Thought Leadership is the new buzzword in the marketing world. Thought leadership is a relatively new concept that is important for you to know if you are into the business marketing. But first, what is thought leadership and why should you consider it to use in your team? Many business owners think that they are the only one to provide the thought leadership to the organization. But they forget that their teams can also be a good source of thought leadership and can contribute to the business.

First, What is Thought Leadership?

Thought Leadership is a type of content marketing where you can use the experience, talent and the passion inside your business to answer the questions that are on the minds of your target audience. Thought leadership is also a great way to provide a unique perspective to the audience so, the potential customers will think of the company if they are buying an item the next time. Moreover, marketing can become more powerful when the many thought leaders are trying to know the interests of the target audience. As said earlier, only the business owners are considered to be as the thought leader. But this is not true. Any employee in the company can be a thought leader.

When to use Thought Leadership?

Many businesses are confused about when they should implement the thought leadership in their approach. Thought leadership should be implemented to define all the customer’s challenges and also to define the best possible solutions. Thought leaders have to carry out a deep research on the topic in order to understand the behavior of the audience.

Thought leadership is important for the customers as well as for the B2B companies. But you have to prepare your team for the thought leadership. Many team members think that they are not in a position to share their insights and their words do not have enough weight. So they are hesitant in sharing their take on any decision. These new thought leaders should be encouraged by assuring them that the business is ready to implement the thought process and change the company strategy by their improved thought process.

Sources and Benefits of Thought Leadership

Thought leadership can come from any source-product managers, customer service representatives, designers, customers, sales representatives and many more. The ultimate goal of the thought leaders is to inspire the customers to act and to encourage them to take the next step in the customer journey. But always keep in mind that you should not try to force thought leadership on your team. You cannot make anyone share their expertise. But you can make programs to support the team members who are willing to share their views and thoughts.

One of the benefits of thought leadership is the brand affinity. By implementing thought leadership in your business, you can become a part of the customer journey in the early stage. Thought leadership is a part of the content marketing. You need to identify the leaders on your team and take a step forward in becoming a social business.

Create Thought Leadership that Drives Results

• Brands are often not just competing with their direct competitors. Brands have to compete with everyone who is publishing the content in their domain and authority. Brands need to identify the questions their customers are asking, make a list of them, prioritize them and find the thought leaders on the team who can answer them. Try to answer the questions in different formats that add value to the audience.
• You have to encourage the new thought leaders to bring out the unique perspective to the questions. They can find suggestions from the past emails where they have solved tough queries of the customers.
• Create the thought leadership content in an engaging way that appeals to the audience. Start with the most important topics and then you can start with the lesser important topics. Always try to seek for the best possible solutions to the problems.
• The content should in harmony with the ideas of the thought leaders and the solutions to the problems that customers are looking for. It can be in the form of blog posts, videos, infographics etc.
• Consistency is the key to success. The content marketing strategy using thought leadership will be effective only if the company is consistent in the content creation. Thus every team member can be given responsibility to create the content and share their ideas on the rotational basis.

Conclusion

Building a team of thought leaders takes time. You have to be patient and persistent in your approach. You need to educate your audience in a more interactive and engaging way. Encourage your thought leaders to contribute to the strategies of the brand that will help in better engagement with the clients. You can also interview the customer to create the content and by adding your own perspective to create a powerful content.

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