Taking centre stage: 5 reasons B2B thought leadership is a vital part of your marketing strategy
In a digital age where everything can be shared, opinions matter. Whether it's reviewing a local restaurant, suggesting a new policy at work or starting a petition about an important issue, today’s communication landscape means more and more people feel empowered to share their opinions with colleagues, peers, clients and customers.
In business, having a view has always been an important way to build a profile and differentiate from competitors. Sharing ideas and opinions also helps to push a business forward with employees, potential employees, clients, potential clients and even investors.
Sharing learned experiences, success stories and social responsibility can also lead to change within an industry or even with issues stretching multiple sectors – such as net zero.
In the past, B2B thought leadership was primarily confined to ‘traditional’ media – newspapers, broadcast and trade publications.
Today, there’s a wealth of channels, including traditional media, for businesses to share insightful opinions. This means there are multiple opportunities to demonstrate leadership.
So, here are five reasons why thought leadership needs to form part of your marketing strategy:
1. It adds real value and a point of difference in a competitive marketplace
Over the past few years, businesses have faced multiple economic challenges, from rising inflation to energy prices and supply chain issues. As a result, if your business is trying to secure new customers or clients, price is often the primary driver, even over quality.
This is why it is more important than ever to demonstrate how you can add value in a competitive market. Thought leadership is a great way to do this, even in a sector where there are lots of competitors selling similar products or services. They won’t all be in the thought leadership space, so it’s important to take the lead before someone else does.
Thought leadership can build brand awareness for new customers and loyalty to returning customers by enabling your business to be at the front of their recall when they are in the market to buy your product or service. In a competitive market, it really can make the difference.
2. It showcases the experts within a business
People buy from people, so profiling your experts through thought leadership is a great way to bring a face to your business and showcase their expertise. It also helps to build trust and credibility by demonstrating that you understand the issues impacting your clients and are a reassuring partner to help them navigate the challenges they are facing.
This can be done across multiple marketing channels, from longer form content such as white papers through to media relations, videos and podcasts.
3. It builds a positive brand reputation
When looking at ‘traditional’ media channels, achieving coverage in ‘earned’ media is still a highly valued commodity. It is perceived as being more credible than paid media because you must ‘earn’ the right to be published by providing genuinely insightful content.
Sharing ideas and opinions that provide a solution with no immediate commercial gain builds trust as you are not directly ‘selling’. In addition, if third-party industry influencers agree and share your views, this ‘borrowed credibility’ helps your company to reach a wider audience.
4. It builds relationships with journalists
When we are talking about third-party influencers, journalists and the media are an important audience. If you build a reputation for providing timely, interesting and meaningful content for their readers, they are more likely to come to you for comment in the future.
This can also work both ways. If you ever find yourself in a crisis situation, if good relationships with the media have been established, you will have more credibility to share your side of the story.
5. It supports your business objectives
Thought leadership is a key tool when it comes to building greater brand awareness, credibility and trust in your company. This is why it is so important to have it as part of your marketing strategy as it will ultimately support your business objectives and drive growth.
In conclusion, having a thought leadership programme in place can help you add value to clients and prospective clients, build the personality and positive reputation of your company, as well as differentiate from your competitors. In a challenging market where the competition for clients is fierce, can you really afford not to?
And don’t forget, if you need a hand with making thought leadership a part of your media strategy for the year ahead, our award-winning PR team can help. Get in touch.