practitioner & international keynote speaker currently living a digital nomad lifestyle. He is the founder of kickass Internet Marketing blog BloggersIdeas.com where he interviewed marketing legends like Neil Patel, Grant Cardone & Rand Fishkin.. During his more than 6+yrs long expertise in Digital Marketing, Jitendra has been a marketing consultant, trainer, speaker and author of “Inside A Hustler’s Brain : In Pursuit of Financial Freedom” which has sold over 20,000 copies worldwide. You can connect with him on LinkedIn.
#2 Travis McKnight
Growing a B2B business with content syndication is extremely tricky. You need to consider two things: the topics your audience wants to learn about and your syndication goals.
Choosing relevant topics should be straightforward. If you’re not sure about what to write or promote, basic competitive content analysis or SERP analysis can give you some ideas. The syndication goals are generally the more important question to consider.
Does your company simply want to promote brand awareness and build topic authority? Are you trying to improve SERP share of voice? Are you aiming for conversions? Syndicated content may be able to accomplish all of these goals depending on the strategy pursued, but it’s more likely that only brand awareness is a realistic achievement.
The best approach is to syndicate content that lives on your company’s website. The syndicated articles should include followed backlinks to your website to promote page authority and domain authority growth. Aim to get your content promoted on industry-relevant and high-authority websites, but realize that backlinks from any site with a DA stronger than yours can benefit your website’s authority.
Author Bio
Prior to migrating to digital marketing, Travis spent many years in the world of journalism, and his byline includes The Guardian, New York Magazine, Slate Magazine, and more. As a senior content strategist at Portent, Travis gets to apply his passion for authentic storytelling to help clients create meaningful content that consistently delivers a refined experience for users. You can connect with him on LinkedIn.
#3 Tope Longe
Leverage the power of video: Video is easy to digest, makes it easy to build trust with your audience, and can be used across multiple channels to complement other forms of content. Now more than ever, people prefer to watch videos over reading — one study found 59% of executives say they would rather watch a video than reading text. If that isn’t convincing enough, Cisco predicts that by 2021, 82% of internet traffic will consist of video.
When you are considering video syndication, repurposing your written content into videos is often a good place to start. One of the first challenges you’ll face is finding where to syndicate your videos. Luckily, there are plenty of content syndication sites for videos out there, so you’re unlikely to have any trouble finding a suitable one. The best places to start are video-sharing websites and social video platforms like Youtube, Instagram, Tiktok, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.
Author Bio
Tope Longe is a content marketer at Biteable You can connect with him on LinkedIn.
#4 Bradley Hoos
In short — successful media is great content + great distribution. Most businesses know their product really well & can create strong content that resonates with their target market. The problem? Most B2B businesses lack the distribution to actually reach their audience with this content. Content Syndication is an effective part of content distribution and ultimately part of the equation for successful media.
Author Bio
Connect Bradley on LinkedIn.
#5 Marissa Pick
Good content is the foundation for brands to drive engagement, build deeper relationships with their customers & audience and over the long-term drive growth for their business.
Businesses leveraging content syndication should focus on finding relevant partners to help optimize for success. Finding the right partner can help you reach your target audience and increase the exposure of your content syndication. Depending on the website, audience, or type of content have a goal of linking back to either the headline or the full article on your website. A solid call to action is always best to drive additional conversation and engagement. In addition having the right partner or guest blogger can help drive backlinks and additional exposure to new audiences.
Most importantly, the best way to grow your business is to develop a strategy beginning with really great content. Ideally map out your business goal, social media strategy, syndication partners, craft a “winning” pitch, and map out your short and long term syndication plan for long term success.
Author Bio
Marissa Pick is the founder of Marissa Pick Consulting LLC. where she provides strategic consulting focused on Digital Transformation, Content Marketing, Social Media Strategy, Personal Branding and more. You can connect with her on Twitter and LinkedIn.
#6 Robbie Richards
The most important elements of a successful B2B content syndication strategy is to select the right partner, channel and content types that align with the overarching business goals.
The channel is critical because you need to identify where your ideal customer profile (ICP) is spending time online consuming information. There is no point syndicating content on channels that don’t contain your target audience.
The partner (in the case of co-marketing, for example) is important because they can help amplify your content and give it great distribution.
The content type is also important because it needs to resonate with the target audience, and lead them to take a desired action. Eg: visit your website, sign up for a webinar, or download a whitepaper.
A lot of people think a syndication strategy is just spraying their content across as many channels as possible and hoping something sticks. Without the right planning, this leads to a lot of wasted resources, and little return.
To recap, when you launch a syndication campaign, take time to carefully consider WHERE your audience is online, WHAT message will get them to take some type of desired action, and WHO can help amplify that message across those key channels. It’s important to note here that the “who” in this equation could be an influencer, another brand, or a content syndication service in a specific industry.
It’s a good idea to work backwards. Start with the end goal – what do you want people to do when they see your syndicated content? This will guide your content type and message.
Next, you should build a target list of channels/websites that will help you amplify this message to the right people.
Finally, look for people/brands/services across the target channels to help amplify the message.Once you have addressed these 3 points, you’ll have a much clearer direction on what message you should syndicate, and across which channels, so that you get your brand in front of the right people.
Author Bio
Robbie Richards is the author of robbierichards.com, Marketing Director at Virayo, a search marketing agency for B2B SaaS companies, and founder of The SEO Playbook training program. You can connect with him on Twitter and LinkedIn.
#7 Paige Arnof-Fenn
I think leveraging Content Marketing is the best foundation for a link building strategy by using social media to build your brand. I wrote monthly columns online for both Entrepreneur and Forbes for many years and contribute to blogs constantly so this strategy has worked for me. I write about what I know and share my stories and lessons learned good, bad and ugly. To generate ideas I look at the calendar to see if there are any natural opportunities based on the season or activities, ask readers to take a poll or quiz, keep a running list of topics I get asked about and note when I read or hear about something new I want to explore further, a trend, theme or idea that catches my attention. If it is an issue that affects me or my business then it is likely to be a topic that impacts others too. If I have a unique perspective to share or any advice I think may help others I get it out there via social media or whatever distribution vehicle makes the most sense.
Instead of trying to start my own blog or newsletter, I have had success contributing regularly to existing well trafficked blogs in my industry or newsletters of like minded organizations reaching the same target audience as me. I make sure to put my URL or contact info on it so they can find me and follow up if they are interested. When your articles or talks become available online, I also send them out via social media to all my friends, followers and contacts. Don’t let social media drive you crazy, you do not need to be everywhere, it does not matter which platform you choose just pick one or 2 that are authentic to you. It should look and sound like you and the brand you have built. Whether yours is polished or more informal, chatty or academic, humorous or snarky, it is a way for your personality to come through. Everyone is not going to like you or hire you but for the ones who would be a great fit for you make sure they feel and keep a connection and give them a reason to remember you so that when they need your help they think of you first. For professional service firms like mine LinkedIn is a priority. If your customers are not looking for you on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram then find the platforms where you can stand out. This has helped me grow my business.
Author Bio
Paige Arnof-Fenn is the founder & CEO of global marketing and branding firm Mavens & Moguls based in Cambridge, MA. Her clients include Microsoft, V! irgin, The New York Times Company, Colgate, venture-backed startups as well as non profit organizations. She graduated from Stanford University and Harvard Business School. Paige sits on several Boards and is a popular speaker and columnist who has written for Entrepreneur and Forbes. You can connect with her on LinkedIn.
#8 Avishai Sharon
Writing content is only the first part of content marketing. Distributing your content, and getting it in front of your target audience is the real challenge. Content syndication allows writers and brands to connect their content with a built in audience. It is a very welcome shortcut that brands should employ while they work on building their own communities for the long run.
Author Bio
Avishai Sharon is CEO of Trendemon, an Account Based Revenue Platform.
#9 Fili
Author Bio
Fili is a technical SEO consultant, ex-Google engineer, frequent conference speaker and was a senior technical lead in the Google Search Quality team. At SearchBrothers he offers SEO consulting services with SEO audits, SEO training and successfully recovers websites from Google penalties. You can connect with him on LinkedIn.
#10 Alan See
Content syndication is not new, but as part of your content marketing strategy it can still be very useful. Publishing your content on a third-party platform with the aim of reaching a larger audience is fundamental to a growth marketing strategy and can help you achieve many goals. But your first goal should still be to create content that resonates with and touches the emotions of your targeted audience.
Author Bio
Alan See is a senior executive with the rare ability to speak Social Media Marketing and Sales 101 in the same sentence. He is recognized as one of the “50 Most Influential Chief Marketing Officer on Social Media” by Forbes, as well as “Marketer of the Year” for both Content Marketing and Social Media by the American Marketing Association. You can connect with him on LinkedIn.
#11 Chris Naish
The first thing to remember is that if you intend to syndicate the entire piece of content, canonicalization is the most essential part of the process!
If you aren’t getting a canonical link, it looks to Google like one of the articles is duplicate content. And, if a higher DR/DA domain syndicates the content, it might outrank you and get credit for the content, even though there’s a link to you somewhere in the article!
Secondly, create content that solves a problem when starting this process. This makes syndication a much easier sell if the webmaster/business you approach can see that this content is something their audience will find valuable. They may even thank you for giving them something to email their list about.
Finally, supplement your content with a shareable image/infographic, along the lines of:
Statistical
Geographical
Process-based
If you approach somebody to syndicate your content and they aren’t open to it, they may fall back to sharing your infographic (no canonicalization necessary) on some existing content. Or, they might be open to some unique content around the infographic specifically for their site.
Either way, this will help maximize the ROI from your outreach.
Author Bio
Chris Naish is head of content strategy at WEBRIS, author of three books, and tired of lockdown. You can connect with him on LinkedIn.
#12 Brooke Sellas
The best way to grow B2B using content syndication is to think of a holistic approach. You can’t merely rely on good content marketing. You must also think of using as many mediums as possible to get the reach you need. That may include: social media, email, video, and even paid media.
You probably have already thought of everything on that list, though! So, one area to think outside the box with is co-marketing. Think of a company who compliments what you do.
Here’s an example that would work well for us. Sprout Social is a social media software company (also a tool we use) that aligns closely with our own views on social media. In theory, we could partner with Sprout Social to create new research or a white paper about one of our services, say, social-first customer care. As a co-marketing partner, Sprout could provide us with some of their data on response times on social from brands to consumers. They also have a large audience if brands and companies who use their tool and reply on them for advice. Leveraging their data, their experience, and their large audience would be beneficial to getting the B Squared Media brand known.
As you consider co-marketing, look for companies selling to similar customers to you to find a relevant co-marketing partner. And having an existing relationship helps! Once you’ve found a co-marketing partner, consider co-authoring a paper or co-hosting a webinar. Then, use that content to syndicate your content to new audiences.
Author Bio
Brooke B. Sellas is the CEO & Founder of B Squared Media, an award-winning done-for-you social media management, advertising, and social-first customer care agency. Additionally, she teaches a Digital Marketing course (virtually) at the University of California in Irvine and co-hosts the top-rated Marketing Companion podcast with Mark Schaefer. Brooke’s marketing mantra is “Think Conversation, Not Campaign” so be sure to give her a shout on social media! You can connect with her on LinkedIn.
#13 Dave Grendzynski
Like all digital marketing activities, content syndication will be most effective if you’re working with a solid strategy. One strategy that I like (for B2B) is to republish your content on smaller, more focused publications. You’re really looking to target your niche audience. It’s a great way to let your readers discover more content on your site and generate new leads.
Author Bio
Dave uses the skills that won him three Emmy Awards as a television news producer to create compelling content for his clients at Kuno Creative. He is a talented video producer and multi-platform writer. You can connect with him on LinkedIn.
#14 Christine Oneto
Pitch, pitch and then keep pitching!
Author Bio
Christine Oneto is a Marketing and PR professional whose experience spans technology, start ups, healthcare and nonprofits, restaurants and wine businesses. Her passion in helping small wine and food companies/restaurants and nonprofits, as well as in the environment/sustainability sector have also bridged nicely at times with her technology and healthcare background. She currently serves as a pro bono PR Consultant for Dining Safety Alliance, and PR Strategist at Avocet Communications. “Always innovating and maintaining your edge; and relentlessly bringing my client/s or company to the next level” are her main goals. You can connect with her on LinkedIn.
#15 Dylan Kohlstadt
Author Bio
Dylan Kohlstadt is the founder and CEO of Shift ONE digital, established in 2011, a digital marketing agency based in Cape Town, South Africa, we assist our B2B and selected B2C Marketing Manager’s and business owners with digital strategy, digital marketing implementation, and high powered lead generation so they can easily meet their targets. You can connect with her on LinkedIn.
Gaurav Roy
28 July 2021
Our blog
Lastest blog posts
Tool and strategies modern teams need to help their companies grow.
Entrepreneurs always face the problem of generating traffic and reaching the right audience. Content...
Chloe Harrington
Intelligent Content Syndication (ICS) is a solution for B2B marketers to generate high-intent Market...
Gaurav Roy
Content syndication is a highly effective strategy employed by B2B marketers to broaden their reach,...
