It has to be said that thought leadership is something of a buzz term when it comes to brands and their marketing campaigns. Now a top objective, building a strong thought leadership programme ensures a company is seen as having good insight and well thought-out views on current and future market trends.
When it comes to B2B and the vast range of market segments, intellectual property is a core component for competition.
But what do you need to be doing to demonstrate your kudos as a thought leader? Here’s six top tips from our new Thought Leadership Best Practice Guide to get you going:
- Heavily research your market. Do you know what’s keeping your targets awake at night and what your competitors are saying? Scour the internet and media for the hot topics impacting your industry.
- Create a clear plan with realistic timings and budgets. This will give you more time to be creative – whatever sparks your interest in your professional and personal life is likely to spark the interest of others.
- Use analysts and include ‘killer’ stats. A key ingredient of any piece of content is facts and stats that make an impact. If you’re creating high-value content, using analysts will give your thought leadership gravitas.
- Your distribution strategy should cover direct and indirect methods of contact. You may have the best thought leadership content in the world but if it’s not reaching the right people its worthless. Target these people by piggybacking on existing relationships.
- Everything is measurable. Keep your thought leadership campaign aligned to wider business goals and report on all activity to demonstrate its value. Remember, different channels produce different results so tailor your activity according to your data segments.
- Be open about what worked and what didn’t. This will ensure you’re always learning and adapting from the outcomes so that you can plan and improve future activity.
You can download more tips and the full report here.
