In my role as a marketing consultant, I’ve recommended JD Supra to expand the reach of my clients’ thought leadership content and gain exposure to a wider audience.
Although I’m confident that this is a solid strategy based on JD Supra’s analytics, there is an ongoing need to educate company executives on the value of syndication services, both to “market the marketing department” and to make sure syndication is understood in the context of other marketing programs.
I also work closely with business development teams, and their focus is much more immediate – are JD Supra readers potential prospects or existing customers, and how can I nurture this relationship?
...an important tool that can share your thought leadership content more widely
I won’t claim that I have it all figured out, but here are some tips on leveraging your JD Supra success inside your organization and connecting with your JD Supra readers.
Educate Executives
Here’s where it’s important to have an executive champion. If you have one or more senior execs who truly understand what JD Supra does and how it works, they will help you to champion the program internally. It also helps if your executives are authors.
Most executives look at marketing programs based on cost and results, yielding a Return on Investment. When comparing the cost of a JD Supra membership to running an event or an advertising campaign, the costs are relatively low. However, many other programs can point definitively to leads produced, whereas the results for thought leadership are often “awareness.” Of course, awareness is essential, but if you can point to more a concrete ROI, it will help. That’s where the reporting comes in.
Share Reporting Results
JD Supra does an excellent job with its Weekly Digest emails and monthly Visibility & Engagement snapshot emails. I read them regularly, but I would bet that most marketing and corporate leaders do not.
To share the monthly results, I pull a detailed monthly JD Supra analytics report in Excel form and attach it to JD Supra’s report, to which I add a brief intro. I change the subject line to “Who’s Reading our Content?” and send it to the entire marketing department, sales leaders, all JD Supra authors, and company executives.
It's important to add syndication results to any other monthly analytics reports on marketing programs. Organic SEO ranking is something that I bring up frequently. JD Supra gives our articles a prominent organic search ranking; when compared to a Google Ad pay-per-click campaign, the ROI is significant.
Make Connections When It Makes Sense
The element of the JD Supra reports that holds the most promise is the Readers Report. In some cases, you will see the name, title, and company of who has read your article. In other cases, you’ll only get the company name, but you will see which article was read and how many times.
I’m sure business development teams would love to treat these readers as prospects, but it’s important for marketing and sales to work together to figure out if we can make a connection, and how to do that in a helpful (and not creepy – “I see that you read our article”) way. If you have customers on the report, you can start to share additional, related content directly with them. If you identify prospects, you can research their profiles and see if there is a way to connect that will add value to them.
In summary, JD Supra is an important tool that can share your thought leadership content more widely and generate greater awareness. The next step is to delve into the analytics to see how you can connect with your readers.
*
Maria Doyle is a marketing and communications consultant and the principal of Doyle Strategic Communications. She works primarily with technology companies to help them meet their business goals through strategic marketing and communications programs. Specializing in thought leadership content creation, Maria has written hundreds of blog posts, articles, and ebooks for her clients. If you are interested in working together, please reach out. Connect with Maria on LinkedIn.
