Eight steps to creating a powerful B2B thought leadership strategy

Written by Simpatico PR

Posted on 2019-11-25

From engineering to advertising, businesses aiming to reach an audience of prospect clients, customers, future recruits, existing staff, investors and business partners are turning to the concept of thought leadership to drive their marketing communications.

But what is thought leadership and how do you create stuff that’s worth reading in an environment that is awash with ideas, facts and points of view, much of which is instantly forgettable or simply never read?

Wikipedia describes thought leadership as “an individual or firm that is recognised as an authority in a specialised field and whose expertise is often sought and rewarded,” a description which fits very closely with the expertise-based business model that specialist consultancies and agencies work from.

But any business with specialist knowledge can create an effective (and by that, I mean genuinely influential) thought leadership programme that contributes to the bottom line.

There’s relatively little fact-based evidence to justify investment in thought leadership for B2B PR or other marketing channels, but what there is, is compelling – for example a study carried out by LinkedIn and Edleman (see below).

So, here’s a step-by-step guide based on a presentation I made to an audience of creative and media services agency marketers and business development professionals brought together by The Future Factory.

1. Business growth objectives, positioning and messages

Begin at the beginning. Creating thought leadership should be an integral part of your communications plan, so the first step as with any comms strategy is to be clear about the business plan. Where is the company going and how should marketing and PR help? Hand in hand with that comes the business brand positioning or proposition encapsulating USP and reasons to buy. Many companies have this nailed, just as many don’t.

A huge amount of time and money is wasted in this space when often all you need is a little objective help and a little careful thought turned into a few lines that encapsulate the business. Tone of voice is important here too.

Supporting these fundamentals should be some simple messages that cover off what the business is, why it is worth doing business with, what it sells and what its vision is.

This doesn’t have to be perfect, it may be evolving, but without a basic structure in place it’s difficult to build an effective approach to thought leadership.

Why? Because everything you think and project must ladder up to your business objectives.

2. Subjects and credibility

Once you’re clear about where your going and what your business is about, the next step is to consider where you can and should lead.

There is a vast amount happening right now – pretty much every sector from the law to media, automotive manufacturing to retailing, fmcg to logistics – it’s all being disrupted from the outside and from within by technology. Every product is a service waiting to happen and every bricks and mortar business is a digital business now.

From AI to ecommerce, its easy to be swept up by the huge themes of transformation that are disseminated across the business world. Don’t be. Double down on your company’s areas of expertise and build from there. Broad areas of tech and social trends may be relevant to you, but keep your leadership focused on the space you know first.

Then you can start thinking about how technology, innovation, social and business are impacting on what you do and your customers.

Do not stretch your credibility, but at the same time you must be bold.

For example, if you are a packaging design company or manufacturer you cannot not address the issue of plastic pollution. You should have an opinion on it even if this is counter to the current narrative flow – all plastic is evil.

If you are an advertising agency, you cannot ignore the digitisation of media and the huge generational shift in the way people are consuming media and the type of content they respond to.

If you are a retailer, you cannot avoid talking about omni-channel retail, achieving sustainable ecommerce growth, re-imagining retail interiors and customer relationship building etc.

A trick that many businesses fail to realise is that thought leadership can mean posing questions as well as answering them. What if can be as powerful as the answer.

3. Square peg – round hole

Are you trying to build brand and influence with PR-able opinions and evidence or focusing on a technical issue with a narrow but important audience? Decide before you develop an idea how it should be activated.

There may be a requirement to talk to clients about very specific stuff that may not lend itself to PR or it may be restricted to particular trade media and it might be great direct marketing material or owned channel content.

A mature thought leadership strategy should mix brand building material that can reach beyond the trade press or pull a wider audience into a seminar or discussion event, with more trade specific issues.

4. Original thinking?

It’s been suggested that true thought leadership is one hundred percent original in terms of ideas and data. The truth is for most businesses, even the very biggest corporations, this is an aspiration rather than a reality. But how do you avoid just adding to the noise, publishing yet another dull white paper or meaningless opinion piece.

Actually, the answer is pretty straightforward if you approach the question in a systematic way.

Once you have identified the subject areas where your business can offer expertise and valuable opinion, do some desk research. Look at what people have said, are saying, data published and create a picture of the issues and views in a given area. Then look for gaps – does your business have a different take on an issue; is your company ahead of the market in a particular are; do you have more insight; do you have a different set of questions that need an answer?

Originality can require fresh eyes and a journalistic take on the run of a debate, area of innovation or latest initiative emerging in your market. That might mean you need an objective opinion, help shaping a thought or presenting the issue in a different way. In short it becomes a creative process.

Proof to back your views is also an important consideration. Think about case studies and be open to using initiatives or work by other companies (fully accredited of course), even competitors if it backs your point effectively.

A healthy thought leadership programme should aim to create content that does tell the audience something entirely new, or pose and answer questions that haven’t been asked. But it can also mean building on the shoulders of giants as you explore an existing subject that is topical and add an original spin with a strong opinion that will challenge conventions.

So, think of thought leadership as a spectrum ranging from entirely new stuff to a great new perspective on an existing issue.

5. Imagine the answers

A great deal of thought leadership is linked to quantitative or qualitative research, usually the former. But it is very easy to invest in a study that reveals nothing of interest. It sounds counter-intuitive, but the best way to create research is to imagine the answers to the questions before you ask them and imagine whether this will support the story or argument you want to make.

Building likely story outcomes sits at the heart of PR-able quantitative research and thought leadership.

It is particularly important to ask yourself (as per point 3.) what’s this for? Do you wish to investigate a technical issue for a limited trade audience or develop material that will reach a far wider audience or build your brand with a business audience through consumer PR?

6. Findability

How will your audience find the content? Your starting point, especially if working on a budget is LinkedIn – for many businesses it is a ready made b2b broadcast channel with a highly desirable audience your senior team have personally curated.

If you have a senior leadership team of say five, you could reasonably expect to have an audience of prospects, clients, investors and future employees of several thousand.

Twitter is basic communications hygiene, but thought leadership adds weight and from there your social channels should be intuitive – Instagram and YouTube are great for visual show and tell; Facebook is your company culture channel.

Although Facebook’s business proposition seams to work well for consumer brands and services, I’ve yet to see evidence of it gaining much traction in the b2b context. But it can be a showcase for recruitment purposes.

Findability is also critical for your thought leadership in the media. Trade press is usually a vital foundation from which to build a more holistic and effective thought leadership PR programme, but it is worth considering the value of reaching your audience out of context.

Your prospects and clients and future employees are business people, but they are also humans who will be interested in a far more diverse range of content and consume a wide range of media.

While trade press may be the starting point, a fully-fledged thought leadership programme should integrate ideas that will work in vertical trade, general business titles, international business and national media. Do not consider broadcast out of reach – producers and journalists on business-programmes are always seeking expert opinion and innovations especially if pitched in a way that makes the content or idea accessible.

Think about reaching your audience through a matrix of channels reaching them with different ideas in different ways.

7. Who are your thought leaders?

As well as considering the subjects that support the services, products and expertise you wish to promote as a means to plan a thought leadership programme, your senior team will also frame what’s possible.

A healthy number of spokespeople for most medium sized businesses is two to five people. Just one talking head tends to tilt the programme towards personality-based PR.

One person may take the lead but, others should support and this can include more junior team members if appropriate. An obvious route is to include specialist unit leaders, strategists and those with particular expertise or experience.

You will find some cross over in the subjects people can or want to cover, but almost always it will be obvious who should lead on particular issues. Create a plan and expert commentator biographies, but don’t pigeon hole people too strictly, allow some flexibility.

You will find some would-be thought leaders are media friendly and a source of inspirational thinking. Other experts will struggle to articulate what they know or present ideas in an overly technical way. And, there will be those who feel it is a self-indulgent exercise and not really for them.

It can take some coaxing and serious thought as to how to encourage everyone who could and should be involved to participate, try to work out the best content form, media and volume to suit each individual.

8. Learn and build

Don’t expect your business to become a recognised source of thought leadership overnight – it will take time and consistency.

Start off with ideas you are obviously expert in and grow the range of ideas and insights gradually. It’s also important to build acknowledgement of your opinions and insights amongst journalists and peers.

Start with a core team of internal thought leaders and grow the group as the programme gains traction.

Manage expectations and chart your progress.

And of course, let's talk ROI

Thought leadership done well obviously means an investment in time and resources internally and often a budget for external support, so measurement is important.

Sometimes you will be able to connect a single piece of work – say an article – to a particular conversation that leads to a new client or contract. Most of the time you will not.

Recording your activity and measuring the impact of your programme on audiences is critical. Aim to break down the specifics of what you have done by volume, channel, message, subject, content type as well as media exposure gained.

Look at audience reach, shares and comments, consider measuring share of voice against key competitors, aggregate the outcomes over time and share the success with your team.

Thought leadership is a brand building tool that facilitates influence, brand visibility and ultimately growth, but the correlation between publication and specific sales is weak, yet its long-term impact can be very powerful.