Tips on taking your thought leadership campaign to market – write and speak

This is a continuation of the post on 14/1/2010 on how to take your thought leadership position to market.

I spoke about six critical actions I believe need to be engaged in order to achieve this.  I have covered the first four (1. Make it a strategic business imperative; 2. Know your audience; 3. Share openly; 4. Cultivate the media).

Today I will cover the fifth:

1. Write and speak about your campaign

The last remaining will be covered in the last post in this series:

1. Pump up your content online

Action 5: Write and speak about your campaign

Your thought leadership point of view can be told through face-to-face story telling or writing. Ideally, you want to use a combination of both.

The value of having a number of compelling written stories around your thought leadership point of view is that they gives you a host of different options. With the web playing such an important role in our everyday lives, having a thought leadership campaign written up becomes critical if people are to find it online.

Writing could include one or any number of the following:

• articles written for the media
• letters
• opinion pieces
• white papers
• research summaries
• fact sheets
• background papers
• speeches
• presentations
• third party endorsements
• blogs

By using one or more of the above you are better able to share your information with your audiences. More importantly, you can make the information readily accessible to a much wider audience interested in the topic.

In their book How to position yourself as the obvious expert, Elsom Eldridge Jr and Mark Eldridge maintain that writing a book is essential in establishing your credibility in your field of expertise. They maintain that even if your book does not compete with those in the bookstores, you should write a book to use as a marketing tool to build your reputation as the obvious expert.

Tell your thought leadership story and drive word of mouth

I’m not saying you should write a book but wherever and whenever your thought leadership champion can, he or she should tell the story and get those around you enthusiastic about your point of view. Story telling is a powerful way to engage people and a great way to get people talking about what you have to say.

Word-of-mouth is the most convincing and believable form of marketing today. You should actively pursue speaking opportunities for your thought leadership champion.

These opportunities could include speaking at:

• local chambers of commerce and industry
• business organizations and associations
• academic institutions
• consumer bodies
• conferences
• seminars
• workshops
• webinars
• your own work functions

Depending on the appeal of your thought leadership point of view and your thought leader’s oratory skills, he or she could consider joining a professional speaker’s circuit. There are many organizations out there with a variety of speakers on their books. It makes it much easier to join them if you have a library of written material on your topic as well as speeches and presentations which you or your thought leader champion has already given.

Get out there and spread the word!