The Thought Leadership Marketing Equation

Posted on January 13, 2009 by Dana VanDen Heuvel

Thought leadership marketing is becoming a more often discussed topic in the business-to-business marketing realm. First coined by Joel Kurtzman in 1994 (then an alliance partner with Booz, Allen & Hamilton and now the chairman of the Kurtzman Group), it has been, until now, largely a marketing strategy employed by professional service firms, consultants and pundits, and a select few technology firms. McKinsey, Tom Peters and Cisco respectively come to mind. However, for any marketer that seeks to attract new clients and position their firm as a competent solution provider in their industry, thought leadership marketing is a cost effective and long term approach that every business to business marketer should at least consider.

What is Thought Leadership Marketing?

Dating back to the early 1990’s, consulting firms like McKinsey, Bain and the Boston Consulting Group (remember the BCG matrix – cash cows and such…thought so…) began producing in-house research reports and whitepapers that were designed to showcase the depth of their expertise on a range of topics relevant to their clients and most importantly, their prospective clients. Firms then published these missives through a variety of thought leadership marketing channels to attract buyers that were interested in learning about solving specific industry problems using the ideas proffered by the firm behind the research. This form of value-added insightful and well researched commentary came to be interpreted as the emerging form of business-to-business communication known ‘thought leadership’.

The active deployment of thought leading content through a myriad of marketing channels is effectively ‘thought leadership marketing’.
“Successful thought leadership is about creating exceptional content that provides insight into business issues. That’s what makes executive buyers choose one firm over another.”
– Joyce Renney, Associate Director Lighthouse

How Does Thought Leadership Marketing Work?

This is the real magic of thought leadership marketing. While there is little support for thought leadership being an exact science – it’s not – there is a definite process that, if followed and repeated, can yield both short and long-term rewards while decreasing customer acquisition costs year over year.

tle 500 The Thought Leadership Marketing Equation

Point of View: This is the most important element of thought leadership. Without a genuine differentiation (the mother of having a unique point of view) and a defined perspective on how, why and to what benefit your solutions solve the pressing problems in your clients’ industries, there is very little to say that will attract attention from clients, the media or even your own employees. However, the effective expression of a unique and valuable point of view is the proverbial spark that starts the thought leadership marketing fire.

Share of Voice: Communicating your unique point of view on the problems relevant to your clients and relevant to their industry is how effective thought leaders gain share of voice in their marketplace. Share of voice is a brand’s or group of brands’ weight or ratio of communication vis-à-vis their competitors, expressed as a percentage of a defined total market or market segment in a given time period. The weight is usually defined in terms of views, expenditure, ratings, pages, perception, etc. Thought leaders garner a great share of voice in their market using thought leadership marketing channels.

Share of Mind: The paradox of thought leadership is that an organization does not become a thought leader simply by stating that it is so. Thought leadership is attained through client attention and referral to you or your organization as the “go to” firm to help solve the pressing challenges they are facing which you have products or solutions for.

Share of Market: Ultimately, an increased share of voice and a subsequent rise in share of mind within your target client segment leads to an increase in the market share of the thought leading firm.

Why Thought Leadership Marketing Works:

The brilliant thing about thought leadership is its ability to play many different roles in the industrial buying cycle (more on in another article). In essence, it attracts clients over time and eliminates some of the need for constant and expensive advertising in trade journals and mass media channels. Thought leadership content is found through search engines, speaking engagements, articles, personal briefings, word of mouth and other channels that potential buyers frequent in their industry. Thought leadership marketing typically offers a high qualitative and quantitative return on investment by:

  • Attracting new clients
  • Positioning your firm
  • Building your reputation as a firm that thinks
  • Garnering media coverage for your ideas (share of voice)
  • Spreading know-how
  • Demonstrating your unique market perspective
  • Adding unmatched value to proposals and presentations
  • Underpinning your go-to-market strategy
  • Leveraging your competence and differentiation

Thought leadership marketing is an emerging discipline within business-to-business marketing. Its power will grow in the future in direct proportion to our ability to understand its core practices and effectively apply them. Thought leadership marketing holds the keys to positioning ourselves and our companies for the next level growth.

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  • http://www.indium.com/rickshort Rick Short

    EXCELLENT article, Dana. Deriving an “equation” from the elements is extremely valuable as it enables people to break up the process into discrete steps, and consider each as an activity or factor.

    You describe the POV as “the most important element”. I believe that, in the (my) B2B Marcom world, this is frequently very difficult to differentiate within. For example, a governing body may decree that a specific ingredient is now banned (lead for example). Well, everyone’s POV is the same in this case – we’re all Pb-free. Is our particular brand of SERVICE a POV? Is our product family a POV? Is our product performance a POV?

    To me, the SOV is equally important (vs. POV). After all, it’s what you DO that really makes the difference. Just having a unique POV doesn’t matter without a voice – and a large SOV. And, if you don’t possess any unique characteristics (you’re just “good”), the SOV is all you have to work with – right?

    I’d love your thoughts on this.

    EXCELLENT article! Very useful. Thank you.

  • http://www.marketingsavant.com Dana VanDen Heuvel

    Hey Rick!

    Yours is a timely and pertinent inquiry! I see where you’re going, but here’s where my head is at in relation to the importance of POV.

    I submit that differentiation is a necessity for sustained profitability and survival. Thought leaders sustain their positions by expressing their differentiation through a unique and value-forward POV on how they provide use value in advance of service to the market and to their clients.

    I understand that there may be industry parity with the Pb-free aspect of your products, and those of your competitors, however, I submit that your unique POV (vis-a-vis your nearest competitor) is a combination of product + service + performance.

    Thought leaders (and companies that are seeking to attain their status as a thought leader) inherently provide use value beyond what you sell ‘off the shelf’. You all may manufacture, sell, ship, and service with relative parity, but just a premium brands have attained status (and a healthy margin boost) through a variety of factors, which do not always include a huge differential in product cost, quality or even service (People pay a premium for high end cars and often find themselves in shop 10X more than if they’d purchased a Toyota).

    I’d also draw on a bit of the thinking from ‘competence based marketing’ to support this position (more here: http://www.betsaonline.com/IT/Marketing/FirmCompetenciesMarketing.pdf)

    Don’t get me wrong, SOV is important, but I can’t (from my vantage point) achieve any relevant share of voice if what I have to say (my unique, thought leading point of view) can’t garner enough traction to get a sniff from the media, a search engine link or a word-of-mouth referral.

    I think you’ve pointed out for me that we need to explode the equation and add in the “glue” that holds the POV + SOV + SOM = SOM equation together. It’s really the ‘thought leadership channels’ between the POV and SOV that hold the keys to an effective go-to-market strategy as a thought leader… (see what I mean by channels by looking at the mindmap here: http://www.marketingsavant.com/mindmaps)

    IMHO, you don’t get a strong SOV without a unique and relevant POV, and you don’t get SOM (mind) without having a POV that gets some SOV…and share of market (=SOM) comes only to those that either a) spend money on advertising or b) leverage their thought leadership position for marketing gain… (sure, there are other ways to market, but this is meant to contrast thought leadership vs. spending money on ads)

    Your thoughts?

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