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6 Apr 2010
Dale Bryce, the head of capability marketing at Sinclair Knight Merz (SKM) contacted me about my post on content aggregation and I felt that his response was worth sharing here rather than losing in the comments section. SKM is a global engineering services firm that I have covered in a previous post as an excellent case study on thought leadership.
Their client first thought leadership stance has worked and continues to work for them and I think Dale is well placed to comment on this issue. He had this to say:
“Craig! I agree, content doesn’t a thought leader make.
“The right content might be king, but for the most part I think the key issue can be described by paraphrasing words from Bill Clinton’s first presidential election campaign: “It’s the client relationship stupid”.
“You rightly highlight value as being key to thought leadership. After 20 years in professional services marketing, I have come to know that value comes from insights that can actually solve client problems. But I have also learned that it is also not quite that simple, and I agree “Publishing alone will not help”.
Great content needs to be integrated into your client relationship strategy
“At Sinclair Knight Merz our own client survey data tells us that the bulk of client satisfaction is determined by relationship factors – understanding a client’s business, staying in touch between projects and bringing valuable ideas forward. Knowing this has actually reframed the purpose of our thought leadership content.
“Great content can serve to build brand awareness and relevance. But it can do more than that if properly integrated into a client relationship strategy. In professional services, projects and deals are becoming larger in scope and scale, and more urgent with increased accountability for delivery. In an increasingly complex world, clients have bigger, thornier problems that need to be resolved. Thought leadership clearly has a role to play in proactively bringing valuable ideas forward.
Thought leadership is a conversation
“To do this well you need a deep understanding of a client’s business. So, for me thought leadership is more than brand building and positioning, it is a client conversation starter. And the best conversations are two-way. Content can get you to the table, but the length of your stay at that table is more often a function of how much you listen, than what you yourself have to say.
“The key question then is not did your phone ring when you sent out that great piece of thought leadership (even though it might). The question becomes, did you pick up the phone and make that call yourself after you sent out that great piece of thought leadership? Did you really want to start a two-way dialogue with your client?”
2 Responses to “Publishing alone will not help your thought leadership”
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Completely agree, effective thought leadership is not just about publishing content alone. it requires effective participation of all the stakeholders in the ecosystem- client, analysts, academia, industry bodies & internal customers (your employees). in different scenarios these stakeholders act as the contributor as well as recipient of the information being produced. only in such cases will the thought leadership program be success. For further reading: Thought leadership marketing creates the edge for knowledge intentive firms http://www.outsourcing-journal.com/jul2009-thought.html
Karthik, we clearly think very similarly on the issue of thought leadership. I have read your piece that you link to in your comment and you have some excellent advice to give to anyone wanting some insights into what thought leadership is about. I particularly like the way you call thought leadership Intellectual branding. It’s great to read someone who gets that thought leadership forms part of an overarching strategic framework.
I look forward to hearing more from you and please feel free to send me any articles you have written - I have tweeted about the article in the link you sent.
Cheers
Craig