Editorial
The Gist
- Transform perceptions. High-quality thought leadership makes companies more appealing to decision-makers.
- Content differentiation. Good thought leadership sets brands apart and increases content engagement.
- Strategy necessity. Creating compelling thought leadership content requires original research and strong opinions.
New research by LinkedIn and Edelman on the impact of thought leadership has thrown this staple of many B2B marketing campaigns back into the spotlight this spring.
It reveals that effective thought leadership exerts a big influence on sales decisions. An overwhelming majority — nine in 10 decision makers or C-suite executives — are "moderately" or "very likely" to be more receptive to sales or marketing outreach from a company that consistently produces high-quality thought leadership.
Other findings include its effects on retention: It “inoculates” companies against competitors trying to woo their customers.
Top B2B Marketers Succeed With Thought Leadership
There’s no doubt that, done well, thought leadership delivers impressive results. In fact, our data identifying what top performing B2B marketers are doing differently from their not-so-effective peers, shows they are consistently more likely to deploy thought leadership as a tactic (often as their No. 1 tactic) than the also-rans.
Of course, not all thought leadership content is created equal. Most attempts fail because the thoughts they contain are average at best and the brands involved aren't leading us anywhere.
It wasn’t surprising to read that the LinkedIn/Edelman research also found that close to a third (30%) of people producing thought leadership content admitted their organizations didn’t really know how to use it as a sales or marketing tool.
Related Article: Is Your Brand Really Rolling out Thought Leadership?
Brave Thought Leadership Sets Brands Apart
Good thought leadership demands bravery. It means taking a stand on an issue. It means being prepared for others to disagree, even alienating some of your audience. Not all companies will be willing, but doing so delivers key advantages:
- You'll differentiate your brand.
- Your content will be more likely to be consumed and shared.
- You'll deliver actionable value to good-fit customers.
- You'll qualify-out poor-fit customers, saving yourself time and resources.
- You'll provide a reason for people to engage with you (you know something valuable that they don't).
Creating high-performing thought leadership content is hard. There are few shortcuts. But get it right, and you'll create evergreen assets that can be used many, many times.
How to Elevate Your Thought Leadership
At a basic level, thought leadership material, in whatever guise (whitepapers, ebooks, research, webinars, placed articles) needs to deliver on the thought and the leadership.
So, what fresh ideas are you putting forward that you can either say first, or — more likely — say better than those who’ve addressed the point before?
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As for leadership, your role is to develop thinking that moves things forward, i.e., your buyer closer toward a sale.
If your content does neither of these things, it’ll fall into the realm of “unthinking followership,” which is bland, forgettable and will underperform across every metric.
The editorial standard is very high. You are competing not only with your competitors’ content but with industry and business publications too.
More than this, anything you produce must be relevant to both your prospects’ businesses and yours. So be sure to read and edit through a cynical customer’s eyes.
Enhance Thought Leadership with Authentic Examples
But these are just the basics. For truly excellent thought leadership, try adding the following into the mix:
- Incorporate real-world examples people can relate to. Even if you can’t provide a case study, you can still use anecdotes, hard facts or statistics, or illustrate what putting your thoughts into action looks like. Steer clear of abstract theory; it doesn’t help buyers.
- Be human, use humor, craft your tone of voice. Too many B2B companies fall into the trap of assuming they must produce something academic and impartial. As a result, what they come up with is often dull, dry content that dies upon publication.
- When coming up with your angle, pretend you’re drawing up a manifesto. Pick a fight with old outdated thinking and take a stand.
- Consider investing in original research. This can be used, reused and repurposed across a variety of projects and media, offering plenty of value and mileage for the initial outlay. It will result in some of the most effective content you’ll ever create.
- Stand out. Data from our B2B Effectiveness Engine shows that in demand generation, those with a differentiated position are 19% more likely to say their thought leadership content is very effective at meeting their objectives, so working out how to stand out from the competition is time very well spent.
- Know your ideal customer. In brand building, those that have researched their ideal customer profile are 24% more likely to say their thought leadership content is very effective at meeting their objectives, so get clear about who you’re talking to and what they care about.
Interestingly, when comparing B2B sectors, while the professional services sector is often considered the natural “home” for thought leadership content, they report significantly lower effectiveness from it for brand and reputation building than either technology or manufacturing marketers. It could be that the competition is stiffer, so you’ll need to up your game.
AI Will Do True Thought Leaders a Big Favor
The proliferation of and easy access to low-quality AI-generated content offers brands powerful opportunities around thought leadership. Audiences will increasingly shun the mass of what I call "Frankencontent" crowding out so many search results. As a result, they will be more willing to go directly to the source of fresh ideas and innovative thinking. This will be a mix of established publishers, respected sites and leading brands.
What I suspect we’ll see is more brands leaning into video using named spokespeople. This is hard to fake and difficult to copy. They'll look to be more human, less polished and more authentic.
In written content we’ll see greater use of research but tied to strong opinions about what it actually means. And we’ll see more brands developing content that bridges the gap between big ideas and actionable frameworks for making the thinking work in the real world.
Final Thoughts
Producing effective thought leadership content is well worth the investment. It will help your brand stand out from the crowd. It’ll attract like-minded customers who will be easier to convert and more profitable over time. And it will dissuade those companies who were never a good fit for your business in the first place.
Yes, it is hard to carry off. But the potential returns make it worth it.
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