Chapter 2
Strategies for Executing Thought Leadership
Photo by Riccardo Annandale on Unsplash
An organisation’s approach to thought leadership will necessarily vary depending on the resources available. However, the experts agree that the priority for executing effective thought leadership relies on
Four Key Processes
1. Having in place a process for gathering ideas for thought leadership
2. Creating boundaries and gatekeeping so that ideas can be filtered, evaluated and moved forward or reviewed/rejected as needed
3. Processes that allow for insights to be gathered from inside and outside the organisation
4. Content to be created and then distributed and driven through key channels
What should Thought Leadership be about?
What should Thought Leadership be about? Being first is important in thought leadership – but it’s not the only thing to consider. A YouGov survey reports that 66% of respondents said that being first to comment on an issue is important, but 85% said that it was just as important to add genuinely new thinking to a discussion, while 81% look for a new angle on an existing topic. The lesson for businesses? You can still make a big impact as a second leader, if your thought leadership is relevant, timely and has a strong point of view and expertise. When it comes to offering up ideas for thought leadership content, it’s true that everyone has an opinion. An effective thought leadership programme should welcome as many opinions as possible but provide a framework so that these ideas can be filtered and managed.
“Thought leadership needs to be embodied by a thought leader, someone who can incarnate that content. It also needs to be thought provoking or it becomes just thought followership, not leadership.”
About Criteo
Criteo is a global technology company that enables brands and retailers to connect more shoppers to the things they need and love. We’ve built the Criteo Commerce Marketing Ecosystem: an open, secure, transparent, and fair environment where retailers, brands, and publishers collaborate to put data into action at every point of the purchase journey. Its value to our clients lies in measurable performance in the form of sales, and profits.
It’s essential to consider any potential thought leadership content carefully, notes Ludovic Leforestier, Global Analyst and Influencer Relations Director at Criteo. Leforestier says that he asks the same question of any potential thought leadership project: “What’s the headline? What do you want people to remember?” If someone proposing an idea can’t boil down its essence in a tweet then, says Leforestier, the content is not going to inspire anyone.
Great content should start with a key question, finding or hypothesis, says Leforestier. Rather than running a survey about how people view a customer experience, it’s better to start with a thought-provoking hypothesis such as “customer service via telephone is more likely to end a customer relationship”, then do the research. Leforestier argues organisations will almost inevitably end up with a better piece of content.
One option for organisations wanting to capture and progress content ideas is to create a designated storytelling lab that takes responsibility for creating and driving thought leadership. This could be a podcast or a blog post about a news story. Having a dedicated role makes it easier to be responsive. At IBM the company has an internal department called the Institute for Business Value that creates thought leadership content.
While management is important to thought leadership execution, don’t manage the value out of it. If your organisation has hired exciting young talent, don’t be afraid to encourage them to write blogs, or share podcasts. After all, these are the people who will likely be working with your customers – theirs is the talent you are selling.
Some brands are creating too much ‘content by committee’ says Kaspersky’s O’Neill. The result is content that isn’t engaging and doesn’t have a strong point of view. “It kills the joy, and the brand loses their individuality and identity. The result is just corporate blandness,” she says.
Too many companies invest in content for thought leadership without also investing in strong editing and writing, says Leforestier. “If you do not have that person and that authority to challenge the status quo, you’re just creating more marketing content,” he says. “For me, thought leadership needs to be leading, and there has to be a thought leader, someone who can embolden and incarnate that content. It needs to be thought provoking or it’s thought following, not leadership.”
What form and platform should be used for thought leadership?
The risk is that the department can be overwhelmed by ideas, or that a smaller department is overwhelmed by the number of channels that seem important. At this stage, it’s important to evaluate not just the idea of a piece of thought leadership. Organisations must also evaluate the form and platform for that content.
While YouTube or LinkedIn might offer a wide reach, is the content/idea better suited to a storytelling format, or an interview that can be shared via a podcast.
When making these decisions, it’s sensible to ask a sample set of customers what content they consume, and which platforms they use. Rather than feeling that you must use the same platforms as competitors, or try to be everywhere, test small to begin with, gather feedback, and focus on platforms and ideas that make sense for your brand, and your community. It’s best to look at creating multiple pieces of content from each central activity.
Leforestier advises treating thought leadership as a content pyramid. At the very top there may be a Tweet and a great visual. Below this, there are actions and recommendations, perhaps in a detailed infographic. Lastly there may be a white paper with a narrative and a story. But always start with the headline or the Tweet.
Thought leadership should always be more than research, adds Turner. Anyone can pull together statistics to make an argument, but credibility comes from sharing what other people do. “It’s far more useful to show how other people are facing this challenge, or problem, and research can show that, but it can also be dry, so you have to combine it with storytelling.”
What this means is that it’s fine to say that 60% of CIOs have a problem with AI, but it’s more compelling to also have a video of a charismatic CIO sharing their challenge and solution, or a podcast where three industry leaders discuss their vision of AI in the future.
“We always want to invite and feature customers, which really resonates with someone in the buyer’s shoes.”
About Logicalis
Logicalis UK provides an end-to-end ICT delivery capability founded on a superior breadth of knowledge and expertise in communications & collaboration; data centre; business analytics; video; professional and managed services; data centre hosting and cloud services. Our customers cross industries and geographical regions; and our focus is to engage in the dynamics of our customers vertical markets; including financial services, TMT (telecommunications, media and technology), education, healthcare, retail, government, manufacturing and professional services, and apply the skills of our 4,000 employees in modernising key digital pillars; data centre and cloud services, security and network infrastructure, workspace communications and collaboration, data and information strategies, and IT operation modernisation.
Turner personally thinks long white papers have had their day and prefers to focus on short-form content such as infographics, videos and similar. “We also have a lot of success with evening events, small dinners with 20 or 30 people, who all want to listen to the CFO of Deliveroo. You just get them in the room and people turn up because they want to hear stories from companies that are seen as the leading lights.”
Logicalis’ thought leadership strategy encompasses blogs, webinars and panel discussions, explains Regina Bluman, Head of Brand & Marketing at Logicalis. “We always want to invite and feature customers, which lends credibility to us and resonates to someone in the buyer’s shoes,” she says. “We find that content works well when it’s treated as a learning exercise - where people can share and learn from issues their peers are facing.”
Leforestier has worked on over 60 thought leadership projects covering topics such as ‘platform economy’ and ‘customer experience’. What makes this content useful, Leforestier believes, is that it is newsworthy, thought-provoking, grounded and resilient. “Good thought leadership is based on solid evidence and usually numerical,” he says. “Finally, it should be actionable for the reader.”
How Should Thought Leadership be Distributed?
Just as organisations shouldn’t try to be on every platform, they shouldn’t publish every possible piece of content. Quality is always more important than quantity, says Sheen. “There was a time ten years ago when the focus was on getting a lot of content out of the door, but now it’s much more about quality,” he says.
A smart thought leadership strategy should concentrate on small, high quality content campaigns that are planned over an extended period, with key articles or Whitepapers serving as long-form anchor content, adds Andrei Tiu, director and Chief Marketing Officer at Marketiu. “Pushing relevant high quality content over time puts you in a position of authority and will influence the buying decision,” he says.
“Pushing relevant high quality content over time puts you in a position of authority and will influence the buying decision.”
About Marketiu
Born at the heart of London from an insanely passionate and lively team of Top-class Marketers and Strategists, we are on a mission to help Brands get famous by tapping into the power of Intelligent Digital Marketing Communications. Having worked with a wide range of businesses in Entertainment, Luxury Cosmetics & Fashion, Lifestyle and Technology worldwide, we have always put our heart and soul into combining Creativity and Intelligence, delivering outstanding results. We’re constantly aligning ourselves to our individual clients’ goals and priorities, becoming essentially an effective extension of their company.
“Very senior people who travel a lot may prefer videos or podcasts. You need to segment the audience and look at which channel delivers the best results for which audience.”
Joseph Sursock, Senior Vice-President EMEA, Course5 Intelligence
Once content has been created, how will it be shared with the community, both inside and outside the organisation? In some cases, technology can bring order to this process. For example, Dynamic Signal lets content be pre-populated and shared across an organisation. This means sales and marketing teams can drive content through their channels, confident that it has been approved and is in line with wider strategy.
Stop gating all your best thought leadership, Moyse advises. While it’s understandable to want to capture details, gates are hugely off-putting. Moyse advises companies to select their 5 best content pieces and make them freely available. “Then people come in and follow and like what you’ve got, and they want the other stuff, so they register. You have to earn that right.”
Don’t underestimate the challenge of distributing content, advises Leforestier. “There’s no point just pushing out content, it needs to be smart and targeted,” he says. “At the top of the sales funnel you want newsworthy content and research, but in the middle and bottom you need practical advice.”
To achieve this takes just as much time and effort as creating the content to begin with, Leforestier says. The key to success is in training and providing a process or platform that gives sales teams the skills and understanding to know the value of thought leadership, and which content to share, where, and when.
The most important part of thought leadership isn’t the channel, but rather the story being told, and creating an overriding narrative arc. Once that’s done, content can be utilised across multiple channels, says IBM’s Taylor. “You can utilise that thought in a speech, as the basis for a round table, a video, eBook or podcast,” she says. “Those are all different ways to get it into the hands of the individuals you seek to influence.”
Crucially don’t settle on one version of what is the “best” style of thought leadership, urges Joseph Sursock. “Managers on the floor have a different appetite and way of looking at things to the operational directors above them. They’re networking and want anecdotal information. Very senior people who travel a lot may prefer videos or podcasts. You need to segment the audience and look at which channel delivers the best results for which audience.”
At Course5 Intelligence, the company is currently investing in infographic-based thought leadership. Sursock says that having a visual, mobile-friendly piece of content works well – and if it’s good enough to be printed and shared in someone’s office, or on their wall, that’s a powerful branding message.
Thought leadership often failed in the past because organisations fell into the trap of talking about themselves and making content too long. “All the old metrics that used to work, don’t work anymore,” comments Moyse. “What the buyer wants is insight, not being sold to, with some value attached. Often what that means is the only bit of ownership you have is your brand logo and contact details as a course of action.”
Many of us are familiar with the scenario where you see an intriguing title, register to download a document and then there are pages of introduction, a sales pitch – but the promised value isn’t there. “It isn’t just that I didn’t get what I wanted, it’s worse because you brought me in on the basis of promising me something, then not delivering,” Moyse says. The same can happen when presenting at events, creating a video or any other platform.
“Too often blogs are the only default medium. But now it’s easy to reach further through podcasts, vodcasts, webinars, video blogs and more. This enables your audience to digest content differently such as podcasts on the move which you can download and listen to them offline. How many people are going to do that with a blog, reading it on a small screen?”
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This is understandable when there is pressure to deliver direct sales benefits from content. But it’s ultimately counterproductive. Effective thought leadership is investing time in creating content that may not be directly about you. Get people to consume your content and gain value through insights and they are more likely to remember you and engage with you as a potential customer. They will respect the value that was given, and the insight, and they will probably continue to follow you, and consume your content, because they may well learn something. Moyse cites HubSpot as a company that does particularly well in this regard.
In general, the best thought leadership mixes different platforms and content types. However, it is possible to identify a buyer persona as fitting a particular style and entity. “If you’re a gamer, there are particular sites where your content needs to be, and it needs to be video, because that’s where that community and persona engages and digests,” says Moyse.
With a single piece of content, you could mix up video content, blog, interviews, comments etc. Even social media quote cards can be used as a powerful image, perhaps on Instagram, to direct people back to a blog, says Moyse. “Too often we just provide loads of blogs. But you have podcasts, which a lot of people engage with on the move. You can download them and listen to them offline. How many people are going to do that with a blog, reading it on a small screen?”
Ultimately, Moyse advises, think about where your user is, and what content they consume. Then decide how this best matches up with your own brand and product. Some products are simply not visual, and so probably won’t work on Instagram, no matter what.
Top Insights:
Reusing content across multiple media, multiple times is an efficient, repeatable strategy to deliver business conversations in B2B.
Sam Silverwood-Cope, Director, Global CMO of Pi Datametrics
A good balance of white papers, video, round tables is required. Take a detailed study and then make smaller content pieces from there that you can spread across channels.
Paul Malyon - Head of Thought Leadership & Data Literacy at Experian
Consider the audience. A CEO will be more receptive to a 2-minute video than a 60-page white paper, because they want something they can review quickly, and pass on.
Gareth Case - Chief Marketing Officer at Redstor
Today our brains are firing in completely different ways. I don’t have time to consume masses of information, I want good short content that draws me in and makes me want to engage with longer-form content.
Greg Taylor - General Manager, brill.app & Tigerspike
Much content out there is lacklustre and does not engage in a personal way. Smarter companies are including personalisation, language and tonal elements that speak to their target audience.
Linsay Duncan - Founder at your Allies.