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Thought leadership is both the most rewarding and one of the hardest things a business can aspire to do. The label often appears on the content, yet to reach the required quality. This blog post is the first in a series on practical thought leadership and what it takes to put a solid foundation in place for execution.
Thought leadership 101: Thought leadership is used broadly as a label for work at the intersection of marketing and research. Profound 🧐 definitions build around expertise your customers can rely on to drive change with predictable business outcomes. Not a small role to play.
Your expertise comes from primary research on specific challenges or experiences gained from collaborating closely with customers. Customers tap into your thought leadership to shape their strategies and change initiatives.
Facts and proof points make your point of view credible and trustworthy. Aim for an outside-in-driven process, always starting from customer opportunities as the center of gravity.
When done right, thought leadership can play a central role in differentiating you from the competition.
🏆 Why you aspire to become a thought leader: Building thought leadership is hard work for research and marketing, so why is it so high on many business agendas?
Businesses see thought leaders as a way to address the following problems:
- You operate in markets or segments where it is hard to differentiate yourself based on products and services.
- Customers seek solutions to complex business challenges for cost savings and revenue growth in the same solution.
- You earn trust by delivering facts and proof points to support your claims.
- You face disruptions affecting your core business.
What thought leaders do: Thought leaders have strong market positions, invest extensively in market research, and are great at packaging insights in marketing assets.
As a leader in a market, you have the attention of your customers because you are too important to be neglected and play a key role during disruptions and market shifts.
Your research focuses on customer problems where you want to be the best source of insights. Your research needs to address new and emerging opportunities and the extraction of proof points from projects with lead customers.
Your marketing team works closely with your research team and has a portfolio of well-defined assets and strategies to reach your target audiences.
🎤🎬 📰Typical thought leadership outputs and outcomes: Thought leadership reaches their audiences through:
- speeches at own and third-party-hosted conferences
- articles in own or third-party publications centered around thought leadership
- own primary research reports in areas where there is a good match between market opportunities and your expertise
With well-executed thought leadership, you can expect to see market share growth in segments where you are strong, expand your footprint with large accounts, strengthen your credibility in the eco-system, and successfully navigate market disruptions.
Key questions for you and your team: An excellent way to start is to make a self-assessment of where you stand about thought leadership today:
- Why is thought leadership an essential objective for us?
- Do we clearly define what we mean by thought leadership today?
- Who are contributors to thought leadership work in our organization?
- What activities and outcomes fall in our thought leadership bucket?
- What are apparent improvement areas for us in this field?
Additional reading suggestions:
- What is thought leadership? [BLOGPOST] – by Western Governors University
- What is a thought leader? [BLOGPOST] – by Denise Brosseau Thought Leadership Lab
- What it really means (and takes) to become a thought leader [ARTICLE] – Fran Bidermann-Gross in Forbes
- What is thought leadership, and why does it matter [BLOGPOST] – by Skye Schooley, BusinessNewsDaily
- Thought Leadership Strategy for 2024 [BLOGPOST] – by Allyza Shaine, Brainz
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