Positioning your firm as a thought leader will improve your lead generation and overall business growth. You’ll earn trust and build credibility as a firm that understands the business needs of your market.
Research has shown that thought leadership is fast becoming the most widely used B2B marketing practice [10 Megatrends in B2B Marketing, Economist Intelligence Unit, 2008]. How well is your firm positioned as a thought leader? The first step in knowing what you need to do to improve your thought leadership positioning is to assess your firm’s level.
Level 1: Unbranded
You don’t know what thought leadership marketing is and/or you don’t value it. You have no thought leadership marketing goals. You don’t document your knowledge. You don’t write or speak about your ideas consistently, so few people know what they are. You don’t have a clear understanding of why you get customers. You may perform your work at a high level, but you’re not top-of-mind in your market.
Level 2: Recognised
You are beginning to build your thought leadership capability, but mostly by accident. You have a basic understanding of thought leadership marketing, but you haven’t started a formal programme.
At most you have vague, undocumented goals. Your website and occasional marketing pieces describe your knowledge and expertise. You occasionally write in professional publications or speak at events. You think that your basic thought leadership marketing may be bringing you customers, but you’re not sure and you don’t measure results.
Level 3: Positioned
You’ve begun a formal thought leadership marketing programme. Certain key individuals in your organisation understand the value of thought leadership. You have documented goals. You understand what issues are important to your market and develop ideas to address them. Your knowledge and expertise are well-documented. You are beginning to develop a consistent and innovative point of view. Your website and marketing pieces describe your knowledge and expertise and position you as a thought leader.
You have processes in place for creating content and delivering it to your market. You’re beginning to engage with your customers and prospects. You publish your ideas in a variety of media and make your knowledge available freely. You measure the results that your thought leadership marketing is delivering. You are top-of-mind in your market.
Level 4: Valued
You have a thought leadership marketing programme in place and some data to evaluate its effectiveness. Most leaders in your organisation value thought leadership. You have clearly documented goals. You have a consistent, innovative, and well-documented point of view.
You engage in research to support your ideas. You use multiple media for delivering your ideas to your market, who regularly engage with you. You measure whether you are meeting your goals, including: how well you engage with your audience; whether you are reaching and expanding your market; how well you convert prospects to leads; how well you retain customers. Your message reaches beyond your immediate prospects.
Level 5: Trusted
You are continuously improving your thought leadership marketing capability, which is part of your organisational culture. You regularly review your documented thought leadership marketing goals and change them based on the knowledge you acquire about your market.
You consistently demonstrate that you understand your market’s issues and have success in solving the kinds of problems that are important to them. You regularly engage with your market and learn from them, building upon your expertise. Each delivery channel is assessed for effectiveness and evaluated for continued use. Media are integrated, ensuring that a consistent message is delivered across channels.
You have in place the processes necessary to review the data you get from measuring the results of your thought leadership marketing efforts and use that information to continuously improve your capabilities. Your market is an advocate of your brand.
