Positioning your brand as the industry thought leader ensures that it becomes the trusted, ‘go-to’ voice of authority.
Being able to exude high levels of industry expertise means that when you speak, everyone else listens. To achieve this level of influence, though, requires a willingness to speak out and speak up: to not say what everyone else is saying. Thought leadership comes from leading conversations.
What is thought leadership?
Whilst traditional marketing might focus on the product or service, a thought leadership strategy means focussing and presenting you as the strongest, most authoritative voice within your sector.
In doing so, yours becomes the opinion others seek when looking for advice or solutions. Often considered at least as effective, if not more so, than typical marketing strategies for accelerating visibility in the marketplace, a thought leadership approach can be both straightforward and extremely impactful.
How can you establish thought leadership?
The key to successfully building thought leadership is to establish trust between users or customers and the brand or individual. The best way to do this is through the creation and sharing of original, high quality, value-driven content: news pieces, whitepapers, spotlights and editorials, for example.
Whilst it’s important that these pieces engage, like you would expect with more traditional marketing materials, it’s critical that these pieces seem original, heavy weight and that they educate the reader. Anyone consuming this content should feel that they know or have attained positive value by the time they have finished. For new entrants to the market, taking this approach will help establish credibility and gradually build influence, all contributing to the levels of consumer trust they are looking for. Whilst for more established players, a thought leadership campaign will help them stand out from the competition and establish the independent, powerful, authoritative voice they are looking for.
What makes good thought leadership?
Good thought leadership needs to be insightful. Organisations need to make clear that, by working with them, customers will be benefiting from goods or services that stand above the competition. That the ideas and levels of creativity or strategy they will offer far exceed anything the rest of the market is offering.
It may be that promoting a prominent member of your organisation, rather than the brand itself, is the most effective approach. Of course, the kudos and authority gained in this scenario is ultimately shared by the brand itself, pushing it front and centre. This is a great way of brand promotion ‘by association’, helping to side-step the reservations of those customers who ‘don’t like to be advertised at’. All of this helps improve brand authority, presence and trustworthiness without the directness of typical marketing strategies.
How can working with Made as a marketing partner help you lead conversations?
Our team at Made have years of experience developing successful thought leadership strategies across multiple industries. Although each case is unique, we’ll take you through a sequence of steps that help build a successful strategy.
Knowing yourself
We’ll take you through a discovery process that highlights your strengths and USPs as an individual and a brand. We’ll establish which areas will be most relevant and receptive to your leadership and where your voice will sing loudest.
Knowing your target audience
It is your customers that will be your greatest advocates and the goal is to get them listening to you when you speak. So it’s critical to understand what it is they want to hear and know about. Through extensive research, profiling and collaboration, we’ll identify who your optimal audience is and how they like – and don’t like – to be communicated with, ensuring that your messages land, every time.
Having a value-driven content strategy
As a thought leader, you are expected to deliver strategic leadership so it’s vital that there is a laser-focussed strategy behind all the content being released. Whether it is via your own personal channels or through brand channels, an integrated 360 strategy will help push out the messages you want to the people that will be receptive to them and, at the same time, bring new people to you. To be a thought leader is to have audience members seeking out to see what you think and what you have to offer. Our value-driven content strategy will ensure yours is the first place they visit.
Executing fantastic creative
Once the strategy is in place, it’s finally time to deliver market-leading execution. Whether it’s producing insightful copy that connects with the audience in the language that engages them, or ideating stand-out visuals that have the power to resonate and amplify the message, working with a marketing partner ensures that the content quality is befitting of an industry thought leader.
Knowing when and where to share
A crucial part of the content strategy is understanding the sequencing of material for optimal reach and positive reception. Part of this is knowing the strengths and weaknesses of the range of channels and how to optimise their use. Saturating your audience with thought leadership content too early in the journey is likely to be counterproductive. At Made, we understand how to sequence, pace and place your content for optimal return and influence.
Make Made your marketing partner
Thought leadership development is a long game. It takes time to develop trusted relationships with audiences and, to position oneself as a thought leader should appear as a natural, organic process. ‘Exploding’ onto the scene and shouting from the rooftops reeks of inauthenticity and will have the inverse reaction from the audience, to the individual or the brand.
However, a good thought leadership strategy allows room for flexibility, room to respond to the unexpected – whether these are events, or movements in the market that were not foreseen. As thought leaders, you would be expected to have an opinion or insight and so the strategy needs to allow for this.
Working with a creative marketing partner like Made will help amplify your industry expertise; establish or assert your credibility, and position you as the trusted authority in your industry.
Contact Made’s thought leadership experts today and find out how we can put you at the heart of your industry.
