When Thought Leadership Isn't

Becoming a thought leader in their market space is something many companies are setting out to achieve. And, for good reason. Today's B2B buyers turn to search engines and the Internet to gather information about solving their problems. If you're not found - and considered valuable - you're not in the running.

Prospects want thoughtful ideas and strategic insights geared just for them. They're looking for validation that solving the problem will pay off. They want  help building a business case and the ammunition to convince others to take a step on the wild side, instead of sitting firmly in status quo. They're also looking to validate expertise in order to minimize risk. Hence, thought leadership.

Did you catch the critical point?

Geared just for them.

Thought leadership is not one-size-fits-all. It still has to be designed for the intended audience to be useful.

Examples of when thought leadership, well, isn't:

1. For some reason, I've seen companies think they can return to product pumping and chest thumping under the auspices of thought leadership. Umm...no.
2. When your prospects just want something that works and you go all high-level on them with ideas they can never bring to life because of culture, size or market relevance.
3. If you go too far and talk down to them.
4. Too much stick and not enough carrot.
5. Applying every principle you discuss to your product's features when you promised insights about the ramifications of the problem, itself.
6. Promising a white paper and delivering one page of insight tacked onto the front of your solution brief.
7. Referencing outdated sources to justify your take on a cutting-edge problem. The world is moving faster than that.

These are just a few examples that come to mind. We need to realize that our prospects expectations are increasing. Every impression sets expectations and we've got to deliver on them if we expect to actually get in the conversation.

Comments

[Susan Fantle]

Ardath,
Thank you for pointing out these mistakes that I see so often with B2B marketers who think talking about their product is "thought leadership." Not long ago in "Are B2B marketers offering too much stuff and not enough information?" I listed what marketers should do when creating content. I didn't position it as a path to thought leadership, but that's exactly what it is. Here are my four points which mirror your advice perfectly:

1. Provide content information that matches the specific needs of each pipeline lead.
2. Create content that has how-to take-aways that can be implemented without buying your product or service.
3. Offer a mix of some content that is available without registration and some that is not.
4. Provide content that satisfies the focus of each decision-maker and influencer in prospect companies.

[Carpet Cleaning Sydney]

"Too much stick and not enough carrot" No kidding! I see too many companies today that are guilty of having more stick and less carrot! I have encountered very few companies who go as far as to talk down to me but they still exist nonetheless. It is beyond me why someone would be willing to lose business over being lazy and hotheaded. Hopefully ignorance is the one to blame here!

Sabrina

[Michael Selissen]

It comes back to the ol’ marketing truism that, “Nobody wants a quarter-inch drill. What people want is a quarter-inch hole.” Yet, too many B2B companies, big and small, are out there selling drills.

Adele Revella said it quite succinctly in a recent post on this subject. To create a competitive advantage, marketers need to get into their customers’ skin and understand what motivates them.
Specifically:

• which problems the target buyers perceive as their highest priority
• the way each type of buyer is currently managing these problems
• why the problems persist in spite of current efforts
• how this type of buyer will respond to the company’s approach or solution

To be fair, it is natural, after spending months or years developing a product, to think of that product as the perfect solution to all the world’s ills. It takes an organization with a top-down discipline, process and customer focus to create the right product and promote it in terms that will resonate.

Link to Adele’s post: http://bit.ly/4x9W7E

[Chris Snell]

I completely agree Ardath!

What often is disguised as Thought Leadership is actually Thought"less" Leadership. Instead of looking through a window to the audience, the creators are rather looking into a mirror, and just reflecting back to their prospects what "they" want to see, not what their prospects need to see.

Thanks for the reminder.

[Paul McKeon]

Great post. "Geared just for them" is exactly right. If the prospect can't see themselves in the "thought leadership," they won't follow it, and then there *is* no leadership.

Your example #6 inspired a new question: As marketers we are in the habit of including a call to action in every message; are calls to action offensive in thought leadership? I think yes.

"Tell, don't sell," and "Take yourself out of the story" are essential to thought leadership that prospects will follow.

"Is Anybody Following Your Thought Leadership?" http://www.contentfactor.com/library/content/anybody-following-your-thought-leadership

[Ardath Albee]

Great comments from each of you! Thanks.

Susan - I like your list of items, but I'm trying to figure out how #4 is different than #1. What am I missing?

Sabrina - It's my hope this will change.

Michael - thanks for your thoughts and the reference to Adele. She's got some fantastic insights.

Chris - I like the "mirror." Good way to describe company focus vs. customer focus.

Paul - I think there are varying levels of calls to action we can employ so as to not be offensive. I also firmly believe that all content needs to help leads make progress in their buying process. You can see my take on this here:
http://marketinginteractions.typepad.com/marketing_interactions/2009/07/plan-b2b-content-for-the-takeaway.html

[McKeonPaul]

Ardath, enjoyed your post about the takeaway, and I agree. It appears that lead generation is moving from the work of the seller, to the mind of the buyer.

Your post and others inspired a post on our blog: http://www.contentfactor.com/blog/2010/01/are-we-torching-our-leads.html