Thought Leadership 101
The point of thought leadership is to express a point of view in the context of market conditions. Most companies focus on their products, functions, and features. A real opportunity exists for companies that can paint a vision of the key issues, challenges, needs, and requirements that truly concern customers. In doing so companies become an invaluable resource to the media and potential customers.
Future-focused companies that provide meaningful insight and guidance to support buying decisions (vs. just marketing fluff) are often rewarded with more press coverage, better lead generation results, and a shortened sales cycle. To succeed, companies need to directly focus on industry-relevant issues and approach the marketplace strategically by building communications platforms that establish credibility and position the company and its stakeholders as subject matter experts.
We’ve boiled down some basics for thought leadership success:
- Take the 40,000-foot view. Look beyond your technology-focused issues and geeky acronyms. Identify hot trends and determine how your company and products relate to the most current events. Companies should expand their network of contacts and company messaging to embrace the bigger picture. Innovative campaigns like rapid response media programs can provide a systematic approach to introducing your company to key industry influencers who will help bridge the perception gap.
- Be an evangelist. Select one or several company spokespersons that can be both seen and heard as the voice of your industry. Scrap the tradeshow budget in favor of a limited presence at key venues. Although speaking opportunities can be difficult to secure, event coordinators will bend the rules to accommodate a cool customer case study. Of course, you can host your own speaker’s webcast series, but the key is to invest in a good list of prospects to invite to your events. Today’s social media forums like blogs and online communities offer a great vehicle for company evangelism but avoid preaching. Don’t just follow the herd mentality – taking a controversial position will increase your chances of being heard.
- Involve customers and partners. Realize that your customers and partners might be very interested in claiming a thought leadership position in new markets as well. Use this to your advantage – instead of asking them to endorse your products, invite them to participate in an industry forum that addresses hot market issues. And for your next product launch tour, offer “select” customers the opportunity to meet with analysts and press to discuss key industry issues and position their company as a visionary – you’ll be much more successful getting them on board and be rewarded with more press coverage had you gone it alone.
The Bottomline: To escape today’s marketing black holes, adopt a thought leadership strategy that elevates both principal and firm above the fray.
Having thought leadership is very important. When evaluating companies and their solutions it is their outlook that you often buy because they are headed in the same direction you are. However, having the right vision needs to be coupled with the ability to execute on that vision otherwise it is all just concepts and vaporware.
I see a lot of large companies that fail to look farther than 3 quarters into the future. They tend to rely upon their past history and marketing fluff. The successful leaders are looking far beyond today and involving their customers in user conferences as case studies. What better advertising than partnering with a customer who can give you the best “real” press on how you are both working on innovative ideas/concepts.