How to Build a Thought Leadership Campaign

In Part One of this series, we asked: what does it take to be a thought leader? We showed why thought leadership is important for so many tech companies, especially those that need to educate their market or earn the trust of buyers, and we laid out the essential ingredients for an effective thought leadership PR and marketing campaign. But, once you’ve decided your brand is ready, how do you find your thought leadership niche and execute on it? That’s precisely what we’ll tackle here in Part Two. We’ll cover the steps you can take to define, communicate and promote your unique thought leadership position, as well as some common mistakes to avoid. 

Six Steps To Building a Thought Leadership Campaign

Step 1. Identify your experts

In Part One we shared the hierarchy of thought leadership needs, the very foundation of which was expertise.

So it follows that the very first step should be to discover who your experts are. You probably already have a good sense of this. Maybe you have a founder CEO or CTO whose unique area of expertise gave birth to the entire company. Maybe you have a research lab – a common source for cybersecurity thought leadership, for example. But sometimes, your experts are less obvious and you will have to cast your net wide, so long as it’s relevant to your company’s core proposition and objectives. 

Think about who your audience is and whether you have an internal expert who matches that description. For example, perhaps your buyer is in the HR department, in which case your own CHRO might be the perfect thought leader. Or maybe an objective is to demonstrate your company’s commitment to compliance and so a member of your legal team could be a good option.

You can also look at who’s publishing content internally, who’s driving innovation, or who serves on boards or standards committees. 

Aside from possessing deep expertise in their chosen field, good candidates are passionate about their field and excited to share their knowledge. They should be motivated by the desire to educate others rather than sell a product. For that reason, sales leaders rarely make natural thought leaders, although of course there are exceptions. 

Don’t forget to look beyond executives and official company spokespeople. Depth of knowledge is more useful than seniority in this instance. Less experienced spokespeople can be coached or their input limited to written content if necessary.  

Step 2. Determine what you know that is of value 

Once you’ve identified your potential experts, you’ll need to interview them. You won’t be able to determine the specifics of your thought leadership campaign until you establish their precise fields of expertise and their ability to communicate it. 

The other critical must-do? Identifying the specific expertise of most value to your customers. The best thought leadership campaign shares fresh, unique insights that align with what’s top of mind for customers.

Some questions you can ask, beyond simply inquiring about their role and area of expertise, include:

• What are you working on at the moment?
• What have you heard recently from customers or peers that struck you as new or unexpected?
• Are you seeing any new behaviors among customers such as changes in the way they use your technology? 
• What data sources do you closely monitor and have you observed any interesting trends in that data? 
• Have you conducted, or contributed to, any research recently?
• What is your opinion about [related topic in the news] and why? 
• What kind of advice would you be best placed to give and to whom?
• Have you developed any methodologies in your line of work? Or do you have any “tried and true” best practices that are unique to you? Why do you believe strongly in those methods?
• You have a track record in [strength]. What’s the secret? Do you have any unusual perspectives on how others can excel in this area?  

Step 3. Establish your thought leaders’ credibility 

By now, you’ve gathered a variety of potential topics that your experts can speak to. In Step 4 you’re going to prioritize those and pick one or two that will become the bedrock of your thought leadership program. But, meantime, don’t let all those other great thoughts go to waste. Establishing your experts as credible sources takes time, so you want to start sooner rather than later. You can start laying the foundations now while you’re developing your formal thought leadership point of view. 

Here are some ways you can start building your experts’ profile:

• Create a bio that emphasizes their expertise and make sure it’s available on your company’s website
• If they don’t have a polished LinkedIn profile, now is the time to work on it. They’ll need the equivalent of a value proposition, clearly articulating their unique area of expertise. You should also establish a posting calendar for them including shares of their own thought leadership content and relevant industry content with appropriate commentary
• Create profiles on platforms that connect journalists to experts, like Qwoted or Profnet. Start submitting commentary in response to relevant media requests. The process of gathering that commentary in itself can unearth new gems of knowledge that can inform the whole thought leadership program – and the initial touches with reporters can lead to valuable relationships down the line.
• Monitor the news for breaking stories where reporters could use your experts’ specific knowledge. For example, when news broke that an accounting error had caused Macy’s to inaccurately report earnings, expenses software company Emburse was able to offer its CFO, an accounting expert, to educate Macy’s beat reporters on the complex financial processes involved in such a scenario. The result was that this expert was cited in several articles across finance trades, Fortune and Bloomberg. Since CFOs are a target audience for Emburse, this was an extremely effective way to build awareness and demonstrate expertise among this group.

Step 4. Define a POV for your thought leadership campaign 

Meantime, you’re developing your core thought leadership position. This will be the focus for your thought leadership program. The process involves sifting through all the topics your company (and your experts) have expertise in and settling on the one that is a) most unique and b) of most value to your customers.

Next, you need to shape that into an opinion or Point of View (POV). A strong POV is usually contrary to conventional wisdom, or is at least not something everyone already agrees upon. It also needs to be informed by deep knowledge – your experts’ knowledge. For example, it’s already widely accepted that you shouldn’t upload sensitive data to public generative AI platforms. But only someone with specific knowledge of how AI is used in organizations would know where the process breakdowns are that most commonly cause employees to make this mistake. Now that perspective has potential to be the basis for a thought leadership strategy.

The following questions should help you develop your POV:

• Based on our expertise, what wrong do we think needs to be righted? How?
• What danger do people need to be aware of? Why?
• What widespread misunderstanding needs to be corrected? Why?
• What behavior needs to change? What happens if it doesn’t?
• What piece of information do people really need to know? Why?
• What skill or process can we teach people? How would it help them?

Step 5. Create thought leadership content

Once you have agreed upon your POV, it’s time to get it out into the world. For that, you’ll need content assets. Content is the vehicle for your thought leadership and serves as evidence of your authority on a topic. 

Thought leadership content usually follows a hub and spoke model. At the center is a canonical  asset that lays out the idea in detail. Renowned academics use published papers in this way. Industry titans may use a speech at a major conference or publish a book. Startup thought leaders often use a manifesto-style blog post or a white paper. The point is to have a central reference. 

One of the most effective formats for hub content is a research report. Quality research, whether behavioral data or opinion surveys, allows you to present your POV in a more authoritative and convincing way. For more detail on how to conduct effective data storytelling, check out our best practice guide.

Over time, that hub can become an experience in its own right. For example, Perceptyx, an expert in employee listening, created its own Center for Workforce Transformation, a focal point for its entire body of research, which in itself is an award-winning thought leadership campaign.

The ‘spokes’ are the derivative content pieces and tactics, which you will roll out over the course of your program. As you build your experts’ reputation, there will be more and more opportunities to share their POV. Examples include:

• Media opportunities – you can map out a media strategy that leverages key news moments to roll out your POV. For example, Rippling used a product announcement, placed as an exclusive, to detail its concept of compound software to HR trade publications
• Speaking opportunities – thought leadership POVs, backed up with research, make far more engaging conference presentations than product pitches
• Videos and webinars – showcase your experts by having them expand on their ideas in videos and webinars
• Podcasts – podcast hosts look for guests with an opinion (preferably on something topical) so your thought leadership POV makes a great pitch 
• Social posts – LinkedIn in particular is the ideal platform for thought leadership, via posts, articles and LinkedIn Lives

Repetition is a really important criteria for success here. It takes time to become a thought leader. That’s why many startups turn their ‘hub’ asset into an annual or quarterly piece of content and continue to implement tactics that reiterate their thought leadership position, while ensuring it stays fresh and updated, over years.

Step 6. Inspire action 

By this point, you already have a robust and impactful thought leadership campaign. But, as we said in Part One, the truest definition of a thought leader is someone who has, well, leading thoughts – in other words, people need to follow your ideas. So how can you inspire others to follow and engage?

Give them a way to participate. A classic example is Hubspot’s Inbound Marketing effort. The company devised a whole methodology around its platform, grounded in a POV about how buyers behave. But what really enabled this idea to gain momentum was the Hubspot Academy, which invited marketers to become certified in inbound marketing. 

Other approaches might include creating an annual event that gathers other thought leaders and educates attendees, or establishing a consortium or alliance and encouraging like-minded partners to pledge commitment to a set of best practices. Initiatives like these obviously require commitment and investment, and most companies embark on it when their thought leadership programs are relatively mature and proven.

Common thought leadership mistakes to avoid

Before closing, it’s worth paying special attention to some common traps thought leadership marketing agencies and teams can fall into.

• Confusing thought leadership with product messaging
  Yes, your product might be based on some groundbreaking research, which also informs your thought leadership. And, yes, your thought leadership program is still in service of your company. However, thought leadership is not the same as product messaging. It is very tempting to try to closely tie thought leadership content back to a self-serving conclusion: “…and that’s why the world needs our amazing widget.” Resist the impulse.
  As we said in Part One, the goal of thought leadership is to build trust and position yourself as a strategic partner. How can people trust that you have their best interests in mind if you lure them in with seemingly valuable content only to whip out a sales pitch at the end? They’ll feel duped. Instead, ask yourself this: what your advice is to your followers besides buying your product? 
• An undifferentiated POV
  The problem with thought leadership is that it must be a slight departure from conventional wisdom, as noted above. By necessity that means not everyone will agree with you. You will have some detractors. That’s ok. You just have to be smart about it and do your research so you aren’t alienating your core audience. But if you try to eliminate anything at all provocative from your POV,  you’ll end up with a dull, undifferentiated program that will fail to have an impact. 

Go forth and thought lead

It’s time to get started. You’ve got valuable knowledge that can truly help your customers and positively redefine your industry. Now you have a blueprint to ensure your thought leadership program hits the mark. What are you waiting for?