Content Marketing

Thought Leadership is NOT Content Marketing

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I recently opened my inbox and found an email from a reporter I worked with early in my career.

My former colleague had just read my blog post and she had one burning question for me:

“So WHAT IS thought leadership? It’s an inside baseball term. Can you define it?”

Good question
But it’s also one that we marketers also need to ask ourselves. Even among marketers there seems to be some confusion about what thought leadership is. I often hear people use thought leadership as a synonym for content marketing – another big buzzword du jour.

But they are not one and the same thing. Not at all.

Thought leadership, to summarize Forrester Research analyst Jeff Ernst, is the strategic process of coming up with and sharing big ideas, insights and new perspectives on the critical issues that buyers face.

On the other hand, content marketing is the tactical process of producing communications (i.e., content) for your prospects, customers and other key target audiences.

Blurring the lines
Much of that content marketing typically focuses on building awareness for your company and selling its solutions.

That’s the stuff many marketers spend the bulk of their days creating: product brochures, web content, sales presentations, email campaigns and the like.

Most business people would never confuse this type of content as thought leadership.

But there are plenty of executives and even some marketers who think of white papers, eBooks, articles and blog posts as thought leadership content.

But it isn’t necessarily so.

That white paper or eBook may do a nice job of summing up current industry trends, thinking and approaches, but it may be little more than a thinly disguised product pitch.

In my view, it’s not true thought leadership unless it does one or more of these 6 things:
• Challenges current assumptions about a business challenge or approach
• Presents new insights, perspectives or ideas
• Offers innovative solutions to an existing problem(s)
• Pinpoints areas of opportunity, process improvement or profitability for prospects and customers
• Provides real leadership that inspires people to believe, contribute, collaborate and take action to address a problem
• Anticipates future trends and challenges

The future of thought leadership

True thought leadership will never go out of style. The world will always be hungry for fresh thinking and leadership.

However, to be effective, thought leadership must build credibility and attract followers. Most importantly, it must offer a vision for change and must lead on the issues that matter most to buyers.

How do you define thought leadership? What would you add to the list of requirements for true thought leadership? What do you see as the critical differences between content marketing and thought leadership?

Sheryl can be reached at sherylaroehl@gmail.com.

 

How to Avoid the 9 Pitfalls of Thought Leadership Marketing

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When done well, thought leadership marketing elevates your brand, engages buyers at crucial stages in the sales cycle and helps your company achieve a competitive advantage.

But, if you’re an experienced marketer,  you’ve probably seen a few thought leadership projects go off the rails.  I know I have.

Early in my marketing career, a VP had our marketing team develop a series of white papers for every vertical industry the company served.

His brainchild was to use virtually identical content, swapping out only the name of the industry, a few minor details and a different colored cover for each white paper.

Of course, our cookie-cutter white papers flopped. That’s because they were created based on the faulty premise that prospects from any industry faced the same general set of business challenges. Not surprisingly, they gathered dust in the marketing closet.

9 Pitfalls of Thought Leadership Marketing

So why do thought leadership marketing initiatives like this one miss the mark? Let’s take a look at the 9 pitfalls and how to avoid them:

1. Reactive mode. How many times do we start a marketing initiative in response to another department’s request or an executive’s decision? More often than not, marketers plunge into the project without first establishing a strategy.

How to fix it: Make sure you lay out a clear strategy, messaging platform and process before you produce any communications. Then, build an integrated marketing campaign that includes multiple tactics and touch points for reaching your target buyers.

2. One size doesn’t fit all. Buyers, prospects and customers aren’t all alike. Just as in our white paper example, you cannot deliver the same content to different target audiences and expect it to resonate with everyone, let alone anyone.

How to fix it: Take the time to do some research about your target audience. Whenever possible, interview buyers and customers to learn about their business challenges and priority initiatives. Based on your findings, build buyer personas to use as a guide in developing relevant content tailored to each target audience.

3. Go ahead and admit it, you’re just regurgitating. Some companies think thought leadership means compiling a bunch of research and serving it up in a 50-slide PowerPoint deck or a 12-page white paper. But real thought leadership doesn’t just report or educate; it also conveys a distinctive point of view.

How to fix it: Be sure you have something new to add to the industry conversation before you develop any content. Take a strong stand or at least bring a fresh perspective on an old problem.

4. The snooze factor. Boring thought leadership often results from playing it too safe. It can also happen when you haven’t done enough research and don’t know the subject well enough to deliver insightful and lively content.

How to fix it: Make an effort to add a dash of personality to your content. Spice up presentations with striking images or video clips. Hit the delete key on empty jargon like “robust” or “flexible” wherever you find them. And develop an ear for utilizing authentic language that buyers would actually use if they were telling the story.

5. No practical value. Your thought leadership shouldn’t just describe business trends or problems; it should also offer the buyer useful advice and a roadmap for addressing these issues.

How to fix it: Make sure your thought leadership content always contains actionable tips and guidance that will be useful to prospects regardless of whether they end up purchasing your company’s solutions or not.

6. Salesy. Real thought leadership isn’t a thinly veiled sales pitch.

How to fix it: You’ll have plenty of time to trot out the sales presentation or the product collateral when the prospect is finally ready to evaluate solutions. The role of thought leadership is to engage buyers and to get them to buy into your approach. That means telling, not blatant selling.

7. Lacks credibility. If you or your company isn’t already an established subject matter expert in a given field, then you will have to do the hard work of earning the industry’s respect and credibility over time. There are no short cuts.

How to fix it: Securing speaking opportunities at meetings and conferences is a good way to build up your company’s “street cred” You can also partner with an established thought leader such as an industry analyst to deliver a co-branded white paper or webinar. Keep in mind, though, that it can take many months or even years to become a trusted and known industry authority.

8. Disorganized. Dull. Death by PowerPoint. There are a million and one reasons why content doesn’t measure up. Whatever the reason, don’t play the excuse game.

How to fix it: Work at improving your thought leadership content. Create a strong team of subject matter experts that you can leverage for speaking, blogging, press interviews and other opportunities. And tap into internal and/or external resources like freelance writers, PR professionals, speaking coaches and graphic designers to help you deliver higher-quality content marketing.

9. Fails the leadership test. If it doesn’t lead, then it’s not thought leadership.

How to fix it: Real thought leadership dares to take a bold stand. It gets out in front of an issue to provide buyers with novel solutions and a better understanding of where the industry may be headed. Most importantly, thought leadership must lead and attract followers to your company and its approach.

The bottom line is you need to develop a clear strategy and invest in the necessary resources to create provocative, insightful thought leadership that will engage your prospects and get them to buy into your approach. There are no shortcuts to becoming a thought leader, but the hard work pays off.

What other thought leadership marketing pitfalls have you experienced? How do you avoid them?

3 Ways to Build Marketing Momentum in 2013

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Posted by Sheryl Roehl

Sales cycles are getting longer and more complex. B2B prospects are doing more research themselves.

Most decision-makers consume at least half a dozen pieces of content before they are even ready to talk to sales. By this time, they’re probably halfway to a buying decision.

So what can you do to make sure your company stays on your prospects’ radar until they choose a solution?

Here are 3 ways to build your marketing mojo in 2013:

1. Assess your content. A content marketing audit can help identify content needs at each step in the buying cycle.

  • Identify gaps. For example, your organization may not have sufficient case studies and video testimonials for building credibility and overcoming prospects’ objections during the sales cycle.
  • Pinpoint emerging needs. You may need to support the rollout of a new solution with web content and sales collateral. Be sure to put a plan in place to address upcoming content asset needs like these.

2. Ramp up visibility. Is it easy for prospects to find your company when they are searching for a solution? Do they immediately think of your company or do they turn to your competitor? Consider implementing an ongoing thought leadership program to:

  • Build brand awareness and reinforce your position by securing speaking engagements and editorial placements in media outlets.
  • Keep your business top of mind by developing and publishing rich content such as white papers, eBooks, articles and online videos.

If you lack the internal resources to support such an initiative, look for an experienced agency partner who can help you develop quality content and secure high-profile visibility opportunities.

3. Tune up lead and customer nurturing programs. Here are a couple of suggestions:

  • Keep prospects engaged until they’re ready to buy by delivering a steady stream of relevant content.
  • Your communications with your customers shouldn’t end with the purchase decision. Don’t forget to keep looking for ways to improve retention and add value to their business by cross-selling and up-selling new solutions.

By implementing these 3 marketing tactics,  you’ll increase the chances of engaging prospects, driving thought leadership and ultimately getting the results you want in the coming year.

What are you planning to do to stay on buyers’ radar in 2013?

Want to accelerate growth in 2013? Schedule a free marketing and public relations consultation in January. Contact Sheryl today at 404.434.5330 or sherylaroehl@gmail.com.

7 Reasons Why Your Social Marketing Doesn’t Deliver ROI

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Posted by Sheryl Roehl and Scott Mikus 

Too many corporate marketers tell us that their social media initiatives haven’t delivered on expectations or ROI.  Based on our experience, we’re betting that there are many more of you out there who would say the same thing.

Here’s our list of 7 reasons why social marketing programs fall short and what to do to fix these problems.

1. The Silo of Social Media. Many organizations treat their social programs as a one-off effort, rather than building an integrated digital strategy that encompasses social components. For example, an organization may increase their social media activity to help improve search engine optimization (SEO) but neglect to optimize the navigation, functionality, branding and content of their social media presence.  The SEO initiative might improve search rankings and increase traffic to your website, however, neglecting other social components will create a chain reaction breakdown in the process and can even drive incoming traffic to your competition.

How to Fix It: To achieve success, you need to integrate every component from the Social Media Value Wheel, including SEO, internal/external cross-linkage, thought leadership, engagement, inbound and outbound marketing and lead generation. In other words, social media works best when it’s embedded in all your marketing initiatives.

2. No Plan, Stan. As marketers, we plan the product launch. We plan the rebranding. We plan the demand generation campaign. However, in many companies, social media is a bolt-on effort or something that they do because everybody’s doing it. As a result, it becomes a reactive, not proactive initiative. We just try something and see if it sticks.

How to Fix It: Every other marketing initiative has a plan. Why shouldn’t your social programs, too? Start by building an integrated social brand strategy and plan. Your social marketing programs are more likely to succeed when they are consistent with the company’s business strategy and goals and embedded in every marketing campaign.

3. The Fatal Disconnect. Often, the success or failure of social media falls on one person’s shoulders. That individual may know how to use social media tools and platforms, but may not have much experience in marketing, sales and branding. Not surprisingly, many company’s social voice becomes little more than empty chatter and the results are often underwhelming.

How to Fix it: As marketers, we have to do a better job of educating executives and colleagues about the value and payoff from embracing social media. We can enlist the help of colleagues who are subject matter experts to serve as social brand ambassadors. When more employees understand the organizations business strategies and are participating on social media, your social programs are more likely to build external linkage, gain traction and ultimately drive lead generation.

4. Inconsistency. Infrequent posting and inconsistent interactions on social media are common reasons why businesses don’t get the most out of their investments in social marketing. If you don’t engage with you and your brand, people will follow and listen to your competitors instead.

How to Fix It: Get help from a marketing and public relations agency to help you build and grow your visibility, credibility and Klout gradually over time. Establish a regular editorial calendar to publish content on a consistent basis. Keep in mind that the timing of your posts is crucial. For example, did you know the best time to tweet to get the most traction on Twitter is on Mondays between 1-3 p.m. ET? Social media management tools like Hootsuite and Social Oomph make it simple to schedule a steady stream of posts to hit at the times when your target audience is more likely to be engaged.

5. Tool Rich, Content Poor. It’s easy to get caught up with the latest tweaks and enhancements to social media platforms and tools. They can help you perform publish, schedule, track and measure your social initiatives faster, better, easier. But let’s face it: There’s no shortage of tools. The real shortage is great content.

How to Fix It: Don’t just tweet corporate press releases and product announcements. Invest in great content that your buyers, prospects and other audiences will find valuable. If you lack the necessary in-house resources to develop thought leadership content, rely on outside content marketing agencies and designers who can help you create a steady stream of engaging content, including eBooks, infographics, online videos and blog posts.

6.  No Room on the To-Do List. Many companies’ social marketing programs fail because there’s simply not enough energy or resources invested in them. In many cases, marketers are already so overwhelmed by all the projects on their to-do list that they have little time left over to give to social media.

How to Fix It: Make a commitment to spend a realistic percentage of each workday or workweek on social media – and stick to it. Remember, you get out of social media what you put into it.

7. Expecting Overnight Success. It’s easy for our expectations to get ahead of our efforts. Building a social media presence takes time – months or even years.

How to Fix It: The best way to achieve results is to stay active and engaged over the long haul.  Remember, the more time you put in and the longer you participate in social media, the bigger the payoff is likely to be.

Why do you think your social marketing initiatives have succeeded or failed to hit the mark? What are you doing to improve the results of your social marketing programs?

How NOT to Choose a Marketing Agency: 13 Rules You Should Break

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As a marketer, choosing an agency is probably one of the hardest but most important decisions that you’ll make in your career. Choose well and you’re a rock star in your boss’ eyes. Choose poorly and it could ding you on your next performance review.

It’s not just whom you choose that matters. It’s just as important how you choose. With that in mind – and in honor of this week’s dreaded Friday the 13th, we’ve assembled our 13 favorite rules for how NOT to choose a marketing agency.

1. Choosing a marketing agency that “can.” Today’s agency landscape is crowded with candidates who say they “can.” As in, “We can do branding” or “We can do social media” or “We can do PR.” But there’s a big difference between “can” and “has.” Remember, your brand will live or die by the experience (or lack thereof) behind it. By way of metaphor, would you want a surgeon just out of med school operating on you? Sure, they have the M.D. next to their name. But wouldn’t you rather have the most experienced pair of hands repairing your hernia – or, in this case, doing your branding and messaging?

2. “I just need my website redesigned.” Sure, a website’s design may be tired and outdated. However, the more important question is: How is the site performing for you? Are visitors converting to leads? Does the content reflect your current positioning? Have you optimized your landing pages? Have you integrated social media into your site beyond just sticking up some icons on your homepage? What about your offline brand — does it need sprucing up, too?

3. Branding a la carte. Your brand isn’t just a logo or a website; it’s the sum total of positioning, messaging, awareness, visual identity and the communications architecture of a company. Be sure to choose an agency that understands this core principle and can skillfully build and integrate a brand across multiple disciplines from inbound to outbound marketing and offline to digital. If you take the a la carte approach, you’ll pay for it later in a splintered or fragmented brand.

4. Wow, what a pitch! Sure, the pitch is important. But are the people pitching going to be doing the work after the contract is signed?  In many agencies, the senior-level deal closers move on to close other deals, while the junior account people step up to do the work. See rule #1.

5.  The people you will work with don’t have a clue about your business. Be sure that the people you’ll work with at the agency have at least a solid understanding and interest in your business from the start. If they’ve done their homework, it will show in the questions they ask and the presentation they give. If not, move on to the next candidate.

6. I really, really like them. Chemistry is important. But don’t pick an agency because your friend works there or just because they just make you feel good. Choose the best agency partner because they have the best experience for the job and can deliver results for your company.

7. Don’t tell the agency candidates your budget. If you don’t at least give the agencies competing for your business a ballpark idea of your budget, they’ll probably come back with very different, hard-to-compare proposals. Why not set clear, upfront expectations of what you’re looking for? That way, when the proposals roll in, you can focus on choosing the right partner, not just the lowest bidder?

8. Set impossible deadlines. Tell the prospective agency that you want a web redesign in a month or a direct mail campaign printed and in the mail in 3-5 business days and you’re probably setting the project up for failure or less-than-stellar performance. Why not try to speed up corporate approvals while putting specific deliverables on parallel tracks? You might be surprised how quickly you can get projects delivered – on time and on budget!

9. They don’t speak the language of business. The world is full of creative people who like to design, write, shoot videos or get PR hits, but many of these people don’t really consider themselves business people. Nothing wrong with that if all you want is just pretty good creative, nothing more. But if you want marketing that truly delivers, choose the agency that talks business – the one that talks about building messaging that resonates with buyers or creating campaigns that drive more leads and increase sales.

10. I can just hire an intern to do social media. To do social media right, you should hire an agency that knows how to integrate social and track results as part of your integrated marketing campaigns. Social doesn’t belong as a siloed sideline; it should be part of the mix.

11.  We can do content in-house. Good content is critical to your branding. If you don’t have good writers and content creators in-house, then trust outside experts to help you get the message right. Good agency content marketers and copywriters know how to develop content for different target audiences and different communications. Without good content to support the entire buying cycle, all you have is well-designed brochure or a good-looking shell of a website.

12. Sorry, but we don’t do X. A good agency may not specialize in SEO or PR, for example, but more often than not they will have a healthy Rolodex of strategic partners and colleagues they can call on to help you create a video, get press or help you build a new mobile app. Do they have a can-do spirit or do they just care about what they want to do – not about meeting your overall marketing needs?

13. But the agency is a big-name agency that has won lots of awards. But will you be an important account to them – or merely a minor account that will be shuffled off to the most junior account team that takes three times longer to do half-baked work? Think twice before you choose based on name alone.  And, if they talk more about their awards than how they’ve helped clients achieve their business goals, then they probably can’t help you achieve yours either.  Move on.

It’s not easy choosing an integrated marketing agency for your company. But if you know the pitfalls, you’ll have a much better chance of selecting the right partner for your organization.

What are your personal rules of how NOT to choose an agency partner? Please share your experiences and tips in the comments below.