If there’s one thing that 2021 has made evident to the B2B marketer, it’s that today’s B2B buyers are leveraging a digital-first approach. Their tactics now involve covert research done on their own time and in their preferred digital channels. They are also experiencing a more complex buying journey, increasing touchpoints and larger buying committees. To compound this even further, recent research by Integrate and Heinz Marketing found that current team structures, processes and technology do not effectively support today’s marketing team goals.
In short, it’s a new buyer-driven B2B world out there, and B2B marketers need to evolve. They need to adopt a buyer-driven, omnichannel Precision Demand Marketing approach that is more connected, agile and precise across the entire funnel.
This includes refocusing top-of-the-funnel efforts like content syndication to be more buyer-driven and effective. While content syndication is a tried-and-true channel in the B2B marketer’s toolkit, it’s also one that marketers have historically invested a lot of time and money in but have often struggled in proving its ROI. Common complaints with content syndication are that it is riddled with poor data quality, disparate and complex systems, and can be difficult to scale.
However, with a strong strategy and trusted and proven third-party publisher execution, content syndication allows marketers to pull the greatest amount of their addressable market into their orbit – all with the precise guardrails of who might be a good fit.
Matt Mullins, senior director of global marketing operations and technology at Tenable, says, “we need to make our demand strategies work smarter, not harder. This means evaluating our tools and tech and finding ways to free up time and budget resources.”
Below are four steps to make your content syndication strategies more effective, streamlined and scalable:
1. Block bad lead data
Data is the biggest barrier B2B Marketers have when trying to connect with their buyers. Many marketers still struggle to capture, update and maintain clean data, thus putting their relationships with sales and leadership at risk. The challenges of executing high-volume lead gen campaigns while not having a system to process and reject bad leads result in manual work from marketing ops, delays in lead delivery to sales, and poor lead quality.
The solution? Institute data and prioritization efforts to keep data clean and actionable. Prioritize sales enablement and buy-in, leverage tools that reject bad leads to protect and optimize spending, and focus on balancing early funnel leads with sales.
2. Target with precision
Good data quality and confidence go hand in hand with targeting buyers with precision.
In today’s buyer-driven, precision demand marketing world, B2B marketers need to get even more precise in their targeting by honing in on their ideal customer profile or persona-based marketing.
The solution? Look for tools that allow you to precisely target your ICP while ensuring you only pay for the leads that make sense for your content syndication campaigns. Use buyer and intent signals to your advantage. Get to truly know and understand your customers – and their pain points – so you can create targeted buyer experiences.
3. Centralize and connect sources
Many marketers can relate to managing campaigns across many sources, channels, and publishers, but few know that there’s a better way. B2B marketers need to break down campaign silos and stop manually managing an increasing number of disconnected channels.
The solution? Focus on a multichannel view of exactly where and when prospects are engaging and then determine which sources work best. Connect those channels to work together to deliver high-quality customer experiences that drive revenue. To gain true visibility into performance, we must centralize demand performance, compare results, and optimize spend.
4. Orchestrate omnichannel experiences
Finally, B2B marketers need to orchestrate the buyer’s journey by guiding prospects and building meaningful connections with them to generate high-quality leads that will convert.
The solution? Go beyond ABM to activate and nurture across channels to boost buyer confidence and accelerate purchasing decisions. Leverage intent data and signals to target accounts that meet the ICP, then capitalize on those accounts in the market. This account activity drives the deeper persona work at the demand unit or buying committee level.
After this, focus on reaching the individual buyer or executive sponsor by identifying personalized and creative ways for trust-building. Craft unique chatbot experiences, direct mail, or other digital approaches. Apply this to live events as they make a return.
The takeaway
Content syndication remains an important channel for marketers. Although it may have lost its luster in recent years due to bad data, unactionable leads and scalability issues, the opportunity exists today for marketers to update and refine a channel that really works by using Precision Demand Marketing. This buyer-driven, omnichannel approach to content syndication, along with the right technologies that put data governance at the core, is where B2B marketers can thrive.
To learn more about improving your content syndication strategy in today’s new B2B world, please check out this on-demand webinar “4 Ways to Boost Confidence in Your Content Strategy,” featuring Stephanie Swinyer, head of revenue marketing at Integrate, and Matthew Mullins, senior director of global marketing operations and technology at Tenable.
