SIGNATURE THOUGHT LEADERSHIP PROCESS
Even the Playing Field with Powerful Thought Leadership & B2B Content Marketing
Become an Industry Authority with Powerful Thought Leadership Content Marketing
Our Signature Thought Leadership Process is the fourth step in our B2B Marketing Process.
Once you have your B2B marketing strategy and system in place, it’s time to begin your ongoing marketing designed to bring in a steady and consistent stream of leads and increase conversions.
More than just your standard inbound and B2B content marketing, we help you even the playing field and compete with larger industry leaders, with their even larger budgets through our powerful Signature Thought Leadership Process.
Central to this process is leveraging the expertise of your internal subject matter experts and turning them into thought leaders in their own rights. This expands the authority and reach of your message and changes the nature of sales conversations.
You’ll see results not just in client acquisition and retention. By empowering your teams, you’ll improve employer branding and increase employee retention.
Thought Leadership: The Key to Standing Out in B2B
In the realm of B2B, standing out can be a challenge, especially if you’re a mid-market firm without the big marketing budgets of larger industry leaders. Enter Thought Leadership - a strategic approach that positions your company not just as a provider of products or services, but as a trusted expert in your industry.
Thought Leadership is about sharing insights, sparking discussions, and helping your audience navigate industry trends and challenges. For B2B firms, it's a powerful way to connect with clients on a deeper level, build trust, and influence their decision-making process.
A Differentiator in a Competitive Market
In a sea of similar offerings, Thought Leadership sets you apart. It positions your company as a reliable source, an industry pioneer, a source of innovation, and a trusted advisor. This is not about making sales pitches; it's about sharing your unique perspective and showcasing your deep understanding of the issues that matter most to your clients.
The Blueprint for Successful Thought Leadership
A successful Thought Leadership strategy involves more than just creating content. It requires a deep understanding of your audience, a clear message that resonates, and a consistent voice that's authentically yours. It's about crafting compelling narratives, sharing actionable insights, and driving meaningful conversations
Our Signature Thought Leadership Process: Turning Your Team Into Empowered Thought Leaders
While most marketing agencies focus on generic content creation, at New Initiatives Marketing, we take Thought Leadership a step further by transforming your employees into thought leaders:
- We identify Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) in key areas of your company, such as sales, customer success, product, engineering, leadership, and more.
- Through interviews, we extract their unique expertise, points of view, insights and experiences, turning these into compelling Thought Leadership content.
- We begin sharing this thought leadership content through your main company channels, such as your website, email newsletter and social media channels.
- Next, we identify niche “spheres of influence” opportunities to share your thought leadership content and increase awareness. These niche spheres of influence could include industry podcasts, events, associations, YouTube channels, workshops, blogs, social channels, and other industry thought leaders.
- Then, we guide your SMEs to share their content on their own social media channels, such as LinkedIn articles. This not only establishes their individual authority but also empowers them to share content and promote the company individually, boosting credibility with clients and customers and potentially changing the sales conversation.
- We work with you, the CEO and senior leadership to establish corporate guidelines for your teams to share your thought leadership content and their own perspectives through their own channels, boosting the reach of your content and increasing the credibility and authority of individual team members.
Part of our mission is to educate companies on the power of empowering their teams to share their own Thought Leadership content. By doing so, they not only amplify their company's reach and influence but also position themselves and their teams as trusted voices in the industry - while boosting your employer branding and helping you to attract and retain top talent.
Isn’t it time to move beyond random acts of marketing?
Let New Initiatives Marketing help you power your revenue engine with our Signature Thought Leadership Process:
B2B Content Marketing & Thought Leadership 101 for B2B CEOs
We’ve curated a list of the most commonly asked questions around B2B Content Marketing & Thought Leadership to guide B2B CEOs in more thoroughly understanding this topic and why it’s an essential to setting the stage for long-term growth.
What is Thought Leadership as Part of B2B Content Marketing?
Thought Leadership is a type of point of view and B2B content marketing where you tap into the talent, experience, and passion inside your business to consistently answer the biggest questions on the minds of your target audience. It's about becoming an authority in your field by providing insights and perspectives on an ongoing and long-term basis that add value for your audience and set you apart from competitors.
How Does Thought Leadership in B2B Content Marketing Help Sales Teams?
Thought Leadership helps sales teams by building credibility and trust with potential customers. When a company consistently provides valuable insights and solutions, prospects are more likely to trust that company with their business. Additionally, the content created can be used by sales teams as a resource in their sales conversations to demonstrate the company's expertise and understanding of industry issues.
Why is Thought Leadership Important for B2B Firms?
Thought Leadership is particularly important for B2B firms for several reasons:
- Building Trust: Thought Leadership helps establish trust with your audience. By consistently providing valuable insights and solutions, you demonstrate a deep understanding of industry issues and trends, which increases your credibility and makes potential customers more likely to trust you with their business.
- Differentiating Your Brand: In crowded marketplaces, Thought Leadership can help set your company apart. By offering unique perspectives and innovative solutions, you show that your company isn't just following the crowd, but leading the way.
- Supporting Sales Efforts: Thought Leadership content can be a valuable tool for your sales team. It can be used to demonstrate your company's expertise, educate potential customers, and address common questions or objections that may come up during the sales process.It can showcase your sales people as the insightful and knowledgeable professionals they are, before the sales presentation.
- Attracting Ideal Customers: Well-executed Thought Leadership attracts the kind of customers you most want to do business with. By focusing your content on the issues that matter most to your target audience, you draw in the people who are most likely to benefit from your products or services, and most likely to become long-term customers.
- Influencing Industry Trends: For B2B firms that operate in dynamic industries, Thought Leadership can be a way to influence trends and shape the future of the industry. By sharing forward-thinking insights and innovative ideas, you can position your company as a leader, not just a follower.
What Marketing Activities Does Thought Leadership Include?
Thought Leadership includes a range of marketing activities, including:
- Content Marketing: Creating and sharing high-quality content such as blog posts, whitepapers, e-books, webinars, and social media updates that provide valuable insights to your audience.
- Email Marketing: Using email to nurture leads, stay top-of-mind with your audience, and promote your Thought Leadership content through newsletters and drip campaigns.
- Event Marketing: Speaking at industry events, hosting webinars, or attending conferences to showcase your expertise and connect with potential customers.
- Association Marketing: Partnering with industry associations or organizations to expand your reach and connect with potential leads by contributing Thought Leadership content to their publications or events.
- Inbound Marketing and SEO: Attracting potential customers to your website and nurturing them through the buyer's journey by creating valuable content optimized for search engines.
- Social Media Marketing: Amplifying your Thought Leadership content and engaging with your audience on social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.
At New Initiatives Marketing, we can guide you through all these activities, helping you develop and execute a powerful Thought Leadership strategy that positions your company as a trusted expert in your industry.
How Does Thought Leadership Contribute to B2B Lead Generation?
Thought Leadership plays a crucial role in B2B lead generation. Here's how:
- Attracting High-Quality Leads: By creating valuable, industry-relevant content, you attract the attention of potential customers who are interested in the topics you're discussing. These are often high-quality leads who are more likely to convert because they're actively seeking the insights and solutions you provide.
- Nurturing Leads: Thought Leadership content isn't just for attracting new leads—it's also for nurturing existing ones. By consistently delivering insightful content, you keep your audience engaged, moving them further down the sales funnel towards conversion.
- Establishing Credibility: Thought Leadership content helps establish your company as an expert in your industry. This credibility can make leads more comfortable with the idea of doing business with you.
- Supporting SEO: SEO is a key component of lead generation, and Thought Leadership content can significantly boost your SEO efforts. By optimizing your content for relevant keywords, you increase your visibility on search engines, bringing more potential leads to your website.
At New Initiatives Marketing, we leverage Thought Leadership as a powerful tool for B2B lead generation, helping businesses attract, nurture, and convert high-quality leads.
How Does Thought Leadership Work as a Part of B2B Content Marketing?Thought Leadership works by demonstrating your company's expertise and providing valuable insights to your audience. This is achieved through the creation and distribution of insightful content that addresses key industry issues and trends.
Over time, your audience begins to recognize your company as an expert in the field, which builds trust and increases your influence in the industry.
A typical Thought Leadership process includes:
- Identifying Expertise Areas: The first step is to identify the areas where your company excels and where your team members have unique insights. This could be anything from technical knowledge to industry trends, customer service, or strategic thinking.
- B2B Content Creation: Once you've identified your areas of expertise, the next step is to create high-quality content that showcases these insights. This could take the form of blog posts, whitepapers, e-books, webinars, podcasts, or even social media updates.
- B2B Content Promotion: Once the content is created, it needs to be promoted. This might involve sharing the content on your company's social media channels, email newsletters, and website. It could also include pitching the content to industry publications or influencers, or promoting it through paid advertising.
- Public Speaking and Events: Thought Leadership also often involves speaking at industry events, webinars, or conferences. This can be a powerful way to showcase your expertise and connect with your audience in a more personal way.
- Engaging with Your Audience: Finally, Thought Leadership involves engaging with your audience. This could involve responding to comments on your blog posts or social media updates, participating in industry forums or discussions, or even hosting Q&A sessions or webinars to interact directly with your audience.
At New Initiatives Marketing, our Fractional CMOs help you take your thought leadership program to the next level with our signature process. Our signature process adds to the process above to include:
- Identifying subject matter experts within your organization
- Interviewing your subject matter experts and creating powerful point of view content in their names
- Posting and sharing content not just through corporate channels, but through individual team member channels
- Educating, training and empowering your teams to share thought leadership content through their own personal channels
How Does Thought Leadership Help Sales Teams?
Thought Leadership helps sales teams by building credibility and trust with potential customers. When a company consistently provides valuable insights and solutions, prospects are more likely to trust that company with their business.
Additionally, the content created can be used by sales teams as a resource in their sales conversations to demonstrate the company's expertise and understanding of industry issues.
How Does Thought Leadership Contribute to Inbound Marketing & SEO?
Thought Leadership is a key component of a successful inbound marketing strategy. By creating valuable, insightful content, you can attract and engage your target audience, drawing them towards your brand rather than having to reach out to them directly.
In terms of SEO, high-quality Thought Leadership content can significantly improve your search engine rankings. Search engines like Google reward content that is original, valuable, and relevant to users. By consistently producing Thought Leadership content that meets these criteria, you can improve your visibility in search results, attract more organic traffic to your website, and increase the chances of converting that traffic into leads and customers.
Furthermore, Thought Leadership content often gets shared and linked back to, which can also boost your SEO. By establishing your brand as a go-to resource for industry insights, you increase the likelihood of other reputable sites linking back to your content, further improving your SEO performance.
How Long Does it Take to See Results from a Thought Leadership Strategy?
Developing a reputation as a Thought Leader doesn't happen overnight. It takes time to create and distribute the insightful content that builds this reputation. However, with a consistent and well-executed strategy, most companies start to see an increase in engagement, lead generation, and sales influence within 6-12 months.
Who In Our Company Should Contribute to Our Thought Leadership Efforts?
While C-level executives are often the face of Thought Leadership efforts, it's beneficial to include insights from various roles within the organization. This can include managers, sales, account managers, technical experts, customer service representatives, and others who can provide valuable insights and perspectives.
NEXT STEPS
Talk to a Fractional CMO About How Powerful B2B Content Marketing Using our Signature Thought Leadership Process Can Impact Your Business