B2B Brands Lack Thought Leadership

According to Lisa Gately, a Forrester analyst, many B2B brands lack thought leadership. By thought leadership, she means "an intentional exercise of knowledge, skills, and expertise to increase awareness, elevate perception, and drive preference related to key issues that an audience cares about". The key to effective thought leadership, she says, is addressing an issue that your audience actually cares about. Gately advises that those who want to develop thought leadership should plan for a long-term commitment of 18 to 24 months, and expect to "play the long game". Lisa checks in on the conversation surrounding her company and where their voice fits in. She looks to see what other, similar companies are up to in order to help make her company more successful. She looks at things like what they're posting, their research and development, and if they have any patents. She finds the most successful companies are the ones whose themes are timeless and line up perfectly with what the company does. She says that in order to succeed, you need to have experts on your team who are passionate and knowledgeable about the theme, have the full support of your company, and have executive level support. Lisa believes that in order to create a successful thought leadership program, you must be willing to invest time and resources. To help you determine which themes would be most successful and how important each factor is, Lisa suggests creating a thought leadership theme scorecard with input from a cross-functional team. The scorecard is based on the dimension, factor, description, and score. If you would like to learn more about Lisa's thoughts on thought leadership, visit her blog, "Think Leadership Matters" at iReport.com. The most important thing to consider when creating successful thought leadership content is to make sure it is relevant to the needs of your buyer or customer. It should be aligned with your organization's skills and identity, and you should have experts or unique data to support it. The expectations for thought leadership should be realistic, and it should deliver value within 18 to 24 months.

(source: https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/articles/thought-leadership-content-thoughtful)