If you’re in the business of expertise, or if you’re trying to bring a product to market that solves a problem nobody knows they have yet, you know that your thought leadership content strategy is a major priority.
If you don’t know what thought leadership is, here is Edelman’s definition:
“Thought leadership material refers to content — for example, thought pieces, essays, videos, webinars, live presentations, PowerPoint slides, and research reports — that organizations make available to the public for free (or in return for registering or giving them your contact information).”
The reason why this content is so critical for B2B enterprises is that in order to win business with key decision-makers, they need to demonstrate expertise that inspires confidence.
Sounds easy, especially if you’re an expert at what you do.
However, there are also plenty of ways to sabotage your thought leadership content.
And studies show that the only thing that can damage a B2B brand’s reputation more than not publishing thought leadership is to publish poor thought leadership, poorly.
I’m going to cover a shortlist of common mistakes that thought leaders make when approaching their content - and how you can avoid these pitfalls.
If you do, don’t be surprised if you see the market begin to clamor for your expertise.
If you’re not aligning your content strategy with your core business goals, you’re setting yourself up for a rough road ahead.
You’ll probably quit.
And you’re likely not going to be able to rally the rest of your organization around your point of view.
But by focusing on the organization's goals, you can then reverse-engineer a content strategy that reflects those goals. This will instill confidence in your team that this content strategy is a valuable use of everybody’s time.
Here's how you can avoid it:
If you're just repeating what everybody else in your industry is saying, you're not leading. You're following.
And this is one of the key distinctions between content marketing and thought leadership.
Content marketing typically just reframes what are commonly known best practices/perspectives in order to drive more traffic to a company's website.
However, thought leadership doesn't create for the sake of driving up metrics.
It creates for the sake of making an authoritative claim.
If your point of view isn't unique and groundbreaking (and, frankly, doesn't invite pushback from other people in your field), you're not taking the risks necessary to truly be a thought leader.
Here's how you can avoid it:
Here's the tension: you’re trying to deliver a solution to the market that your audience doesn’t even have language for yet typically.
That's obviously a competitive advantage to you and the narrative you're crafting because nobody else is fighting to claim a stake of dominance in the same territory of expertise.
However, you don’t want to compromise that, but you still want to make sure you’re connecting with your audience.
Here's how you can avoid it:
Your thought leadership strategy is precisely the opposite of a sales pitch.
You’re presenting an idea, not selling a product.
And the more your presentation feels like a sales pitch, the quicker people are going to turn away.
When you try to sell to your audience out the gate, they will feel like they need to play defense in order to keep you from scoring on them.
And, let's be honest, it's way more fun to play offense than defense.
Here's how you can avoid it:
People want to be led. They don't want to be talked down to.
Too many thought leaders feel like they need to be brash with their tone in order to prove their dominance.
Maybe it works from time to time, but I've also seen this bravado approach shoot them in the foot.
So be careful about your tone and your messaging. The best leaders, after all, are servants.
Here's how you can avoid it:
Most C-suite leaders are gold mines of expertise and grow comfortable firing from the hip with their input.
But oftentimes, this overconfidence sniffs them out.
Audiences can tell when "thought leaders" aren't prepared with their content or that they haven't thought it through thoroughly.
Here's how you can avoid it:
This one is really tactical, but it's insanely important.
Because what's the point of great thought leadership content that nobody actually consumes?
Most thought leadership content strategies fail because of a poor distribution strategy.
Thought leaders put a 60min webinar or a keynote on their website, but they don't deploy any meaningful strategy to move traffic to watch the full content.
And especially when thought leaders are trying to reach C-suite decision-makers with their expertise, they fail to remember that these leaders have almost no time in the day to watch a 60min video.
If only they had broken up their thought leadership content into captivating, helpful micro content...
Here's how you can avoid it:
That's all I got for today. Thanks for reading!
-Kap