What Is Curated Content and How Can It Optimize the Buyer Journey?

You know you need great content to connect with prospects, but does it ever feel like you’re talking to yourself? How can you demonstrate your expertise and get noticed in a crowded marketplace that’s adding new content every day?

The best content marketing strategies share a range of educational resources that engage people and position your company as a trustworthy partner. To add value, give your original content some good company – different perspectives and new ideas from other industry experts.

Like, Share, Connect

Curated content is timely, topical external content that educates prospects and helps them find the right solutions to their business challenges. If you’re active online, you probably do this on a personal level by sharing news, life updates or your favorite “Sunday scaries” meme.         

Now reframe this for a B2B marketing context. Look at your inbox or bookmarked links. Think about the resources you view as touchstones to help you stay aware and ahead of changing industry trends. Sharing the best content in your industry associates you with experts (and puts you on their radar!) and invites your audience to engage.

You know from your own purchasing decisions that you browse a range of sources to guide your choice. Your prospects do the same. Connect them with the information they’re looking for alongside your own original content so they have a remarkable experience from their very first encounter. 

Don’t Throw Spaghetti at the Wall

Curated content is a great way to diversify your content calendar, connect with your audience and enhance organic traffic and conversions – but only if the content is mapped to the appropriate stages of the buyer journey. Do it right and your prospects will keep coming back to you to find the information they need. 

For early journey prospects (in the Pre-Awareness, Awareness and Education stages), present high-level resources like:  

• Industry articles
• Webinars
• Standards and guideline updates

For mid-journey prospects (in the Consideration and Evaluation stages), share content that connects your company’s solutions to current industry conversations and needs:

• Product trend updates
• Thought leadership discussions 
• Government reports or statistics

Dive deeper into your solutions as you curate content for late-journey prospects in the Rationalization and Decision stages: 

• Independent product reviews
• Comparison research
• Buyer’s guides

And don’t forget about your audience after conversion! Curate resources specifically for existing customers as Ongoing Delivery content to help your audience stay engaged. 

Presentation Is Key

You’ve identified strong, engaging curated content. Now it’s time to think about tactics.

As with your original content, make sure your curated content is part of a clear content strategy. If a sense of humor isn’t part of your brand, don’t share the latest memes – especially if they don’t relate to your business! If your audience responds best to video, maybe that whitepaper isn’t the best resource to link to but a video about its findings would be perfect.

When considering your options to present curated resources that map to the buyer journey, keep in mind three priorities: 

1. Content Personalization: Tailor curated content to the specific needs and preferences of your target personas. New research might appeal to an engineer or product manager but not the finance department, so serve them up some market trend analysis instead.
   
   
2. Multi-Channel Distribution: Go beyond a blog post roundup. Share curated content across channels. Repost content by industry leaders on your social media or include updates and links in your newsletter.
   
   
3. Consistent Updates: Regularly review opportunities for curated content to ensure you’re sharing the best, most relevant information.

As you choose what content to share, remember the goal is to provide value for your audience. Evaluate performance as part of your ongoing marketing metrics tracking. If prospects aren’t engaging, that’s a sign you need to recalibrate. Through thoughtful curation, you can build your brand recognition, connect your prospects to important information and encourage engagement that generates leads.