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22 Dec 2011
Thought leadership can deliver great outcomes
I asked 12 people who I consider to be leading global commentators on thought leadership as well as a couple who have produced some amazing thought leadership programs in-house over the years to comment on four critical thought leadership questions for 2012.
Inspired by their answers I couldn’t help chipping in with my own thoughts.
As a result of the overwhelmingly positive response, I have split the interviews into four different posts – one post per question.
In the New Year I will make available an e book containing all the answers.
Interviewees include: Bob Buday, Erica Klein, David Meerman Scott, Jeff Ernst, Rob Leavitt, Britton Manasco, Dana van den Heuvel, Matt Church, Fiona Czerniawska, Dale Bryce, Elizabeth Sosnow, Marte Semb Aaasmundsen and me.
This post covers their answers to question three:
Question three: What are the top three outcomes of a thought leadership
campaign?Bob Buday, president of Bloom Group LLC, a firm that helps professional services and other B2B companies gain market leadership through thought leadership (http://www.bloomgroup.com)
“One, increased awareness by your target audience that your firm possesses some expertise and a higher number of inquiries about it .
“Two, higher and faster close rates because of the ability to far better demonstrate to a prospect that you indeed do have the expertise you claim to have.
“Three, higher fees because of the ability to differentiate your expertise, and thus higher and more profitable revenue from your work.”
Erica Klein, Thought Leadership Writer and Strategist Specializing in Financial and Technology Companies(http://www.ThoughtLeadershipWriter.com)
“For my financial and technology clients, the most sought-after outcomes are:
“One, generating revenue from both new prospects and existing customers.
“Two, building reputation and brand as insightful, innovative thinkers, and lest we forget, three, establishing
the boss as a thought leader!”Matt Church, founder of the Global Thought Leaders Movement and creator of the Million Dollar Expert Program. He is the author of 5 books including Thought Leaders and his latest Sell Your Thoughts http://www.mattchurch.com)
“One, talent retention, attraction and development.
“Two, business growth through positioning activities in the marketplace.
“Three, innovation around process and professional subject matter expertise.”
Elizabeth Sosnow, managing director of Bliss PR a business-to-business strategic public relations and marketing communications firm based in New York City (http://www.blisspr.com)
“One, new or deepened relationships with prospects or customers.
“Two, better defined competitive positioning.
“Three, holistic “glue” that integrates previously siloed marketing programs.”
Jeff Ernst, is the Principal Analyst, serving CMO and Marketing Leadership Professionals at Forrester Research and is probably best described as a thought leader in B2B marketing and sales strategy (http://www.forrester.com/rb/analyst/jeff_ernst)
“When you go from thinking of thought leadership as a campaign to thinking of it as a cornerstone of your go-to-market strategy, you can expect to have these outcomes:
- Customers, prospects, influencers, and competitors admire your company as having ground-breaking ideas and incredibly
insightful POVs on the critical issues your buyers face. - People who engage with your thought leadership ideas are so inspired they immediately share them with colleagues within their company and within their professional and social networks.
- Prospective customers knock on your door, already philosophically aligned with your company’s approach to solving their problems, ready to engage with your sales executives.”
David Meerman Scott is one of the pre-eminent thought leaders on PR and marketing. He is a marketing strategist, keynote speaker, seminar leader, and author of the #1 bestseller The New Rules of Marketing & PR (which has been published in 26 languages) and the Wall Street Journal bestseller Real-Time Marketing & PR. He recently launched his new online book: “Newsjacking: How to Inject Your Ideas into a Breaking News Story and Generate Tons of Media Coverage”. (http://www.davidmeermanscott.com/)
“First, content will be shared if it is valuable. People will share it on twitter, Facebook, blogs and the like with the result your content will reach far more people.
“Second, people will subscribe to your content either whether that is via e mail, RSS feeds, etc. They’ll want more if you do a good job.
“Finally, it will brand your organisation as one worthy with which to do business. People will seek you out if you’re smart about providing content that educates and helps them solve their problems.”
Dale Bryce is the group manager marketing for Sinclair Knight Merz (SKM), a global strategic consulting, engineering and project delivery firm. He has been instrumental in their successful ‘client first’ thought leadership approach (http://www.skmconsulting.com/Home/)
“Client engagement, reputation building and winning the work you want to win.”
Marte Semb Aasmundsen, graduated this month with her MSc Strategic Public Relations and Communications
Management at The University of Stirling in the UK. Her thesis was on thought leadership.“Building expertise and reputation internally and externally. Changing industry standards and perhaps even drive paradigm shifts, and gaining influence and becoming industry leaders.
“And I must add a fourth point; stakeholder engagement. Thought leadership encourages two-way communication and is therefore a great way to include stakeholders in the decision-making process.”
Britton Manasco is the founder of Manasco Marketing Partners which specializes in creating thought leadership marketing and sales enablement solutions. Britton produces a thought leadership strategy blog Illuminating the Future and the executive journal, Elevation Quarterly. (http://www.brittonmanasco.com/)
“That would be: customer awareness (as measured by marketing qualified leads); customer engagement (as measured by sales qualified leads); and customer commitment (as measured by closed deals).
“SiriusDecisions has done a good job of articulating the relevant metrics.”
Rob Leavitt is a B2B marketing strategist, specializing in issues-based marketing. He is currently Director of Thought Leadership at PTC, a $1 billion enterprise software firm. (http://www.reputationtorevenue.com/)
“Increased credibility with customers and market influencers (analysts, bloggers, media, etc.) that the company is an important voice on the issue; new relationships and opportunities with customers focused on forward thinking solutions; and increased internal support for a thought leadership-oriented approach to the market.”
Fiona Czerniawska is one of the foremost global authorities on thought leadership, particularly in the management consultancy space. She is the co-founder of Source, a company specialising in researching the consulting industry (http://www.sourceforconsulting.com)
“A client who, having read your article, acts on something in it. This may be quite a small, apparently insignificant action (forwarding an email to a colleague) but all of our research indicates that any action increases the chance that the ideas in the article and the firm associated with them will be remembered.
“A partner/consultant making a trip to see a client. We tend to think that the outcomes of TL should be external, but there are huge benefits to articles/reports etc, which galvanize account managers and partners to visit their clients, taking the material with them and explaining to their client in person why it’s relevant to them.
“The ability to own an issue. Thought leadership should be good enough to ensure that, on a particular issue, your firm will always be on the shortlist because you’re seen as the pre-eminent experts in that field.”
Dana VanDen Heuvel is a marketing consultant, author and speaker. He is a recognized expert on blogging, podcasting, RSS, Internet communities and interactive marketing trends and best practices as well as thought leadership (http://www.marketingsavant.com/)
“I like to refer back to my original “thought leadership marketing equation” and state that Share of Voice, Share of Mind and Share of Market are the key outcomes of any thought leadership campaign, but I have a few others that I believe are critical.
- “Marketplace momentum. Thought leadership is cumulative where an advertising or promotions-centered approach is diminishing. Pursuing the road of the thought leader, over time, builds tremendous momentum that can continue to propel an organization’s message long after the original piece of content was published.
- “Quicker cycle times. In our experience thought leadership actually helps the customer decide (as opposed to helps the organization sell) who is best for them based on the advance knowledge they can obtain about an organization and how they think, act and work via their content.
- “Category of One companies. I’m a fan of Joe Calloway’s book “Becoming a Category of One” and I believe that the thought
leadership approach allows an organization to tell a customer-centric story in a way that positions that organization as the only one telling that story and give that organization an opportunity to be seen as truly unique.”
Craig Badings – author of this blog and the book “Brand Stand: seven steps to thought leadership”, and a consultant at Sydney-based Cannings Corporate Communications.
“For me the most powerful is the emotional connection you forge with your client.
“If, as a result of your thought leadership campaign, your clients or your target audience get a sense that you really get them and the issues they face and that you are helping them overcome these it leads to the second outcome – differentiation.
“Your thought leadership needs to differentiate your brand from the competition.
“Finally it should position you as the ‘go to’ expert in your field and with this comes that all important brand quality – trust.
“I have created a list of 70+ thought leadership benefits here if you want to take a look.”
Please download my free e book top right of this page. Follow me on twitter @thoughtstrategy and join me on LinkedIn.
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- Customers, prospects, influencers, and competitors admire your company as having ground-breaking ideas and incredibly
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