There is a website out there that offers thorough and meticulously crafted reviews of shoes. Whether it’s runners, hiking, or an everyday shoe, the chances are people running this website have already conducted all sorts of laboratory tests on that same shoe model.
By reading these reviews, you will find out about shoes, the things you didn’t even know existed, let alone them being measured in laboratory conditions.
This website also sells shoes.
What they successfully achieved is becoming thought leaders in content creation. They are not pushing their products employing traditional advertising. They offer free expertise for you – the customer, to learn about shoe crafting, durability, measures and fit, etc.
But, while you are already there reading all those reviews, it’s almost natural to order some shoes through the same website. They receive a commission and thus, the business cycle is complete.
What these people did is:
- They built trust and credibility with their audience,
- They are sharing real insights,
- They are providing value,
- They built a loyal audience.
These are the cornerstones of a successful thought leadership content strategy and can be just as well applied to any B2B marketing.
So, let’s dive into the details of a B2B thought leadership content strategy.
Understanding Thought Leadership in B2B Marketing
As we pointed out in the introduction, thought leadership boils down to creating valuable and insightful content instead of directly advertising your products.
This way your business becomes recognized as an expert in its field. The media through which you are providing other companies with quality material can vary: it can be done via a website, social network account, newsletter, blog, podcast, etc.
It aims to educate and influence the target audience rather than just promote products or services.
Only when recognized as an expert in your area of competence can you start counting on the real outcome, which is selling your product or service?
Benefits of a Thought Leadership Content Strategy
To become successful, your business needs to deal with several issues. All of them are addressed with a proper content strategy.
First, you need to introduce your business and your product to your audience and build credibility and trust. This takes time and cannot be achieved overnight.
A well-performed thought leadership content strategy brings us to its next benefit: it will most definitely differentiate your brand from your competitors. And to stand out often means a world of difference in the colorful and diverse universe of small businesses and startups.
Once you start providing your current and future fellow businesses with useful and quality material, you will soon find yourself in a position to even attract high-quality leads. The ones you’ve already attracted will stay loyal.
Naturally, these contacts won’t organize themselves. Staying in touch often requires solid personal CRM software that provides adequate relationship management.
Finally, there’s the good reputation. A popular quote says that a good reputation is more valuable than money. And there is a lot of sense in that thought.
If your current clients are satisfied with the expertise they are getting from you, most likely, they’ll spread the good word. Organic growth or your company will be the logical consequence of this.
Key Elements of an Effective B2B Thought Leadership Strategy
To create an effective B2B thought leadership strategy means to tick all the boxes. Those boxes are the following:
- Research your audience,
- Create quality content,
- Give original insights,
- Use consistent branding,
- If possible, use the multi-format approach.
As a B2B business, your product/service needs to appeal to other businesses. Which are your potential customers is the first and foremost issue you need to address. A thorough market research usually does the trick.
When you locate and target those businesses, you should try to envisage their needs and pain points. This data will prove crucial when designing your desired content.
Your content framework should include research of your competitors’ similar strategies. You wouldn’t want to introduce your potential clients with some outdated and valueless content. Insights that you provide should provide unique perspectives, at least to a certain degree.
Branding per definition needs to be consistent. And you should include it in your online presence. Also, ensure all content aligns with the brand’s voice and values.
Finally, different people are responsive to different content formats. Some like to visit your website. Others don’t know business websites even exist but will absorb anything they come across while scrolling their LinkedIn feed. Somebody will want to listen to a podcast.
Your aim should be to spread your messages through as many content formats as possible.
Examples of a Good Practice
HubSpot is a famous software company known for its extensive blogs, eBooks, and research reports that provide actionable marketing and sales insights.
About 12 years ago, they decided they’d like to become a leader in preparing and training people for the digital age. They launched the HubSpot Academy, which presents free courses and certifications for software training.
Offering these services for free made the Academy a hit. At the same time, this did wonders for the company, enhancing its reputation as a thought leader.
Deloitte, one of the world’s leading consultant companies, decided to affirm itself in the area of deep industry insights. They achieved that by creating Deloitte Insights.
This became a go-to place for a variety of reports, articles, podcasts, and videos that cover topics like technology, healthcare, finance, and more.
They bring important business prospects and issues to customers using articles, infographics, research reports, films, and podcasts, all while providing original ideas, unique data, and useful insights.
Founded in 1999, Salesforce quickly became one of the world’s leading software companies that provide CRM management. To draw knowledge from their vast pool of experience, they’ve launched the State of Sales Report.
They’ve been using proprietary data to publish detailed reports on sales trends, challenges, and future predictions. This establishes them as thought leaders in CRM and sales strategy.
Over to You
These provided examples show how successful companies leverage thought leadership content to drive engagement, establish authority, and foster trust among their audience.
Your business is yet to become successful, but the strategy stays the same – follow the steps given above, and with a bit of luck and a decent amount of work and dedication, your business will soon thrive.