What is content syndication

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4 tactics for in-market ABM CS success

Introducing account-based content syndication

Generating high-quality leads at the right price, volume, and pacing is a constant challenge for B2B marketers. To meet their lead goals, many marketers rely on content syndication as part of their marketing mix. But there are two familiar challenges with traditional content syndication programs. The first is that content syndication leads are not always a match to your company’s ideal customer profile (ICP). The second is that leads from traditional content syndication efforts commonly have low conversion rates, leaving marketers and sales teams frustrated. The problem is not with content syndication as a tactic. The problem is in the targeting.

Traditional content syndication doesn’t offer precise enough targeting for marketing teams that use an account-based approach. Account-Based Content Syndication (ABM CS) adds needed precision to this tactic. Instead of broad criteria such as company size or industry, ABM CS uses a target account list (TAL) to target content syndication programs, which has multiple benefits, including:

  • More precise top funnel marketing.
  • Generation of ICP leads.
  • Predictable cost per lead, lead volume, and lead pacing.
  • Control over lead acquisition.
  • Activation of intent, ABM, and strategic programs.

Traditional Content Syndication

ABM Content Syndication

Create predictable pipeline with ABM CS

Unlike traditional content syndication, which is limited to early stage buying activity, ABM CS tactics can strategically support the entire revenue funnel. But to do more than provide suitable leads – to generate pipeline and revenue – they need to be used alongside:

  • An always-on cross-channel marketing and nurture program engaging accounts, buying groups, and leads.
  • A robust account-based marketing strategy.
  • A scoring model to prioritize leads and accounts for sales follow-up.

This guide will walk you through four ABM CS tactics providing diagrams and using an example company named Acme Co. which we will use to show their (hypothetical) ABM CS programs.

  • Always-on ABM content syndication.
  • Top funnel intent ABM content syndication.
  • Middle funnel intent ABM content syndication.
  • Bottom funnel intent ABM content syndication.

About Acme Co

Acme Co. is an imaginary B2B enterprise SaaS company that we’ll use to illustrate each ABM Content Syndication Tactic in this guide. Their revenue marketing team uses a unified ABM and demand marketing approach.

This approach results in marketing that focuses on ICP accounts, acquires and engages buying groups, and delivers cross-channel journeys that are personalized and relevant to buyer groups.

We’ll follow along with examples of Acme Co. using each ABM Content Syndication tactic to create predictable pipeline for their SaaS Product, a Cyber Security Platform. About Acme Co:

  • Company Size: 1,200 employees.
  • Location: North America.
  • Industry: Cybersecurity Technology.
  • Annual Revenue: $250 million.

Always On ABM CS

Always-on ABM content syndication is as simple as using a target account list to target your top funnel content syndication efforts. By doing so, you can change what was previously a broad-based demand effort into a tactic that aligns demand with ABM. With this tactic, all the top funnel responses you generate with content syndication will only include the right buyers from the right accounts.

Always-on ABM content syndication checklist:

  • Align always-on ABM content syndication to annual strategic marketing plans considering criteria such as campaign, product, program, and goals.
  • Develop a process for enrolling accounts engaged by always-on content syndication in cross-channel, always-on programs leveraging display ads, email nurturing, webinars, events, and other tactics to create cohesive experiences for buyers and buying groups.
  • Ensure you dedupe and exclude accounts targeted by more specialized ABM CS tactics from your always-on ABM CS.

Follow along with Acme Co:

The diagram shows Acme Co.’s always-on ABM CS strategy for FY2023. Acme Co.’s always-on campaign message for the year is “Reduce the Risk of Ransomware.” Their content team is producing a set of six new eBooks, guides, and reports to support that campaign. Their always-on ABM CS program targets various job levels within the IT and Security functions of all their North America ICP target accounts. They enroll leads from their always-on ABM CS into their always-on cross-channel marketing and nurture to engage leads and buying groups. This program uses display ads, emails, webinars, and other tactics to drive engagement.

Top funnel intent ABM CS

By applying intent data to your target account list, you can identify active accounts early in their research process. Then you can target buyers from those accounts with the right message at the right time by using top of funnel intent ABM CS.

Top funnel intent checklist:

  • Create your top funnel intent topics list by identifying relevant topics about your business category, including industry terms, capabilities, and use cases.
  • Identify the content that is relevant to those topics.
  • Apply the intent topic list to your TAL to find accounts surging on those topics, then segment those accounts into a smaller list for targeting and
    deduplication against your always-on ABM CS.
  • Launch a personalized and relevant top funnel intent ABM CS program and nurture leads through your always-on marketing and nurture.

Follow along with Acme Co:

Acme Co. checks their target account list against their top funnel intent topics list and determines that 130 accounts show research intent for malware-related intent topics. They enroll those accounts in a top funnel intent ABM CS program that targets IT/Security job functions/titles and uses relevant content about malware. They also dedupe this list against their always-on ABM CS TAL.

Middle funnel intent ABM CS

Today, B2B buyers make purchase decisions in buying groups. Marketing teams must identify, acquire, and engage buying groups to create a predictable pipeline. Middle funnel intent ABM CS helps you engage key buying personas with decisionmaking authority at your target accounts.

Middle funnel intent ABM CS checklist:

  • Identify relevant middle funnel intent topics about topics important to the collective group of your key personas, such as buyer pain points, business issues, outcomes, results, tactics, and strategies, and organize topics by persona.
  • Apply the intent topic list to your TAL to find accounts surging on those topics, then segment those accounts into a smaller list for targeting and deduplication against your always-on ABM CS.
  • Select content relevant to the personas and intent topics, launch a personalized and relevant middle funnel intent ABM CS program, and nurture leads through your always-on marketing and nurture.

Follow along with Acme Co:

Acme Co. checks their target account list against their middle funnel intent topics list and determines that 425 accounts show research intent for managed detection and response related (MDR) intent topics. They enroll those accounts in a middle funnel intent ABM CS program that targets director + job levels within the security job function and uses relevant third-party analyst content. Because director+ cybersecurity buyers are a critical buying group member, Acme Co. Dedupes this TAL against their always-on ABM CS programs to ensure they reach them with relevant messaging.

Bottom funnel intent ABM CS

Today’s B2B buyers conduct most of their research independently of sales, contacting them often only after they’ve made a decision. Bottom funnel intent ABM CS helps you reach buyers researching specific products with information about your offerings.

Bottom funnel intent ABM CS checklist:

  • Identify relevant bottom funnel intent topics core to your business, including brand names, product names, service names, and critical business functions you perform for customers. Organize these intent topics by associated products or services.
  • Apply the intent data to your TAL to find accounts surging on bottom funnel topics, then segment those accounts into a smaller list for targeting.
  • Use job function and title to target the right buying group members.
  • Launch a bottom funnel intent ABM CS program. Nurture or prioritize accounts, buying groups, or leads for sales follow-up according to your scoring model and processes.

Follow along with Acme Co:

Acme Co. checks their target account list against their bottom funnel intent topics and identifies that 250 accounts show research intent for bottom funnel topics related to cloud security products. They enroll those accounts in a bottom funnel intent ABM CS program that targets manager+ job titles from IT and security functions, and use cloud security solutions features and benefits content. They route buying groups to sales based on their account and lead scoring model.

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Avoiding common pitfalls of content syndication

The pitfalls of poor strategy

Content syndication has become a priority investment for B2B marketers. In fact, the 2022 State of Demand Generation Report showed an increased investment in content syndication more than any other tactic out of a list of 14. While a strong content syndication strategy can effectively generate pipeline for your business, every worthy investment carries associated risks. In the case of content syndication, the biggest risk is underperformance resulting from common pitfalls such as: Lead Nurture Velocity: How quickly are leads moving from nurture programs to:

  • Poor segmentation
  • Misaligned goals
  • Poor data quality
  • Duplicative leads
  • Lack of nurturing

In this guide, we will examine each of these potential pitfalls and share strategies for avoiding them to ensure a high-performing content syndication program.

Get your segmentation right

One of the most common reasons your content syndication may be underperforming is imprecise account targeting. A good segmentation strategy should follow these four rules:

  1. Practical: Segments should be relevant to sales, marketing, and product.
  2. Homogenous : Companies within a segment may differ in many areas but should be similar in terms of their offering needs.
  3. Identifiable: Accounts are objectively classified based on accessible criteria and available data.
  4. Exclusive : Strong segmentation allows buyers to fit in one segment only and covers the most important segments.

Beyond that, you should consider the market, company, and buyer to arrive at precise targeting for your content syndication program.

  • Market: At the highest level, identify clusters of companies by region, industry, and organization size.
  • Company: Segment each company internally based on which part of the business you support, what offerings you are bringing to market, and any specific use cases you will want to message about.
  • Buyer: Identify exact personas, purchasing roles, and buying groups that make or influence the decision to buy.

Put these together to focus on the decision makers at ideal customer profile (ICP) accounts and offer relevant content for each segment.

Set clear content syndication goals

To be effective, all marketing programs and tactics should be aligned to measurable goals. When it comes to setting content syndication goals, establishing start and end dates, target costs per lead (CPLs), and lead volume goals are simple enough. But where many programs fall short is through a lack of alignment with broader marketing or business goals.

Ask yourself:

  • Does your business have specific pipeline and revenue goals? For example, are goals set by:
    • Business unit(s)
    • Products/solution offerings
    • Use cases
    • Specific company segments
  • Does your marketing team have specific goals for each quarter? Such as:
    • Revenue funnel targets: quarterly inquiry, MQL, SAL, and opportunity targets
    • Pipeline coverage by sales segments
    • Growth goals such as company size, geographic region, or industries you are supporting

Instead of treating content syndication as a generic tactic, think about how to utilize content syndication with greater precision to support strategic business outcomes. Instead of running a massive “always-on” program, you can set up and run specific content syndication programs with precise targeting and lead goals to support a diverse range of marketing targets and business goals.

Clear goal setting elevates content syndication to a strategic component of your marketing programs. As you consider your tactic mix, evaluate the cost per lead, lead volume, and pacing you need for each content syndication program to meet your quarterly goals.

Watch out for poor leads

So now you are approaching your content syndication programs strategically and the leads are rolling in. But if those leads are low quality and your conversion rate drops, all your hard work is moot. Bad data reduces the effectiveness of your nurture efforts and can damage your relationship with sales.

The most common data quality issues with content syndication leads are:

  • Non-ICP leads: If you have segmented appropriately, you should be able to determine if your leads match your ideal customer profile. You want to target the right accounts, with the right buyers.
  • Incomplete leads: Make sure your leads are not missing key data fields and that they have fully opted–in for company communication and follow up.
  • Invalid phone numbers, emails, addresses: Verify that phone numbers are active, emails are deliverable, and addresses match associated companies.
  • Unstandardized lead data: Formatting issues (e.g., Acme Incorporated vs. Acme Inc.) and unstandardized column headers (e.g., business phone vs. phone number), can compromise your lead scoring and routing or fail to even upload into your systems correctly.

Always check your lead data from content syndication programs carefully to ensure that it matches your ICP criteria and is compliant, valid, complete, and standardized before uploading leads into your systems. Reject any bad leads and ask your lead provider to replace them.

Prevent budget waste

While having quality data is good for your marketing programs, having redundant data is too much of a good thing. Duplicate leads happen when you receive the same buyer’s information from multiple lead providers — meaning you are essentially paying twice for the same lead and draining your syndication budget.

Don’t waste your budget:

  • On targeting the wrong accounts. Some content syndication providers use target account lists (TAL); some don’t. Using providers that enable account-based targeting is the best way to ensure you get ICP leads. You can also safeguard your campaign by giving your lead provider an exclusion list of existing customer or competitor accounts, and any accounts already at sales stages.
  • On acquiring existing leads. Consider giving your lead provider an email suppression list of opted-in ICP buyers already in your database.
  • On overlapping targeting. A common mistake is giving multiple lead providers the same targeting criteria. To reduce duplicate leads, split your targeting across providers.

Nurture your content syndication leads

The most common complaint about content syndication leads is that marketers say they don’t convert. In other words, as soon as a B2B marketing team gets some content syndication leads, they hand them off to their sales or tele-qualification teams to book an immediate demo or meeting. This typically doesn’t happen as content syndication leads represent an early buying signal – not a late-stage opportunity.

If you want your content syndication program to influence opportunities, you must nurture leads before sending them to sales. Due to two significant changes in buyer behavior, failing to nurture content syndication leads will destroy the performance of your programs.

  1. B2B buyers need more touchpoints. According to Forrester, the average buyer’s journey consisted of 17 buying interactions in 2019. In 2021 that number jumped to an average of 27 touchpoints before they are ready to make a purchase decision. Content syndication is one of many touchpoints in a typical B2B buying journey.
  2. Buyers spend little time with sales. When today’s buyers engage with your sales team, they’re looking to make sense of information consumed during hours of self-led research. There’s a small window of opportunity for your sales team to engage with these buyers, which makes nurturing your leads essential to conversion success.

It’s important to note that a content syndication lead is simply a single buying signal – not a marketing qualified lead (MQL.) Buyers who’ve expressed an interest in your content need to be engaged further to increase their lead score before calling them an MQL. Consider using email nurtures, digital display advertising, and personalized content to further engage buyers.

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Why you still need content syndication in your marketing mix

Content syndication is a marketing multitool

Filling the need for leads

At any given moment, only 5% of B2B buyers are in-market and ready to buy your product, according to research by LinkedIn and the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science. That means marketers need to be making connections with potential customers long before they’re ready to buy — when they’re looking for information and doing general research about a problem they need to solve.

Content syndication can help you reach that all-important 95% by surfacing your content while customers are conducting their research. It’s also a versatile tactic that can support efforts throughout the marketing lifecycle. This guide explores why you should still use content syndication in your marketing efforts and provides guidance on selecting vendors.

What is content syndication?

Content syndication is republishing a piece of content in relevant industry media beyond your company’s own website or blog. Syndicating your content allows it to reach audiences you would not otherwise have access to. Most businesses dedicate 25% or more of their marketing budgets to developing content; content syndication helps you get the most out of that investment.

How content syndication can help your business:

  • Predictable pipeline: Content syndication provides a reliable pipeline of leads matching your ideal customer profile (ICP) at target accounts, at a pre-set cost per lead, so you can count on meeting your quarterly lead goals.
  • Increased visibility: 68% of B2B buyers start gathering information via search engines and portals. Placing your content on more and higher-traffic sites makes it more likely to come up in searches.
  • Credibility: Having your content featured on well-respected websites can raise your brand’s profile as an authoritative source. Redefine content marketing. Content can no longer only support your top-of-funnel needs. You need to create content to support the entire customer lifecycle: acquisition, retention, and expansion.

Benefits: Syndicating your content provides a reliable stream of leads matching your ICP.

88%

of business buyers say online content has played a major or moderate role in their vendor selections
CMO Council

Optimize content for buyers’ research process

Understanding the B2B buyer’s journey

B2B buyers go through a long decision-making process before making purchases. The early stages of the buyer’s journey offer the best opportunities for the marketer to develop a connection that can lead to acquiring them as a customer. The stages of the buyer’s journey are:

  • Discover: becoming aware of a problem or opportunity and looking for information to understand it fully.
  • Evaluate: further researching the problem or opportunity to understand its impact and the potential benefits of taking action to address or explore it.
  • Convert: selecting specific options to help solve the problem or capitalize on the opportunity.

Buyers are receptive to informative content

B2B buyers are especially receptive to receiving relevant information from vendors during the Discover and Evaluate stages. According to Gartner research, B2B buyers who perceive the information they get from suppliers as helpful are 2.8 times more likely to experience a high degree of purchase ease, and three times more likely to buy a bigger deal with less regret.

Many buyers start their research on third-party websites. Syndication places your content in front of buyers who are early in their research process. Optimize your syndicated content by making sure it is informative and educational, rather than sales oriented. Provide clear information about the problem, including the hazards of leaving it unresolved. If the subject is an opportunity, explain the potential benefits of pursuing the opportunity.

Benefit: Syndicating your content provides a reliable stream of leads matching your ICP.

Broaden your reach and target specific accounts

When to use content syndication

Content syndication can target a specific set of named accounts or apply broader audience criteria. In either case, content syndication delivers a reliable stream of ICP leads, which complements the (sometimes inconsistent) performance of inbound and paid advertising tactics, adding predictability to your pipeline.

How content syndication supports the revenue funnel

A typical revenue funnel can be defined in five stages. (Note that every company has its own version of a revenue funnel.)

  • Inquiry: the first contact from a potential buyer.
  • Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL): a lead that has interacted with marketing messages and is ready for sales contacts.
  • Sales Accepted Lead (SAL): a lead that has been qualified by sales development representatives (SDRs) or business development representatives (BDRs).
  • Opportunity: a potential sale from an account linked to sales-accepted leads.
  • Revenue: a sale resulting from an opportunity.

Content syndication is highly effective at generating ICP top-of-funnel inquiries. It boosts the performance of your entire revenue funnel when used as part of a comprehensive strategy that nurtures inquiries into MQLs through integrated marketing programs.

“Content syndication leads may not be as bottom-of-funnel as a phone call or website outreach, [but] they are an effective and cost-efficient way to fill the pipeline.” — Shelly B., Demand Gen Leader

Benefit: Content syndication has the versatility to reach broad audiences and target specific groups of buyers.

Iron Mountain increased content syndication sourced inquiry to MQL conversion rates from

6 to 22%

and influenced nearly $22 million in pipeline through optimization of their content syndication programs.
Integrate

Integrating content syndication into your strategy

How content syndication fits into your marketing mix

Content syndication is most effective when used as part of an integrated marketing plan that includes inbound and outbound, digital, brand, product, and event activities. Syndicated content should fit seamlessly into the buyer’s research process by providing useful information that helps them understand a problem or opportunity that’s relevant to their business. Think of your content as a resource — the more helpful it is, the better your chances of developing that contact into a customer.

“Content syndication begins the customer journey as a library that’s fully available for ‘self-education’ . . . [A] skilled marketer can help shape that journey by leveraging early interest into strategic demand gen.” — Bret Smith, CEO, HIPB2B

Using content marketing to support other strategies

Content syndication can support a variety of marketing efforts, including:

  • Outbound/traditional demand marketing: Use content syndication to generate inquiries from prospects. You can target by persona, geography, company size, and industry, or any combination of factors.
  • Account-Based Marketing (ABM): Content syndication can support ABM by helping you engage with specific buyers, a small group, or a large list of accounts.
  • Inbound/always-on marketing: Use content syndication to develop a reliable stream of high-quality leads to support inbound efforts.
  • Cross-channel/multichannel: Content syndication can help you identify inmarket accounts to target with tactics such as digital display ads, as part of your multichannel marketing strategy.

Benefit: Content syndication can support efforts throughout the marketing lifecycle.

Selecting content for syndication

What types of content are best for syndication?

Content for use in syndication should be informational in tone, educating readers about a topic or problem and supporting the key points with data or quotes from analysts or experts. Effective types of content for syndication include guide, whitepapers, reports by third-party analysts, infographics, and on-demand webinars.

How much content do you need for syndication?

In general, the more leads you want to generate, the more content you’ll need. To avoid audience fatigue — which can lower engagement and hurt your conversion rates.

Suggested content assets by lead goals

Types of content valued most by business buyers

  • 65% Research reports and studies
  • 50% Technical spec sheets and data sheets
  • 46% Analyst intelligence and insights
  • 35% White papers
  • 30% Articles on trade publishing sites

Buyers consider third-party research, analyst reports, and editorial coverage to be the most trustworthy content sources.
CMO Council

Choosing the right syndication partners for your business

Types of syndication providers

Content syndication providers use a variety of terms to describe their services: publisher, media partner, database provider, etc. The most meaningful distinction is whether they’re a single-stream source or a marketplace source.

Single-stream source: offers access to an audience from one media brand

Advantages:

  • Efficient for working with integrated marketing programs within the same media.
  • Appropriate for smaller lead goals.

Disadvantages:

  • May not be able to deliver a larger pipeline of leads.

Marketplace source: offers access to a network of single-stream sources

Advantages:

  • Offers greater reach and precision than single-stream — you can access multiple sources or target a specific audience without reducing quantity or flow of leads.

Disadvantages:

  • Due to contractual agreements, may not be able to disclose the specific vendors syndicating your content.

10 questions to ask potential vendors

  1. Which channels do they use to present your content?
  2. How will your content look: e.g., will it appear on its own landing page with your logo?
  3. What is the primary source of their audience?
  4. What are their targeting capabilities: e.g., geography, industry, company size, job title?
  5. Do they have a minimum campaign size?
  6. How are leads delivered: real-time injection into your systems or files for manual upload?
  7. Is lead data governed before you receive it?
  8. Do they guarantee that leads will match your ICP?
  9. What options do they offer for testing and in-flight adjustments?
  10. Which types of reporting do they provide?

Benefit: Choosing the right syndication provider will give you the reach and precision you need.

Getting the most out of your syndication efforts

Evaluate your content syndication performance

Once you’ve chosen a content syndication provider (or providers), it’s important to monitor their performance on key metrics to make sure they’re delivering the leads you need to meet your goals. If you’re working with multiple vendors, this also allows you to adjust your spending to make sure you’re getting the best possible ROI. Below are
key factors to consider:

Lead Quality: Poor-quality leads can affect your entire marketing and sales program and expose your business to regulatory risk. Make sure your leads:

  • Include complete and accurate information, with no duplicate leads.
  • Comply with all privacy regulations.
  • Meet all your target criteria, e.g., job title, location, specific accounts.
  • Are standardized according to your formatting requirements.

Lead volume and pacing: Are your providers delivering the quantity of leads you need at the cost you agreed on? Is the provider delivering leads to you at the pace that you requested?

Service: Is the provider easy to work with? Do they offer expertise and insights that help you optimize your content syndication program?

Benefit: Evaluate your content syndication partner’s performance to make sure you get the most of your investment.

Commvault uses content syndication in combination with digital display advertising to increase deal size and revenue

  • 27% Marketing-attributed closed deals increased from 6% to 27%.
  • 23% Cut digital budget by 23% while delivering greater results.
  • 20% Increased average selling price by 20% with digitally engaged accounts.
  • 30% Close rate jumped from 15% to 30%.

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Best practices for content syndication follow-up

Make your content work smarter

As a key tactic in the B2B revenue marketing toolkit, content syndication can benefit nearly any business if done right. But the way buyers make decisions has changed, so the way you deploy content syndication programs should change.

It was once considered best practice to send all leads from content syndication programs directly to tele-sales teams for qualification and follow-up. Due to significant changes in B2B buyer behavior, doing so today will damage the effectiveness of your content syndication program, hurt your relationship with sales, and create a suboptimal buying experience.

Today, B2B buyers do their own research, expect easy digital access to information, and often prefer a rep-free experience. Developing a thoughtful and precise lead nurture strategy is necessary to ensure the success of your content syndication program.

An effective, productive, and profitable content syndication nurture strategy includes five data-driven components:

  • Progressive, personalized email nurture.
  • Multi-channel nurturing: combining email and digital display ad nurtures.
  • Individual lead scoring and buyer group scoring.
  • Effective lead routing.
  • Comprehensive measurement.

In this guide, we’ll explain the benefits of each component and how to use them to generate predictable pipeline through content syndication.

Progressive personalized email nurture

More effective email follow-up

The most important job for any marketer is to increase the odds that your brand will be top of mind when a customer is ready to buy. Nurturing your content syndication leads with timely and relevant emails is an effective way to do this. But your nurture can’t be one size fits all. Because so much more of the buyer journey today happens independently, personalization and segmentation are essential for effective email nurturing.

A persona or topic-based segmentation approach based on your content inventory and go-to-market strategy is an excellent way to influence a buyer’s purchase decision. Develop an email nurture track for each of your segments consisting of the appropriate content and messaging to support the early-stage research needs of your specific buyer personas.

What are the right types of content? Studies from CMO Council show:

  • Industry and category surveys and studies.
  • Analyst reviews and recommendations.
  • Thought leadership with supporting facts and research.
  • Third-party content.
  • Technical details about products and solutions.

Multi-channel nurturing

Reach buyers where they are

Email is a great way to nurture leads and support the buyer’s journey, but it shouldn’t be the only option for lead nurturing. Think about your own experience. Do you read every email that hits your inbox? Unlikely. In fact, the average open rate for B2B emails is only 15%.

Instead of relying solely on email, there are a variety of other channels — industry publications, news websites, journals, and social media platforms to name a few — where you can fnd today’s buyers doing their research, primed for engagement. Pairing your email nurtures with targeted, account-based digital display ads can help you reach buyers on the third-party channels where they’re already conducting research.

Furthermore, email nurture may only reach one or two buyers at an account. B2B buyers make purchase decisions in groups, and 94% of buyers who download content share it with buying group members. Targeting through additional channels can help you engage buying groups and increase leads at an organization, capitalizing on this sharing behavior.

Combining email and digital display ad nurturing

Combine your tactics to win big

The benefits of using digital display advertising with a well-structured email program include increased email nurture engagement, more search engine traffic to your website, and faster sales velocity. The key to combining your programs is in audience selection and messaging progression.

  • For advertising, select target accounts where buyers have already engaged with your content syndication, and update weekly.
  • Clearly target specific job titles and geographies to ensure you’re only spending on ideal customer profile (ICP) buyers.
  • Use awareness-, consideration-, and action-oriented progressive messaging in your ads — for example:
    • Awareness: a buyer problem your brand solves.
    • Consideration: solutions and best practices.
    • Action: case studies, demos, product webinars.

The more relevant and personalized your messaging, the more effective your digital ads will be. To increase your sales velocity further, segment personas within your target accounts into personalized ad nurture flights. Similar to your email nurture tracks, each ad flight should tell a progressive story, aimed at engaging specific roles within larger buying groups.

Lead scoring

The right way to score your leads

Lead scoring is the process of assigning values to buyer engagement to identify leads that are ready for sales. A lead should only become a marketing qualified lead (MQL) once it reaches a specific score based on engagement. There are two types of engagement to consider when lead scoring: identifiable and anonymous.

  • Identifiable activity can be attributed to a specific buyer that is in your database.
  • Anonymous activity cannot be attributed to a specific buyer, but it can be attributed to an account.

Identifiable activities should be scored based on the value of the buyer’s behavior. For example, filling out a form to download an guide should be scored higher than simply opening an email. Totaling up these scores gives you a “behavioral score.”

Anonymous activity is account based and can be scored based on four categories:

  • Engagement intent (page views).
  • Research intent (relevant research on third-party sites).
  • Display advertising engagement (impressions and clicks).
  • Demographic criteria (company size).

Totaling up account level activity and criteria gives you a “demographic score.”

Calculating your MQL score should combine behavioral and demographic scores in a matrix. Ultimately, your lead scoring model should look something like this:

Lead routing

Improve engagement through better lead routing

Lead routing defines how, when, and to whom on the sales team marketing-qualified leads are sent. It’s crucial to account for buying groups in your lead routing, but many marketers don’t. Many lead routing processes — using marketing automation to send qualified leads to sales — fall victim to “second-lead syndrome.” According to Forrester, second-lead syndrome happens when a lead routing process only values the first new qualified lead from an account, disqualifying any subsequent leads as redundant.

So, how can you avoid this potential lead routing nightmare?

  • Create a buying group-friendly lead routing process: Every lead, not just the initial one, should be sent to that account’s sales rep once it reaches the appropriate score.
  • Clearly define service level agreements: We recommend that every marketing qualified lead (MQL) should be contacted within 24 hours, and that demo requests be replied to within 10 minutes.
  • Clearly define the rules of engagement: You don’t want multiple sales reps following up with the same buying group, and you do want to be strategic about priority accounts.

We recommend starting with basic rules of engagement:

  1. If an MQL comes in that is a VP level or higher from a strategic account, then the SDR should forward the MQL immediately to a sales rep.
  2. When an MQL comes in, an SDR should check to see if there is sales engagement within the account. If there is a sales rep involved already, the SDR should forward the MQL to that sales rep.
  3. If an MQL comes in with no active sales engagement on the account, and is not a strategic or enterprise account, and is below a VP level, the SDR should own follow-up.

Comprehensive measurement of follow-up

The real ROI of content syndication

One of the most important parts of a successful lead nurture program is measuring your efforts, without which you can’t accurately optimize and increase program effectiveness, not to mention prove its business value.

There are five areas to measure:

  1. Lead nurture velocity: How quickly are leads moving from nurture programs to becoming a qualified lead?
  2. Email nurture performance: Create benchmarks for every action, including opt-in, open rate, click rate, sequence completion, conversion rate, and lead score.
  3. Digital display ad performance: Measure impressions per account, clicks per account, number of accounts nurtured through all three steps of an ad flight, and directly attributable conversions.
  4. Indirect but attributable ad performance: If you’re using ad tech that employs reverse IP lookups, use visitor data to track the following on an account basis: total visits and visitors, pages per visit, and visits to high-value pages.
  5. Cross-channel influence: When visitors self-identify by filling out a form, you should track inbound leads from accounts that were engaged by ads and syndication. You should also track accounts engaged by display ads and content syndication.

To get an idea of the impact of your content syndication and follow-up program on the bottom line, use a total touch attribution model, which reflects today’s complex buying processes. It rests on the assumption that every touchpoint is valuable because it contributes to the completion of a buyer’s journey. Within this model, you should measure: Number of opportunities influenced; value of open opportunities influenced; close rate of opportunities influenced; and value of deals closed-won influenced.

  • As you can see, while content syndication on its own is an effective and costefficient way to reach early-stage buyers, like all marketing tactics, it requires thorough nurturing, lead follow-up and measurement to achieve its full value.

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