Want Great Custom Content? Spice Up Your Syndicated Content!

It may be considered a cliche at this point, but the mantra, “content is king” is one of the truisms of digital marketing. Content drives traffic, develops authority, and encourages conversions. However, while original or custom content is hard to come by, syndicated content is a great workaround. However, to take full advantage of it, it needs to be customized.

The Importance of Content for MSPs

Successful marketing in the digital era thrives on content. Content drives traffic, defines your message and brand, as well as gives your audience the confidence to invest in your skills as a technology expert. Without consistent, high-quality content, most MSPs will never reach their full potential to attract an audience to their site and convert them into customers.  

MSPs in particular, due to their technology-laden jargon, need content which is accessible to their non-tech clients who have need of their services. Any effective marketing strategy for an MSP must include content written with their potential customers in mind.

The reality is, unfortunately, finding time to research, create, edit, and post a good blog can be a difficult task for any business owner. This is why so many vendors and MSP marketing agencies offer some level of prebuilt, syndicated content.

What is Syndicated Content?

Syndicated content is content distributed by a single provider to various websites. It fills the need particularly for smaller businesses, who need high-quality content to explain their complex services and philosophies. This allows them to better compete against enterprise-sized businesses, who are more able to generate their own content. As content is the main driver of traffic to websites, the ability to have access to content is critical to a smaller MSP’s marketing plans, as well as for overall business success.

How Your MSP Can Benefit From Syndicated Content 

The goal of MSP-focused content is to establish you as the local IT expert who can answer clients’ questions and support their businesses. Your content may be the only first impression you will have with potential customers.

If you are blogging regularly, and offering great insight and tips for free on your website, it will give a very good impression to a prospect. It also feeds into how Google sees you and builds authority. Content is critical to your MSP marketing and ultimate business success.

Syndicated content can provide MSPs with a reliable source of high-quality content that focuses on the services and the support you can offer local businesses. This content can propel your MSP marketing strategies forward by providing the fuel to drive traffic to your website, your blog, your social media, as well as provide content for promotional emails and even direct mail.

Syndicated Content Needs To Be About You.

Syndicated content is valuable, but its very nature requires that it be generic in order for it to be appropriate for as wide a range audience as possible, hence the syndication. This requires that there are broad strokes when discussing ideas and solutions, as opposed to the more individual and personalized answers which would bring you the best results. However, it doesn’t have to stay that way; great syndicated content can be personalized. When you receive syndicated content from a top performer, you aren’t forced to ‘take what you get’. In fact, you are encouraged to add your own spin to it.

For example, a syndicated blog post about having a business continuity plan in case of a disaster is likely going to be a good post that fits your business. However, it takes on a different level of urgency and value to your readers if you personalize it for your location. If you are about to enter into tornado season, adding a few sentences about that can make all the difference. 

The same goes for your case studies. Did you just save a prominent local business when their historic offices on Main Street burned down? Explaining that process and walking the reader through the specific results will bolster the value of that already-good blog post.

By adding relevant information to your syndicated content, the generic content has been transformed into content which is topical and answers a “pain point” for your audience. This doesn’t require a major re-write either; a simple paragraph or two mentioning your location and local concerns could be enough to help focus your reader’s attention. Furthermore, once you add information which is unique to your MSP, your service area and, most importantly, to your audience, the content is no longer syndicated. It becomes something else: customized.

Syndicated, Customized, or Custom

The reality is that smaller businesses just don’t have the resources to budget for a full-time copywriter or even a part-time one. Plus, a writer could write custom content that isn’t even as good or impactful as a piece you get from a vendor.

Syndicated content solves the issues of time and financial concerns, and is a great way for your MSP to have the type of high-quality content which converts. It can be generic at times. However, it doesn’t have to be; when you modify certain details of syndicated content to make it your own, you incorporate a unique benefit for your readers into your piece. This keeps your readers happy and engaged, increasing the value of your content without the cost associated with custom content creation. 

MSP Marketing and Syndicated Content

While great content is critical to your MSP marketing strategy, it is only a single piece of the puzzle. A successful marketing strategy demands more than just the posting of blogs, even if the blogs are of high value. For your MSP marketing endeavors to reach the maximum audience, you will need a multi-tiered approach for communicating with your audience. Effective marketing and outreach for your MSP must include social media, a modern website and, of course, a marketing plan to tie it all together. For more information about our blog services, SEO, or other marketing solutions designed for the MSP, contact us.