By Barbara Pfeiffer, The Partner Marketing Group
In Part 1 of this blog series, I talked about using duplicate content from software publishers and whether or not it will hurt you in terms of your search engine ranking (in short—it won’t—but it won’t help either). Wouldn’t it be great, though, if this existing content COULD help get you found and drive conversions? It can, with a little creativity.
Here are three ways to use existing vendor content to your advantage:
- Add your own insight to it. Quote excerpts of the publisher content—an article or eBook for example—then add your own insights. For every paragraph you quote, create at least two original paragraphs commenting on it. Yes, it takes work, but it’s easier than starting from scratch and you can be sure the topic will be appealing. This also helps answer the “What should I write about?” question.
- Re-purpose it. Is the software publisher you are working with providing regular blogs for partner usage? Take the best of these and compile them into an eBook. Add your own intro and some great design and you have an “original’ offer to use in your campaigns. Have an eBook? Turn it into an infographic or a series of blogs. Make sure you have permission to “re-purpose” materials. Materials created by a software publisher are often fair game, while items purchased from research houses (such as Forrester or Gartner) are typically off-limits. A good best practice in any case is to just ask permission.
- Rewrite it with your audience in mind. If your software publisher allows it, consider re-writing an article. Follow the same outline of the original, but re-write it in your own words and for your own audience. For example, take an article on the integration of sales and marketing and use it as the foundation for the importance of integrating sales and marketing in a professional services firm. If you’re going to re-write an article, use a Plagiarism Checker tool to make sure you aren’t copying existing content you didn’t know about. Here’s one of many out there: https://www.cuteseotools.net/plagiarism-checker.
If any of this seems overwhelming—outsource it! At The Partner Marketing Group, we routinely work with our clients to maximize pieces from the publishers and vendors they work with. Whether it’s transforming them into an original content piece, or using them in campaigns with emails, social posts, blogs, etc. A good agency can help your content budget go further.
