The six lessons of thought leadership

I was reading an article penned by veteran marketing strategist, Rob Leavitt.  Rob is the Principal at Solutions Insights and he specializes in issues- and content-based marketing.  Rob helps companies distinguish themselves in the marketplace and advises them on how to have strategic conversations with their clients, prospects, and market influencers.

Rob gets thought leadership and I thought the six lessons he has for thought leaders at any level were well worth sharing.  Here they are:

Six thought leadership lessons

Stepping back from the specifics of these two initiatives, I see six general lessons for thought leadership marketers at any level:

1. Put Customers First. It sounds obvious to say that thought leadership marketing should focus on what your customers really care about, but far too many marketers take a product- or solution-first approach and try to fit some larger issue neatly around their offering. Buyers don’t care about your offerings by themselves; they have their own problems to worry about. Engage them where they live. IBM is trying to build relationships with CEOs, so they research and talk about what other CEOs are doing. Deloitte works especially closely with Boards of Directors, CFOs, and other C-level executives; it’s hard to think of a C-suite issue more pressing these days than risk management. What do your customers and prospects really worry about?
2. Do the Research. Thought leadership without real research is just opinion, and opinions are a dime a dozen. Show buyers serious research, though, and they’re much more likely to pay attention. You might not be able to interview 1,130 CEOs around the world, but you can survey and interview your customers and prospects, produce serious case studies (not puff piece “success stories”), and comb the literature and online conversation to produce new insights.
3. Say Something New. Thought leadership without a differentiated point of view is just an echo of conventional wisdom. Why should customers listen to your version then they’ve already heard it before — or if you’re only telling them something they already know. Smart customers want to be challenged. If you’re not sparking at least some disagreement and debate, you probably haven’t said anything new. None of IBM’s five attributes are themselves shockingly new but the synthesis suggests and aggressive and innovative approach that goes well beyond conventional thinking. Deloitte’s focus on the upside as well as the downside of risk clearly stands apart from the post-Wall Street collapse mentality of compliance first, last, and always.
4. Build a Pervasive Presence. Long gone are the days when thought leadership marketing meant publishing a white paper, research report, or journal article and then moving on to the next project. Media fragmentation, information overload, and the power of social media make it critical that thought leadership marketers put substantial energy into getting the word out across a broad range of media and activities. IBM’s 360 degree campaign for the CEO study included traditional activities (email, Web, direct mail, advertising, press and analyst briefings, sales enablement, video, etc.) as well as a number of newer approaches (blogs, podcasts, online innovation jams, and branded content). IBM also produced 15 “flavors” of the main report for different industries and C-suite positions. Deloitte has similarly tapped a wide variety of media and activities to engage clients, prospects, and market influencers. For thought leadership marketing today, think multi-media, social media, and complementary online and offline engagement to build a strong presence wherever your stakeholders already spend their time.
5. Stick with It. IBM’s CEO study is a two year project, and the 2008 version is IBM’s third such study. To maximize marketing impact, IBM organizes a “teaser phase” (outreach to build awareness before the formal launch), a “reveal phase” (a multi-faceted public launch to build buzz internally and externally), and a “sustain phase” (ongoing engagement to dig more deeply into the issues with customers and others). Deloitte launched the Risk Intelligent Enterprise effort in 2006 and has continued to explore the issues, refine the point of view, publish, and engage. The point is to pick a core issue for your customers and stick with it. Thought leadership takes time. It’s better to pick one or two issues and work them hard for several years than to flit from one issue to the next in a more superficial way.
6. Confirm the metrics. Far from an airy initiative, thought leadership marketing can and should focus on core metrics essential to business development and growth. Objectives for the IBM initiative revolved around relationship building with CEOs, corporate visibility and interest, ongoing engagement with key contacts, and sales leads. Deloitte takes a similar approach, focusing on competitive differentiation, influencer relations, client connections, and business development support. Setting and gaining organizational agreement on clear marketing and business development objectives provides the grounding and accountability that marketers need to justify the necessary investments.

Serious thought leadership marketing is not easy, but taking these six lessons to heart will go a long way toward success. At least that’s my opinion! What do you think?

I think Rob is right on the money and would be interested to see whether anyone else has any more ‘lessons’ to add to his list of six?  

7 Responses to “The six lessons of thought leadership”

1. Rob Leavitt says:

   March 11, 2010 at 03:51

   Hi Craig — thanks for the plug here. I’ll look forward to any further conversation here; I’m sure there are more lessons! Thought leadership is still a pretty young discipline, in spite of the years of work by the McKinsey, IBM, Deloitte, et al. And social media is of course changing the challenges and opportunities for thought leadership dramatically — perhaps most of all by the sheer quantity of “stuff” now circulating in all our markets, making true thought leadership somewhat more difficult to ferret out.
2. craig says:

   March 11, 2010 at 04:11

   No worries Rob, always happy to plug people like you who have deep insights and experience on the topic and are out there adding great value.

   You’re right there is a fair quantity of thought leadership stuff out there. My sense is that the thought leadership properties of the future, the ones that will gain the real traction, will be those that are closely aligned to the values of the business, that delivery truly deep insights to their publics/clients and are owned and lived by the CEO/MD down. These will be the thought leadership campaigns that stand out from the crowd in the future.
3. resveratrol says:

   March 11, 2010 at 23:23

   Well spoken. I never thought I would agree with this opinion, but I’m starting to see things differently. I have to research more on this as it seems quite interesting. One thing I don’t understand though is how everything is related together.
4. craig says:

   March 12, 2010 at 05:40

   Resveratrol, you’re not alone when you say you don’t understand how everything is related. To draw a clumsy analogy, thought leadership can be equated to the creative part of our brain, the part that comes up with ideas and that constantly feeds us insights about ourselves, others and the world around us. You can’t separate this from who we are. Likewise, thought leadership should also be an integral part of what a business is about.

   It should infuse every part of the business whether it be marketing, sales. PR, advertising, operations, etc. The thought leadership that achieves this is truly long lasting and will add long-term value and great ROI. There is still lots of stuff out there that is called thought leadership but is merely a pretender, something that scratches the surface once and then disappears.
5. Karthik Nagendra says:

   April 28, 2010 at 19:21

   Thought leadership marketing accordiing to me first needs to be structured right. i personally think a successful thought leadership marketing strategy is possible only with 2 things : a) thought leadership should be driven both by marketing as well as strategy teams to ensure that we get the right message/insights to the right customers (http://thoughtspotblog.wordpress.com/) & b) an ecosystem needs to be built for thought leadership marketing comprising of customer, academia, analyst, industry bodies,partners, internal customers where each stakeholder will act as a contributor as well as receipient of knowledge being generated (http://www.outsourcing-journal.com/jul2009-thought.html)
6. craig says:

   April 30, 2010 at 16:24

   Karthik if you read my book Brand Stand: seven steps to thought leadership you will see that I am a strong advocate of thought leadership being a) a strategic, top management driven campaign which is integrated across the entire business - marketing, sales, PR, CRM , etc, and b) that it requires a strategic framework with multiple touchpoints and multiple vehicles for delivering the content.

   The extent of your ecosystem, as you call it, depends on who you want to influence and the strategic objectives of your thought leadership campaign.
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   July 23, 2010 at 15:39

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