In this article, the latest in our From Thought Leadership to Revenue series, we look at the pitfalls to avoid when developing thought leadership programmes.
Today’s clued up B2B buyer is looking for insight and opinion from potential suppliers. They seek out organisations that are influencing and innovating within their industry, those that are providing answers to some of the major issues keeping them awake at night, or at least those that are posing the right questions. Get your insights right and you get to be part of the conversation at the early stages of the buying process, something becoming increasingly difficult in today’s environment. The main benefit of all this – increased revenue and profit – especially if you become recognised as the ‘Go To’ company in your industry.
Most B2B marketing executives recognise that thought leadership plays a vital role in today’s market, yet the effectiveness of these initiatives is still highly variable. Many struggle to execute programmes that deliver increased sales and revenues. So how do you avoid executing an ineffective thought leadership programme that wastes your company’s resources and tarnishes your personal brand?
We’ve analysed what makes the difference between effective and ineffective thought leadership programmes and identified six key pitfalls you need to avoid:
Lack of a distinctive point of view
Too much thought leadership is actually ‘thought followship’ – a simple regurgitation of accepted wisdoms or reporting other people’s opinions. If you are simply reporting other people’s opinions, you can’t claim to be a thought leader. You must define your own distinctive point of view and ensure that it’s reflected in all your Thought Leadership communications.
Lack of depth and consistency
Don’t be tempted to go for a scattergun approach – firing out content on a range of subjects with no obvious connection or underlying theme. You won’t be associated with a particular issue if you are not consistently talking about it. In fact, it will probably lead to the opposite where you are associated with nothing. Plus without any depth, you will be spreading yourself too thinly and won’t be able to sustain a customer’s interest.
Lack of connection with what you actually do
Your thought leadership will never help you sell more unless you can link it back to what you do. It needs to be the starting point for a conversation that ultimately gives you the opportunity to explain how you can help the customer fix a problem or seize an opportunity. Sometimes people get carried away with an idea for an interesting piece of research without thinking about how they’ll join the dots back to propositions and products. You must ensure that your thought leadership activity can be connected to the solutions you deliver (although make sure that your Thought Leadership content isn’t just a thinly veiled sales pitch).
Failure to integrate with demand generation activity
Your thought leadership should be a key part of your demand generation efforts, not simply a high-level positioning exercise. Too often these processes are kept separate, sometimes as a result of different departments working with a silo mentality. Although it may be challenging, thought leadership and demand generation should be fully aligned and part of an integrated programme. Your thought leadership should be building engagements with prospective customers. If it’s not then you’re wasting an opportunity (not to mention a lot of money probably).
Failure to enable the sales channels
There is little point in generating interest in your company with some stimulating and thought-provoking content if the salesperson that sits in front of the customer doesn’t understand your insights, can’t articulate your point of view and immediately wants to start talking product features and benefits. Your salespeople need to be equipped to use your insights to develop new customer conversations that create sales opportunities. Time and again, companies keep their thought leadership opinions at executive level and don’t disseminate them throughout the company, especially to those in a customer facing role – this will lose you sales.
Content that fails to engage
Having a good idea achieves nothing unless you can turn that idea into credible and thought provoking content that is accessible to all the audiences you want to appeal to. Different types of content will appeal to different people depending on their job function, their personal preferences and the stage they are at in their buying journey. To maximise your reach you should look to employ different content formats and disseminate via multiple channels. Avoid the temptation to just publish one hefty report as this would probably only appeal to a very narrow section of your target audience.
Building an effective thought leadership-led marketing programme isn’t easy and many fail to deliver. Navigate your way around the pitfalls described above and you’ll significantly increase your chances of success.
This article is extracted, in part, from our recently published guide, ‘From Thought Leadership to Revenue Guide’. To download the full guide, please click here. Alternatively if you would like to discuss how OneGTM can help you with your thought leadership strategy, please call us on 020 3693 1211.
