Being a revenue marketer in 2023 is hard. The lead generation landscape has changed, today’s buyers crave a personalized yet self-serve journey when it comes to researching, evaluating, and purchasing a solution. According to Harvard Business Review, 43% of buyers now prefer a rep free experience, which means that revenue marketers must seize the opportunity to maximize their brand voice to target audiences.
Today’s B2B buyers are everywhere from face-to-face events, to downloading whitepapers, to attending webinars. They are no longer tied to one source of information or perspective any longer. Forrester and Salesforce now report from 2015 to present day, the amount of account touchpoints grew from an average of 6 touches, to now 27 touches. Furthermore, the number of channels used to interact with suppliers has doubled from 5 to 10 over the last 7 years.
The point is, demand marketers need to be where their buyers are. This means you need to be interacting and expanding the presence you have in your available channels if you want to drive lead generation. Buyers control how and where they are able to receive information, so the name of the game is to avoid being filtered out.
Revenue marketers need to relinquish control of old sales and lead marketing approaches. At Pipeline360, we use our foundational software, Integrate to connect all our marketing channels, including syndication, ads, events, social, etc., to our platform where leads and impressions are governed for compliance and measured for future nurture. We also have an ecosystem of media partners sources that connects content syndication and display programs together, driving a comprehensive, powerful integrated media experience.
Why Content Syndication?
Content syndication is a marketing strategy that publishes and distributes valuable content at scale via third-party sites and publications. Viewing this as a top-of-funnel initiative, you get in front of buyers in the discovery/inform stages of the buyer’s journey and identify buyers who might not be sales-ready or aware that you help solve problems they face. But what makes this channel advantageous for users to explore as a top of funnel motion?
Competitive Landscape
Our partners at Activate have recently reported 44% of demand marketers already deploy content syndication when leveraging digital content experience. Knowing that about half your competition is in market with content syndication, revenue marketers now have a direct line of sight into how other companies are going to market. This allows revenue marketers to personalize their content syndication experience and capitalize on market share uniquely tailoring messaging, and promotion to their respective audiences.
Buyer behavior + Cost
With buyers only spending 5% of the buying cycle with sales (Gartner), how do revenue marketers earn a seat at the table for the remaining 95%? Tapping into an ecosystem of media partner sources can be a good place to start. Using the Lead Gen Marketplace, content syndication becomes an excellent channel to create additional top-of-funnel digital touchpoints without sales interaction. You are able to take your most valuable content and spread your key messages across various networks where your audiences are. This creates a cost-effective model to identify buyers. Set a budget, determine the amount of leads you would like to generate, and measure the results. Other channels like display ads, events can be harder to pinpoint ROI.
Data Enrichment/Validation
Layering your content syndication efforts to intent, technographic, or install-based providers defends the investment of your content syndication programs. Additionally, because of the technical infrastructure from Integrate, Pipeline360 ensures publishers/sources are passing only compliant, and actionable data that have opted in for future engagement.
Integrated Media in Practice
Now that we have established top-of-funnel tactics, we now take you behind the curtain and reveal how to take these leads from top-of-funnel to mid-funnel pipeline. When fusing brand and demand channels, consider the lens of display advertising. Depending on your buyer’s stage based on their content syndication engagements, prioritizing different experiences for different stages becomes critical. How we like to break this framework down into three ad stages: (1) awareness, (2) consideration, and (3) conversion ads. Each ad group serves a different purpose: and our image below supports this theory.
As mentioned earlier, top-of-funnel syndication is where these leads enter our funnel. Pipeline360 provides the ability to spread your content across networks by tapping on one of the global partnerships we have to source your leads of any spec. This model helps block any bad data or duplicate leads from entering your system, and ensures opt-in is confirmed. Because you can tap into a large audience spanning several networks, you can identify the digital locations your buyers are in.
Here is where the magic begins…
Your leads are now engaged, and now have a level of engagement with your product, it is time to properly feed these leads downstream to mid-funnel. We believe digital display advertising is the solution to achieving this motion. By serving these in the multiple stages, you can bucket particular syndication engagement with particular ads that create your personalized buyer experience. You can connect these engagements via the API/Integration technology from Pipeline360 as a way to route leads in real-time to your CRM flows for Sales and BDRs to follow up on. Once you have generated your interest, our team of campaign managers and digital strategists are here to help you report the impact on the integrated media campaigns run, and areas for optimization.
As we forge ahead, the race to relinquish control of outdated marketing and sales strategies is on. Buyers are continuing to change their consumption preferences and revenue marketers looking to optimize their lead generation strategy to fuse brand and demand channels together. Lead generation marketers should be looking at Pipeline360 as the solution to conquering that challenge.
To learn more, check out our webinar on "How We Use Our Cross-Channel Content Syndication Marketplace to Drive ABM Demand." We showcase how Integrated Media; a strategy built on the fusion of content syndication and display advertising can drive ABM at scale. Get a behind-the-scenes look at the tools and strategies offered within Integrate’s Lead Gen Marketplace to assist marketers in identifying buyers cost-effectively, precisely, and prioritize driving ABM at scale across various networks.
Click Here to learn how to get started with Pipeline360.
