Originally published March 5, 2024 , updated on April 29, 2024

Are you a B2B business or marketer looking for ways to outshine your brand competitors? Thought leadership content marketing is a good way to do so.

Over 90% of B2B businesses and marketers use thought leadership and other forms of digital marketing to boost customer acquisition and retention. The real question is – are all these marketers able to achieve the results they aim for? If not, what is the reason?

Thought leadership gives a boost to the overall content marketing strategy. Let us look over it in a simple way.

If you were to analyse every sale your brand made in the last year, you could narrow it down to the most critical aspect – trust.

Customers prefer to buy from a business they can trust. A strong thought leadership content strategy is one of the best ways to build it. 

As new products, technologies, and services continue to emerge, buyers have a pool of choices and solutions to choose from. This makes it easy for the buyers to research content and solutions. B2B businesses and marketers must share well-researched content that engages the target audience effectively.

Let us now explore what thought leadership is and different ways to create a successful B2B thought leadership content marketing strategy that will exemplify your credibility and expertise. 

What Is a Thought Leadership Content Strategy?

Thought leadership is a critical approach to help a person or business to become a trusted authority in their industry. It involves producing and distributing content that answers your target audience’s questions. A well-defined content strategy will establish you as an expert in your industry. 

Using a thought leadership content strategy is one of the best ways to establish your company as a thought leader. You can share your experiences and valuable insights through content marketing that will make you a credible and trusted source of information and propel your brand forward.

Why Is Thought Leadership Content Marketing Important?

Becoming a thought leader can give a big boost to your brand’s marketing efforts and the overall growth of your business. Studies suggest that buyers make decisions based on thought leadership content at every stage of the buyer’s journey – right from brand awareness to purchase decision. 

B2B purchases are very different from B2C, the former being research-based and analytical while the latter being more on the emotional front. B2B purchases are usually risky, making the decision-making quite intense. So, the behaviour of B2B buyers is dependent on information and in-depth research. Additionally, the more your brand shows up in the research and purchase journey, the higher the chances of you being perceived as an expert in the industry.

3 Steps to Create a Thought Leadership Content Strategy

Before you begin conceptualising content, pause and think about the overall strategy. Who is your target audience? What is your aim? How will you determine if your efforts are going in the right direction?

The following three steps will help you see the bigger picture and build your content marketing strategy on a solid foundation. 

1. Define Your Thought Leadership Content Strategy Goals

The objective of thought leadership is to portray companies as leaders in innovation in their niche. Often, companies hire established thought leaders from different industries to position themselves. 

Brands leverage thought leadership to drive website traffic, increase brand awareness, boost sales and customer retention, and improve lead generation. Thought leadership content can help contribute to each of these. 

However, the emphasis should not be laid on the brand and its products or services. Think of it as to what aligns with business objectives. Thought leadership content aims to provide value, share industry insights, and engage with the target audience. It is an efficient strategy to build brand awareness and give the brand a competitive edge.

2. Identify Your Target Audience

When you create leadership content with a specific target audience in mind, your content is more impactful. On average, B2B buying decisions are made by six to ten decision-makers. Each individual will have different interests, goals, and problems. Before rolling out leadership content, you must consider which individual stakeholder you are targeting. 

Before starting, try understanding what are people searching for in your industry. Are they using short or long-tail keywords on the search engines? Consider the kind of problems the product or services you endorse are capable of solving. Who uses these solutions? 

The key is to understand your audience before rolling out the content. 

3. Choose Your Distribution Channels

Before creating content, consider the platforms on which you will distribute your content. It’s essential to determine where your thought leadership content will be rolled out so that it reaches the right people. 

When you choose the content distribution channels beforehand, you can push the content in the right direction. Instead of limiting your options, pick the appropriate format and themes for the content to be distributed on different platforms. 

A report by the Content Marketing Institute in 2021 suggests that most B2B marketers use LinkedIn as their go-to content distribution platform. LinkedIn serves 61 million senior influencers and 65 million decision-makers. As per the findings, LinkedIn is one of the most sought-after platforms to generate content marketing results. 

LinkedIn is the right social media platform to get more visibility for your B2B thought leadership content, amplify reach, and boost engagement. As a thought leader, you may create short videos regarding the latest happenings in your industry, share your insights, and share short informational interviews about the topics that interest your audience. 

Research by Edelman and LinkedIn in 2021 concluded that  65% of buyers think that leadership content videos helped improve their perception of a brand. Further, it was found that video content drives more traffic to the brand’s website and social media and performs much better on search engines. 

Not just LinkedIn, other forms of social media, website content, and email marketing can help build your reputation in content marketing and thought leadership. 

Final Word

To sum it up, thought leadership content marketing is effective but needs to be properly developed and executed. It is a long-term investment that can provide fruitful results. If you implement a streamlined approach to build your B2B thought leadership strategy, you will be able to build authority, credibility, and trust around your name in the market. You can leverage the authority you have built to get more visibility, interest, and engagement for your business. 

Looking to improve your thought leadership content strategy? Reach out to us today. 

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