Thought Leadership, Anyone?

Lately I have heard and even written about thought leadership almost every day. But the truth is that a lot of what I see, even from well established brands are simply glorified product brochures. Smart ones, but brochures nonetheless. While they might start with an intelligent position on an interesting subject, it quickly goes to demonstrate the virtues and multiple uses of products and services that pay for the piece. And when you are through reading, if you can stomach the whole content, it’s usually more about the products and services it very hard tries to sell than about ideas that might interest the people that it is trying to reach.

There is even a press release form Gartner on the subject, coining - as they usually do- the acronym TLM ( Thought Leadership Marketing ) and defining it as ”the giving — for free or at a nominal charge — of information or advice that a client will value so as to create awareness of the outcome that a company’s product or service can deliver, in order to position and differentiate that offering and stimulate demand for it.

The objective and modus operandi is clear: gain attention and credibility with press, customers, and influencers by creating an aura of expertise in a subject that interests that audience. If possible, as Gartner does, own a definition, which gives you the ability to insert the “what we call x…” phrase into descriptions of otherwise basic things….voila!

Not that it does not work, but what you see above is the recipe for pieces that are mere brochure-on-steroids and, sorry, I beg to differ, I would not call that “Thought Leadership”.

Unless you deliberately define your audience as people that are so busy that thinking and analyzing what they read is not an option, that kind of disguised brochures will not take you that far. Not with smart people. Leaders are those who people love to follow and the only obvious salesman that I remember that I truly wanted to follow is the guy in the ice cream truck. Now, fast forward four decades, leadership is about having something that your audiences crave, not about trying to sell it….

Thought Leadership, as with most human relations, is based on an exchange of value. If you have content that establishes a point of view and in doing so you educate the audience, then you start a relationship with the audience that you can make stronger, better through a well planned campaign that makes each contact more intimate over time. Inform, engage, create intimacy..

Yes, the audience will want to know about you, once you have established yourself (or your Client) as experts on the subject, and you will make sure to include your key messages. But at that point it the communication ceases to be about thought leadership, because it will no longer be about ideas. Valid. And it will have served the purpose, but the point here is that you can’t establish yourself as an expert in an area by trying to sell products and services.

Implies –and this is very straight forward- that we have something to talk about besides our products and services. It means we need to do more. It means being responsible and dedicated. Search, anywhere for true knowledge. Consult the experts in the matter. Talk to the salespeople that live and feel the market, day in, day out.

In real Thought Leadership, content is king. It’s how we develop and disseminate knowledge through appropriate channels. The reaction to receiving that content is what allows us to build a meaningful relationship with the audience. How they react to us providing value is what transforms prospects into clients, from actively disengaged to interested to engaged and finally to advocates.

So, please be mindful of the three things that help you to provide the sought value that can eventually lead to Thought Leadership:

Ideas. There is no substitute for ideas. You don’t have to come up with all of them, but surely have to mine for the good ones and package them in a way that makes them palatable as a whole for the audience. Research is paramount. You need to make sure to determine what is your audience are looking for.

Network. No idea is worth a penny until you marketing you disseminate it. A trusted network that trusts you provides a reliable way to disseminate ideas. And the best part is that while it provides validation, the more ideas you disseminate, the more trusted you become and the more they want to share content. A good network is quick to identify thought leaders and help build alliances with external opinion leaders as well as subjects who can help develop and test ideas.

Ears. Remember what the goal is: to help move prospects through the sales or marketing funnel. For that reason, you need to tightly follow the reaction of the audience to ideas that you generate and disseminate. That’s how you can track the impact of thought leadership. Let’s say a prospect downloads a piece of content, a tracking system should advise us and send a signal that the prospect is at least interested in the subject. If we can identify what are the themes and ideas that generate more interest, then we have found the way to come closer to the minds and hearts of those that we want to convert into followers.

Yes, we are in the business of changing perceptions. Because of that, we’ve given a power that comes with a responsibility. We are given the means to communicate, so, in deciding what to share, we need to make conscious decisions and call it like it is.

Thought Leadership, anyone?

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