By Joshua Nite

B2B thought leadership shows potential buyers that your brand is a credible authority. It helps keep you top of mind even when a buyer isn’t in market yet. Essentially, it earns equity that will mature into sales and repeat business.

The 2024 Edelman-LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report shows that thought leadership is more crucial now than ever. The report says that 90% of decision makers are more likely to be receptive to sales and marketing outreach from companies that produce high-quality thought leadership. More than half of CEOs and other decision makers spend an hour or more per week reading thought leadership content.

But there’s a catch: The overall quality of thought leadership isn’t filling these decision makers’ hunger for new and useful ideas. Only 15% of those surveyed said the quality of thought leadership they read is “very good” or “excellent.” This represents a major opportunity to do thought leadership better than your competition.

What Makes B2B Thought Leadership the Most Effective?

The term ‘thought leadership’ can mean everything from ‘scrupulously sourced original research’ to ‘an opinion article from our CEO.’ Here’s how to make sure yours fits your potential buyer’s definition of great thought leadership.

What is B2B thought leadership?

B2B thought leadership is content created to showcase a company’s unique insights, ideas and best practices. It’s intended to provide meaningful value to a specific audience in order to build relationships with potential buyers.

You can contrast thought leadership content with:

• How-to/educational content (practical but not necesssarily insightful)
• Entertainment content (Engaging but not useful from a business standpoint)
• Promotional content (intended to promote your solution’s benefits and features)

What business purposes does B2B thought leadership serve?

At first glance, thought leadership seems like a purely top-of-funnel tactic. But when it’s executed properly, it can affect business outcomes all the way through the buyer journey. It can:

• Build share of mind. Research shows that 95% of your potential buyers are not in-market at any given time. Thought leadership keeps your brand in their thoughts until they’re ready to research.
• Build credibility. Brand awareness is a good first step. Making sure people associate your brand with smart, novel and useful ideas is the next part of the journey.
• Establish reciprocity. Offering value is a key way to build relationships with potential buyers. Great thought leadership is a gift that can inspire people to give back.
• Ward off competitors. If your brand isn’t putting out quality thought leadership, you’re at risk from a brand that is. Great thought leadership inoculates your existing customers against pitches from competitors.
• Drive more sales and premium pricing. In the Edelman-LinkedIn study, 60% said good thought leadership makes them willing to pay a premium to work with an …read more

  Source:: Top Rank Blog

        

  

  Author: Aaron