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Posts tagged ‘thought leader’

30
Oct

What to do when everyone has Thought Leadership Content?

thought leadership content should be freeThe problem with thought leadership is that the term ‘Thought Leadership’ is overused, abused, and can harm your business. Let me explain…

In many cases people refer to it as ‘thought leadership content’, which in essence refers to the act of publishing material that tries to position you or your company as a thought leader.

I think that is a very limiting view, and incomplete as a thought leadership content strategy.

Lately I have been increasingly “fed-up” with the vast amount of ebooks and webinars thrown at me, with great sticky titles, and sometimes even great authors or speakers, but with low or mediocre quality in the end.

I think it is the fault of inbound marketing. No, let me rephrase that: It is the fault of everyone jumping on the inbound marketing band-wagon, and executing poorly. Hey, there’s nothing wrong with inbound marketing. It can work really well, but only if you understand- and execute it properly.

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27
Nov

12 Thought Leaders in Marketing that Permanently Changed My Life

This is me in Torbole, Lake Garda, Italy

This is me in Torbole, Lake Garda, Italy

I have made a big decision in my life. Well, it’s a big decision for me at least. Already for a couple of years I have been dreaming of creating my own company, and I finally made that decision.

My wife is calling me crazy, but I’m going to do it anyway. As of January 2014 I won’t be working for an employer anymore.

It wasn’t an easy decision. I mean, I live extremely close to work, I have a decent pay, and lot’s of extra’s. But I’m going to do it.

Why am I doing this? Because I got really, really passionate about something. Read more »

16
Aug

How to listen, and show thought leadership in your industry?

After 2 weeks of publishing a thought leadership presentation on Slideshare, I was blown away with the effect it had.

In only 2 weeks, it had 1000 views. Today, it has close to 4500 views after 3 months. Although for some companies these numbers might not be impressive, for the company I work for and the market we are in, this is great.

Why is this presentation more successful than others?

I believe the real reason to this success is that it is valuable content for buyers because it fulfills a need. B2B companies want to see opinions, and companies that think about the future for them.

Why do you need thought leadership?

Providing thought leadership to your customers doesn’t make sense if they don’t consider it relevant to their business. Customers are faced with lots of questions during the complete buying cycle that need to be answered.

As I wrote before, first customers find answers “in the cloud”, before they turn to you as a vendor for the remaining answers: they visit reviewing sites, read whitepapers of several vendors, and go to conferences or tradeshow to find answers. Based on that they create their shortlist. If you are not giving the answers ‘in the cloud’, you are not going to be on their shortlist!

It is my strong believe that in order to create thought leadership, you first need to incorporate a process within your organisation that listens to the issues and information needs of your customers.

The process should not only allow listening during the buying cycle, but also during the customer life cycle.

 

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17
Jun

Thought leadership : How to become a thought leader in your industry?

Picture from http://paintedhorsemedia.com/services/thought-leadership/

I know, I know this has become somewhat of a buzzword in marketing lately. But isn’t it every marketers “wet dream” to produce that kind of material?

In this post I help you to start building that kind of material.

What is thought leadership and how do you develop it?

The first thing to do is: put away your company head and think like your buyers. Especially in Thought Leadership, the content you create will be a solution to those buyers’ problems. Do NOT mention your company or products at all!

Thought Leadership is content that is seen by our buyers as insightful and providing them with unique information that helps them to better solve their personal professional problems. 

An example of an ICT company

As an example, some of the topics that would fit in the context of Thought Leadership for an ICT company:

  • What you need to know to fully optimize the potential of your ICT infrastructure?
  • What to think of when planning a network upgrade?

As you can see in this example, the ICT company is not in the business of running or implementing networks. But these topics certainly drive the kind of buyers to that Thought Leadership content.

As an effect, these buyers are more likely to consider the ICT company as their technology provider because the company shows that they understand the business issues of building and maintaining an ICT infrastructure. 

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