Thought leadership is a lot like those auto-generated playlists on Spotify. At its best it can genuinely show you something you never knew existed and expand your horizons. At its worst it’s just recycling the same four or five classics over and over again.
Thought leadership is everywhere these days. Here at Stratton Craig, we hear the term a lot, and it is interesting just how fluid the definition is. For some of our clients, thought leadership means blog posts attributed to a certain team member. To others, it means industry benchmarking reports backed up by proprietary data.
So what makes good thought leadership ‘good’? Here are our key principles to creating great content that sets you apart as experts in your field.
The reality of thought leadership
Before we start trying to figure out what effective thought leadership actually looks like, let’s start with a few unavoidable truths:
Not everyone can be a thought leader
It’s right there in the title. The whole point of being a leader is that it separates you from everyone else. Saying that anyone who can write a blog post is a thought leader is the same as calling yourself a Michelin-star chef after nailing family fajita Friday.
It is very frustrating to read through an article that promises to give you a real solution to a challenge you face, only to come away with no answers.
Most of your customers aren’t looking to you for innovation
Innovation is awesome. But it can also be disruptive. Most B2B readers are looking for some insight into how to get the best out of their resources and won’t be willing to invest in totally redesigning their infrastructure or process. They want tried and tested solutions that work.
Just as not everyone can be a thought leader – not every business is an innovator. Most aren’t and that is absolutely fine. It would be chaos if every brand was constantly trying to break the mould and redefine established processes. Most of the time, being really good at a certain thing is exactly what your customers need from you.
Solving actual problems is the goal
People are busy and there is a lot of potential web content that they could read at any one time. It is very frustrating to read through an article that promises to give you a real solution to a challenge you face, only to come away with no answers.
These truths aren’t designed to rain on your parade. In fact, by acknowledging them you can better set expectations and goals for your content strategy.
The key ingredients of great thought leadership
Let’s think about what it means to be an ‘expert’. It’s someone who has a deep knowledge of a certain topic, combined with lots of practical experience. They are the people that have seen it all and lived to tell the tale. This means they can provide a unique perspective when it comes to problem-solving, mentoring and strategy.
This is the core of what thought leadership aims to be. It’s content that translates expertise and experience into easily digestible nuggets of insight.
So how do you do it?
1. Nail down the ‘why’ straight away
Unsurprisingly, we believe that any thought leadership should be tied to a wider content and communications strategy.
Firstly, it gives you a clear idea of what you are hoping to achieve. Your comms strategy has clear goals, and your thought leadership should too. The more focused the better. For example, if you are launching new products, the thought leadership content should directly drive readers to those product pages. Aiming to build more trust in your brand is fine – but hard to measure.
Secondly, having a clear idea of your aims should also highlight who in your business is right to position as a thought leader. Once selected, you may want to put in some work boosting their personal brand on platforms like LinkedIn. Hosting webinars is another good way to get them out there.
Great thought leadership functions in the same way as asking an experienced colleague to help you with something.
2. Focus on the problem your content is solving
This is linked to the point above, and there are two sides to this coin: the problem you are solving for your customer and the one you are solving for yourself.
Readers want insights and examples of how to overcome the challenges they face or ways to prepare for ones they will face in the future. Great thought leadership functions in the same way as asking an experienced colleague to help you with something. It’s not preachy or self-congratulatory. Rather it comes from a place of understanding and wanting to help. You can think about it like this:
A REAL PROBLEM + EXPERT + INSIGHT = A COMPELLING ANGLE
Thought leadership should never be too sales-y either. As a business you are obviously trying to grow, but the allure of this kind of content is that it transcends that fact to give real advice. So, if you’re looking to sell your new product, focus on how it solves a problem and benefits users rather than its features.
3. What you get out really depends on what you put in
Let’s go out on a limb here and just say it: the best thought leadership is based around original research, trends analysis, surveys, etc. If you’ve got your own data, you are already in a great position. For example, if you create a whitepaper based on research you’ve conducted, you can get different thought leaders in your business to do deep dives on certain topics or issues highlighted by the data.
4. One and done just won’t cut it
Successfully becoming a thought leader takes a lot of work. Regular content creation is one part of it, but you also need to make sure people know who you are. A lot of the time this comes through familiarity. If people see you hosting webinars or popping up on LinkedIn regularly, they will be more willing to listen.
Again, using thought leadership as part of a comms strategy that leverages other types of content can have lot of benefit here. Take our hypothetical whitepaper. Your thought leadership pieces add detail and further insight rather than just repurposing that content. Alongside infographics, webinars and the report itself, readers are free to deep dive or just skim the surface.
Thought leadership is about sharing hard-fought experience, lessons learned and helping your peers.
Standing out isn’t just shouting louder
When thought leadership works it can have a real impact on your business. What ties all the success stories together is using expertise to drive content that solves some need for the reader. It’s about more than having a revelation while drinking your morning coffee. It’s about sharing hard-fought experience, lessons learned and helping your peers.
If you are still feeling unsure about exactly how to launch an effective thought leadership campaign, we are here to help. Our ‘Get it Done Guide to Content Effectiveness’ looks at the key challenges facing content teams and outlines ways to tackle them while maintaining quality and momentum. And it’s free – so it really would be silly not to take a look.
Want to chat to one of the team about making the most of your content? Get in touch today.
