What if I told you that 49% of your target audience was more likely to pay a premium price for your products and services as a result? Would you be willing to make an investment in your brand program if you knew that 45% of B2B business decision-makers would award your organization their business if you did this one thing?
That’s exactly what Edelman and LinkedIn found in their 2017 study, How Thought Leadership Impacts B2B Demand Generation. While the upside was clear, the downside of a mediocre program—which happens all too often—is a loss of respect and business consideration. Lesson for brands: do it well or don’t do it at all.
What is Thought Leadership?
In the majority of B2B companies, their value to customers and prospects is their insight on how to solve complex business issues facing their clients. This is where thought leadership becomes the brand platform to deliver that unique point of view.
I define thought leadership as a type of content marketing that is focused on ideas and insights rather than products and services. Straddling the business and marketing strategies, it is also the outcome of a clearly defined, well-planned and flawlessly executed content strategy.
Done well, thought leadership can:
- Demonstrate your brand’s point of view on the issues that matter to your customers and the industry in which your business operates.
- Earn the trust and business of potential buyers by providing timely and relevant insights to address their most pressing business challenges.
A winning brand strategy involves being able to articulate your purpose to inspire a movement and to align all activities to the brand values. A successful thought leadership program resides inside this framework, underpinned by three core components: customers, content and culture.
Defining and Measuring Brand Impact
Before we dive into the three components, let’s pause and ask ourselves what we are trying to achieve. As with any strategy, you need to go through an exploration phase before you invest time and resources in execution. Here are five questions that you could ask leadership during the kick-off meeting:
1. How will this advance our brand and make us stand out?
2. What business problem are we trying to solve?
3. What audience are we trying to reach, and what do we know about them?
4. What resources do we need, and who’s accountable?
5. What is the desired outcome of this brand program?
In my experience, creating a common understanding at the outset will ensure alignment and agreement as the program advances from the development to the go-to-market phase. The first thought leadership also sets the performance benchmark. As content development becomes more frequent and more consistent, you can use metrics like share of voice, lead generation and net promoter score, to name a few, to evaluate the impact and adjust your program as needed.
Creating Your Content Strategy
Generally speaking, 60% of thought leadership content produced increases awareness of the expertise, and 40% addresses the specific needs of customers and potential customers or the industry in which the company operates. Depending on the business need, you may deploy one of two content strategies:
Buyer groups:
- Content is directly tied to client needs and provides informed insights and tangible solutions to a business issue.
- It is relevant to specific buyer groups as identified through market or client research.
- Final outcome always supports horizontal and/or vertical growth and contributes to top-line revenue. External brand recognition is a secondary consideration.
Brand:
- Content is directly tied to a macroeconomic and/or industry issue and provides informed insights for impacted organizations.
- It is aligned with the needs or big bets of specific areas in your business but also appeals to broad audiences.
- Final outcome results in recognition of the brand and of spokespeople as credible “thought leaders” on the issue. Growing top-line revenue is a secondary consideration.
Once you know what the topic is, make a decision on which content strategy is the right one for that occasion.
Know Your Customer
Not every piece of content will be relevant to everyone, and not all channels are created equal. The first step is to identify whom you’re targeting, the demographics and psychographics, and create personas. Tap primary and secondary research sources such as communication audits, media kits, annual reports and industry publications to understand motivations, pain points and media consumption habits.
Also, depending on where your target audience is in their buyer journey, the type of content that will appeal to them and the format in which it is delivered will vary. Most content buyer journeys employ the inverted funnel so that you can map content against each phase: consideration, adoption, advocacy, etc.. Another is to consider buyer journeys as circular or an infinity loop where there is no possibility of disengagement once their need is met at the bottom.
Culture-proofing Your Brand
The successful implementation of your thought leadership program is dependent on having the appropriate organization and culture. The culture needs to support the allocation of time and resources away from mission-critical and day-to-day tasks that drive the direct business results toward more exploratory projects that might not deliver results for a long time, if ever. However, success can mean it becomes easier to convince internal stakeholders to make future investments in this critical brand program.
Embedding thought leadership in your organization’s strategy can be a culture change and requires an appropriate communication plan. For example, at the start of the program, you can use communications to explain the purpose and vision to the rest of the organization and create interest. Support this through change management activities as roles and responsibilities are adjusted, as well as building new processes, governance framework and progress reporting.
Once you’re in the market, communicate the program’s impact and celebrate successes; give your employees tools to share this content to build their personal brand. The visibility of your people—not just specific leaders—as thought leaders can create employee advocacy that multiplies the overall brand impact beyond the paid and owned channels in your marketing campaign.
A company’s ability to survive often depends on how it can innovate and differentiate what it does and why. Successful thought leadership can be that brand differentiator, the vehicle through which you tell your brand story and engage your customers in ways that are relevant to them.