History of Content Syndication
Content syndication first arose in media forms such as print, radio, and television. This process has been used since the 1924, when the United States Federal Government encouraged syndication across radio programs, which allowed content creators to reach a wider audiences.
What is Content Syndication?
Content syndication is the ability to serve specific content to your target audience, quickly and via multiple channels. Popular methods of content syndication include telemarketing, cold email, cross-posting content on the web, and running PPC ads. Utilising content syndication means brands are able to make their audience aware at a very early stage in the buying cycle. Once the audience has shown interest, brands can then nurture prospects, engaging with them at every stage in the marketing funnel.
Why is Content Syndication Important?
Publications, big and small, like to syndicate content because it provides fresh information to their readers. The original authors benefit from this practice as it gets their brand in front of a new audience. The content can be used to educate, engage, and qualify leads before they even visit a brand’s website for the first time. As the audience consume the content, the more engaged they become. The more engaged they become, the more likely they are to convert into a customer or become a brand ambassador.
Who Should Use Content Syndication and How Should it Be Used?
Content syndication should be used by anybody who is looking to build a target audience or subscriber base. This means that both B2C and B2B companies benefit from this Top of the Funnel process. At Belu Media, we work with brands from the healthcare, FMCG, Finance and Technology industries. Our healthcare clients use content syndication to produce content online that allows their audience to understand the benefits they offer and how their products and services compare to other brands through reviews. Any brands that want their voice and expert knowledge heard should utilise content syndication.
Your content should be based around the needs of your target audience: what do they want to know? Remember, they are in their research phase of their journey, so your content needs to be informative and professional. This will establish you and your brand as an authoritative market leader in your industry.
How is Content Syndication Implemented?
To implement a content syndication strategy, you need to first understand who your target audiences is. Within this, you should know what their pains, desires and interests are. This allows you to determine what they are interested in learning in their ‘research phase’. Here, we can use our FMCG clients as a good example. They use content syndication to make their potential consumers aware of the environmental impact of their products. B2B companies can use content syndication to explain how their products and services will provide ROI and educate their audiences further on the services. One thing you need to remember here, is that users are already highly educated in the marketplace and may have already started the research phase, so you should speak to them in terms they understand and relate to.
Once you have an deep understanding of what questions your target audience want to know, you should create content based around this. From here, there are two ways you can get your content published; free, or paid. Choosing the free option means you focus on finding the right publications, pitching your content, and building partnerships. The paid solution means using tools that allow you to get your content recommended in major publications more quickly.
How Do you Measure the Results if Content Syndication?
The success of your content syndication can be measured by the number of initial leads, or top of the funnel engagement you receive. This could mean the amount of likes, shares or downloads. All of these initial indicators show whether a piece of content is generating interest. Although content syndication has no timeframe, you should see results relatively quickly. The more people engage with it, the more people it reaches, the more it is consumed, and the more you are at the forefront of an audience’s mind. This will then lead users further into the marketing funnel, where they can be nurtured and convert!
Final Thoughts
Without content syndication, content marketing be very challenging. Staying on top of trends in the marketplace and building a consistent pipeline of new opportunities and sales is difficult when you are limited to a small audience, thus a small amount of data.
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by Listencat
