8 weeks to becoming a thought leader

Marketers have a love-hate relationship with thought leadership. They love what it can do for their brand in the market. But they hate how much time and political capital it takes to develop truly compelling content.

Thought leadership doesn’t have to be an epic struggle, however. In a moment, we’ll present a fast and simple approach that can send your brand to the head of the class.

No surprise – thought leadership is becoming more important
A UK study¹ found that 9 in 10 professional services CMOs see thought leadership as the single most effective way to differentiate their firms. And 19 in 20 believe thought leadership will become even more important in the near term.

In addition, integrating thought leadership into other marketing initiatives, like ABM, can be a game-changer. In fact, ABM marketers found account-specific thought leadership to be the single most effective of 23 different ABM marketing tactics.²

Most companies are only doing a so-so job
According to the latest ITSMA study on thought leadership, “most B2B marketing organizations continue to struggle with managing thought leadership programs that consistently provide differentiated points of view and effective platforms for engaging the senior executives within the clients that matter most.”³

To address this, several of the largest B2B services firms have created entire institutes and digital magazines dedicated to churning out a steady supply of thought leadership content.

But for most CMOs, setting up an entire organization to develop thought leadership isn’t an option. With a dozen other marketing priorities, CMOs simply don’t have enough time to put all their resources in the thought leadership basket, or the political capital to get their firm’s visionaries and rainmakers to spend time formulating in-depth white papers or points-of-view.

So how can we make thought leadership development easier?
To set your thought leadership programs in motion, we suggest a simple step: ask the right people the right questions.

This could take the form of a quantitative study among senior decision makers – or a Summit where some of the best and brightest in the industry come together and tease out an industry point-of-view.

One of the things we like about quantitative studies is they provide your prospects with a peer perspective. With new technologies, new classes of services and products, and new operating models, there is often power in numbers. Your prospects are more likely to make a move if they think their competitors are contemplating one themselves.

Using a quant study as our example, here’s a week-by-week guide to becoming a thought leader.

Week 1 – Select topic and target of study
Let’s assume you already have a budget, a domain where you intend to be a leader, and some understanding of what thought leadership studies have already been published in this space. Week 1 is about identifying the white space in that landscape where your study can add value, and defining the target you want to speak to when fielding a study.

We recommend selecting at least two sub-groups for this target. This allows you to compare and contrast results, providing a more holistic understanding of the topic. These subgroups could be: geographic (U.S. vs. China), target segments (e.g., consumer vs. B2B, millennials vs. Gen X, ITDMs vs. BDMs, payers vs. providers), industry cuts (manufacturers vs. retailers), or different mindsets (e.g., early adopter vs. mainstream vs. laggards).

You’ll also want to do some prep in week 1, setting up times for meetings with internal or external subject matter experts in the field and a creating a discussion guide for those conversations. You’ll also want to select a research vendor with a track record of conducting illuminating research against your ideal prospect.

Week 2 – Meet with subject matter experts, develop research hypothesis
When pressed to develop a new white paper in an area of emerging importance, your rainmakers and budding visionaries might scurry into the shadows. But if the request is simply an hour of time to pick their brains, we generally find they’re more than willing to accommodate.

In this hour, we typically like to cover a wide range of topics: what important trends are they seeing, the broader context behind these trends, implications for various participants in the market, and what they want to learn from study participants that could impact how the company addresses opportunities.

If you’ve segmented your research – into a half-dozen industries, for example – you’ll want to make sure you interview subject matter experts in each segment. You might also want to get an external perspective from, say, an industry analyst.

Drawing on this input, you’ll then want to formulate a hypothesis about what the research will find. This hypothesis, whether affirmed or negated by the study, should be provocative and newsworthy – a magnet to potential prospects.

For example, we recently fielded a study with the hypothesis that adopting disruptive technology is not only the cost of doing business, but staying in business. That those who fail to adopt disruptive technologies in a timely fashion are at risk of being disrupted themselves. (In this case, the hypotheses was confirmed.)

Week 3 – Finalize questionnaire
In developing a questionnaire, start with the end in mind. What findings would the media want to write about? What questions can help you best compare and contrast the subgroups in your study? Which questions would benefit from an open-ended follow up – to tell you not only what the target thinks, but why? What prompt could lead to a memorable interactive data visualization?

With these ends fully in mind, the questionnaire will begin to write itself.

Week 4-6 – Field research
Here’s some welcome news. Of the 8 weeks to becoming a thought leader, the 3 weeks that your study is in the field don’t require your attention. Now would be a great time to take one of those European-style, three-week vacations to the South of France. C’est magnifique!

Week 7 – Finalize report
Now that you have a summary of the research in hand, you’ll want to circle back to your subject matter experts to get their read on the data.

And then start to lay out a hierarchy of findings: one or two key takeaways, key findings for each section of the study, separate findings for each subgroup, areas where the subgroups were most alike and most different from one another, and a handful of data points or verbatims from each section that will make your prospects curious enough to want to read the full study.

Week 8 – Develop activation plan
Congratulations. With your final report and sets of key findings and data points, you are well on your way to becoming a thought leader.

One final step – let people know what you know. A thought leadership study is only as good as its activation plan. Get those findings out into the market and associated with your brand.

Think about your activation plan in 3 stages. What findings or data points can best attract prospects to the study? How can you package the overall study into content that will best engage a specific type of prospect (for example, a report on one of the industries or geographies you studied)? Finally, how can you best convert these prospects into leads and ultimately customers?

Here is an example of a thought leadership campaign we recently developed and activated (in award-winning fashion) for one of our clients.

A well-designed thought leadership study can be the gift that keeps on giving, a core touchstone that will inform much of the other content your organization develops. One that provides the kind of coherent vision that separates leaders from the rest of the pack.

Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?

¹ Clair Mason, “Putting the Thought Back into the Thinking Professions: The Challenge of Effective Thought Leadership,” 2014
² ITSMA, “Driving Growth with Three Types of ABM: How Companies Are Leveraging ABM for Maximum Business Impact,” 2017
³ ITSMA, “Engaging Executives with Ideas and Innovation: ITSMA 2018 Thought Leadership Study,” 2018