Back in the days when I was still running a thought leadership agency, there was a problem that we sometimes encountered. Every now and again, a new client would work with us on a thought leadership campaign, which seemed to go smoothly. And yet, when we went back a few months later to ask if they wanted to repeat the project, they would politely decline. Now, some of this could have been our fault. Maybe the client didn’t get the results they hoped for, or maybe the feedback internally or from customers was not what they expected. That happens, as every agency knows, although in our case it was thankfully very rare.
But this problem was different. These clients seemed very happy during the production process, and we received good feedback on the project at the end of the process. But still, they didn’t come back.
So what was causing this issue? After a while, we realised that a common factor with many of these one-time buyers was that they were fairly new to thought leadership. They liked the idea of having a thought leadership output, perhaps because their peers were doing it or their customers were asking for it, but they hadn’t worked on many projects like this before.
As any company that has a regular thought leadership output will tell you, it is a very difficult thing to do well. You can find a good agency to help you and they can do a fair amount of the heavy lifting but that is not enough to ensure success. No agency will be able to do everything, particularly when it comes to dealing with your internal politics, stakeholder management and resourcing constraints.
When companies are relatively new to thought leadership, there is a lot to consider and the reality is that many (although obviously not all) simply don’t spend enough time laying the groundwork and getting the wider business set up to make the campaign a success. In my experience, there were several common problems that less experienced buyers of thought leadership would often have.
Not being clear about the objectives - or expecting too much. Thought leadership is a powerful marketing tool but it can’t do everything. It’s unrealistic to expect one campaign to build the brand, strengthen reputation, fill a pipeline and accelerate sales conversion. And yet, because the investment in thought leadership is usually pretty significant, there are often very high expectations of what a campaign can achieve. As a result, it gets spread too thinly across different objectives and doesn’t really achieve any of them. The company then gets disillusioned with thought leadership and decides to spend its budget elsewhere in future. So the first step is always to ensure that there is a shared, long-term vision of what thought leadership is meant to achieve for the business, along with an agreed timeframe for results and clear, relevant metrics. That will help to avoid future disappointment.
Lack of internal buy-in or support. Thought leadership is a multi-disciplinary, team activity. It’s not something that a marketing team can do on their own with the help of an agency. You also need support, buy-in and firepower from many functions across your organisation, including leadership, sales and communications. These are busy people for whom thought leadership is often on top of the day job, so it can be difficult to get their time, particularly at short notice or when their input is needed urgently.
It’s therefore essential that there is buy-in from stakeholders at the outset, that they know what is required from them and that there is a clear timeframe, agreed well in advance, for when their support will be needed. All too often, stakeholders are brought in too late or not given enough advance warning, by which time they find it difficult to make a valuable contribution and also don’t feel invested in the project because they weren’t involved earlier.
Not having the right governance framework in place. Because thought leadership involves many different functions and teams, it requires good governance. Those individuals tasked with bringing the campaign to fruition (usually marketing, but not always) have a huge role to play. They not only need to oversee the production of the content but also to co-ordinate a large number of very senior stakeholders effectively and set clear expectations from them. That can often be a larger time commitment than actually running the research or content production itself.
A clear governance framework sets expectations and clarifies roles and responsibilities, and must go to the very top of the organisation as overall sponsors. Companies need to think about their model for thought leadership: is it tightly controlled from the centre or more widely distributed? What are the rules and guidelines for producing thought leadership and how do they strike the balance between flexibility and empowerment, while having a clear strategy that ensures consistency? Stakeholder management is key - you need the right level of involvement but not so much that campaigns get bogged down in overly complex discussions or spread too thinly across competing priorities.
Not having the right resources. Let’s be honest; producing thought leadership is not easy and there are other ways to spend your marketing budget that could grant you an easier, quieter life. You could, for example, sponsor an event or badge some content via a publisher. The event organiser or publisher does most of the work and you get to bask in the glory. Thought leadership is different - it is by definition core to your business and that means that, even if you hire the best agency in the world, you will still be doing a lot of the work. You’ll be marshalling the various stakeholders, rounding up subject-matter experts, filtering and distilling the point of view and doing a lot of the heavy lifting on activation. There is no way around that - and that can be challenging for companies with small teams and limited resources. But get it right and the value of thought leadership can be so much greater than simple sponsorship.
Before committing to a campaign, marketing teams need an honest appraisal of what resources will be required. What does the agency require from you in terms of approvals, how will you collaborate with them, and who will you need to consult to move the project forward? What budget and resources will you need to commit to different phases of the project, and what is your plan for activation? There are of course ways to make it easier - AI is definitely your friend, as is a good agency and having really strong processes and project management.
Good thought leadership is an expression of your brand and is one of the best ways of having a truly unique narrative and positioning for your organisation. To be effective, it needs to be distinctive, relevant to the audience, reflective of your brand and original. Most thought leadership doesn’t meet that threshold and that is one reason why many companies get discouraged in the early stages. It just gets put in the “too difficult” box and the company moves on.
But this is a great shame as it remains one of the most powerful tactics available to the B2B marketer. If you are looking to improve your internal processes and get your organisation ready for truly effective thought leadership, get in touch. I’d be delighted to help.
Photo by Paolo Chiabrando on Unsplash