INSIGHTS
Listen up! We have all kinds of opinions about how to do this stuff right. No ranting — we promise.
The questions you’ve got to ask before thought leadership gets going
Message for marketers needing to publish new thought leadership: Make sure your authors have their ducks in a row.
3 tips for increasing the reach of your next white paper
In our experience, marketers work incredibly hard to develop and publish thought leadership but they tend not to put as much muscle into getting clients to engage with the paper or report or article. It’s time for a new approach.
Content marketers: still having Groundhog Day moments?
It’s Groundhog Day! Remember the movie of the same name, where Bill Murray, as an arrogant weatherman, is forced to live the same day over and over again? Seems to me that’s often how many marketers experience the development of thought leadership content.
Q: If you’re blogging, are you a thought leader? (A: maybe not)
These days, it seems like more and more professional services firms are turning to blogs as their preferred expression of thought leadership. That’s a mistake.
Thought leadership is getting worse (so what can you do about it?)
I think the quality of thought leadership is declining. Here’s what I see as the main sticking points — along with my thoughts on how you can start unsticking things.
The 5 writers you don’t ever want on your thought leadership team
Writers aren’t all manufactured on the same assembly line. Which kind of writer is most valuable to most marketers most of the time?
Is your strategic content on an assembly line or coming out of skunk works?
Imagine you’re in a luxury automobile factory, watching cars come together on the assembly line. But something strange is happening: several cars are being pulled off the line, and a crew is taking them apart and reassembling them so they start looking different from the others.
“Can I have the meat, please?” (not if you want well-done thought leadership content)
Imagine going to an upscale steakhouse known for the finest cuts of prime beef and telling the waiter “I’ll have the meat, please.” In the world of thought leadership content, that’s a lot like saying “I want to write a 10-page white paper — and I want to start writing next week.”
What Ought to Happen Before Thought Leadership Happens
The Scouts have had it right all along. That whole “Be Prepared” thing? It applies just as much to thought leadership.