How much confidence, belief and trust do you get from the marketplace?
With trust at an all-time low, it's critical to be credible. It's up to marketing to set the precedent for your company's believability level. This does not mean amping up your batch & blast marketing campaign schedule. Yelling at people will not make them believe in you.
It means taking the time to show people why you're valuable. The most effective way to do this is to help them. Help them think, learn, understand and solve problems. It means adding thought leadership as a component of your marketing strategy.
I was speaking with a VP of marketing a few weeks ago and she said that thought leadership was low on her priority list because it didn't have an immediate impact on revenues. She's charged with delivering quantifiable results and doesn't have any room to spare for stuff that doesn't deliver in the near term.
The problem with only focusing on the near term is that when it runs out, what have you got left? This type of limited marketing focus is making the choice to be the hamster on the never-ending wheel. You have to keep running faster and faster to keep up. There's nothing brewing in the pipeline to filter in down the line. And, you're leaving untold opportunities by the wayside. You're actually driving them to your competitors because you've in essence told people that unless they are interested in buying now, you're not interested in them.
To build credibility, every B2B company that's in the game for the long-term should focus on thought leadership as one of their initiatives. Relationship marketing is a focus of many marketing initiatives these days, but without credibility, how strong a relationship can you build? It's kind of a cart and horse thing.
So what does "become a thought leader" mean?
Steven Van Yoder, author of Get Slightly Famous: Become a Celebrity in Your Field and Attract More Business with Less Effort, was the guest speaker today on Jill Konrath's monthly Selling To Big Companies teleseminar (which I highly recommend).
Steven defines thought leadership as:
"...positioning yourself [or your company] as an industry resource for your customers and prospects."
This means you provide information that's useful to your prospects and customers -- and here's the kicker -- whether or not they opt in or buy anything. You provide the information in a non-subjective way and make sure it's not overly self-promotional. In essence, you help people become educated and knowledgeable about issues that are important to them.
If the information is meaningful to them, they will opt in to learn more.
That said, thought leadership requires dedication. It requires:
- knowing who's influencing your industry
- staying up-to-date on related trends and issues
- being willing to dispense expertise without strings attached
- distinguishing yourself from the status quo
Which sounds like what marketers are challenged to do, anyway. The most difficult part about thought leadership is planting that proverbial stake in the ground and choosing your niche.
It's helpful to ask yourself/your company the following:
- What do we want to be known for?
- What do we want prospects and customers to think about when they think of us?
- What can we do to loosen the status quo?
- Where are our customers and prospects stuck?
- What issues are looming on the horizon for our customers that we can pro-actively provide insights and information about to help them BEFORE there's an adverse impact?
- What do our prospects and customers need that they aren't getting? (Hint: probably access to strategic thinking about an issue they aren't experts in dealing with)
The interesting thing about thought leadership is that, done well, it can pre-sell you. This means you need to make it part of your marketing strategy. Sharing information and insights is good for business. It builds credibility. Providing something valuable with no strings raises your trustworthiness in the eyes of the prospect. Positioning yourself to be the one they reach out and call when they are ready is a circumstance we all want to have.
Credibility grows with a solid reputation. So don't hide your thought leadership under a rock or bury it on your website. Don't put up a form that asks for the prospect's first child before you share, either. Many of them will leave without filling it out. At least until they decide you're credible.
With the improvement in metrics and data collection, marketing should be able to track the pipeline movement of the longer-term leads and demonstrate quantifiable impact on revenues.
Like all good things, it will take some time.
What thought leadership activities are you pursuing?
