Content Strategy

How Can You Leverage Thought Leadership for Demand Generation?

What Strategies Can You Use with Thought Leadership for Demand Generation?

In today’s cutthroat business world, many firms look for creative, oftentimes unconventional, ways to capture the attention of prospective buyers and to get them to express demand for what they have to sell. Demand generation is the successful marketing of an idea or product that leads to a potential customer expressing interest or purchasing. Thought leadership is a type of demand generation that uses the power of an innovative, smart, or creative idea to capture the attention of the target market. In many cases, the customer persona that the idea is directed at is high up in the organization and has significant influence over what products and services get bought.

The Power of Thought Leadership

Involving your expertise and insights to influence an audience is what thought leadership is all about. When companies position themselves as thought leaders, they often bask in the limelight of greater trust and credibility with their target markets. If you can believe it, according to LinkedIn, a whopping 92% of buyers trust the insights of so-called thought leaders much more than they do traditional advertisements. This stat, if you ask me, really drives home the point that any demand generation strategy worth its salt should include insight influencing a.k.a. “thought leadership.”

In addition, having a position of thought leadership enables companies to tackle the types of problems that plague their industries. Doing so allows them to feed their audiences and ensure the nourishment hits the target. Take, for instance, HubSpot, which has conducted its demand generation in a very successful way. It shares content of very high value around the topic of inbound marketing. Its blogs and webinars and eBooks not only educate the audience, but also serve as lures for leads who are not necessarily ready to buy, but who are definitely seeking guidance.

Building Your Thought Leadership Strategy

A strategic plan is essential to leverage thought leadership effectively for demand generation. Do these steps:

Determine Your Specific Area of Expertise: Grasp the nature of your business sector and pinpoint the segments where your in-depth knowledge provides a competitive advantage.
Understand Who Your Audience Is: Before creating any content, take the time to know the audience you are writing for. Research their worries, needs, and sectors of interests.
Produce Content of High Quality: Consistently release wise blog posts, white papers, or videos that are worthwhile.
Participate in Social Media: Distributing your content across social platforms allows you to engage with and connect to a much broader audience.
Influence through Networking: Partner with other industry experts and leaders to widen the reach of your message.

Additionally, when establishing thought leadership, consistency is essential. Updating content regularly guarantees that your audience stays engaged and that you sustain prominence in your sector.

How Can You Leverage Thought Leadership for Demand Generation?

Knowing how to use thought leadership effectively can transfigure your marketing. Here are a few tactics to try:

Write for established, respected blogs in your industry and reach a new audience. Guest blogging is a simple way to build authority and exposed your brand to a new audience.
Conference and webinar participation is a must if you want to showcase your expertise. These speaking engagements are excellent opportunities to position yourself as a thought leader in your industry. Not only can you influence the audiences at these events, but by recording or live streaming and putting them on your website or YouTube, you can reach even more people.
Provide examples from your client base that show the effectiveness of your work.
Marketing via Email: Use email campaigns to send your thought leadership content straight to prospects.

Furthermore, gauge the effectiveness of your thought leadership activities. Pay attention to metrics like lead generation, website traffic, and social media engagement. For example, Demand Gen Report research reveals that 61% of B2B buyers make their purchase decisions based on content leadership. If you needed a reason to justify your presence in this increasingly competitive arena, consider that.

Examples of Successful Thought Leadership

Numerous organizations have harnessed the power of thought leadership to create demand. Salesforce is a prime example. The company regularly cranks out razor-sharp content about customer relationship management (CRM) and sales strategies, which serves to enhance and elevate their authority in the marketplace. Not far behind in this effort is McKinsey & Company. This global management consulting firm publishes a near-constant stream of research and insights that serve to guide and direct leaders in all kinds of businesses, with profound and significant impacts on all kinds of global business practices.

By means of thought leadership that is on point, these companies have developed trustworthy audiences who ask for their direction. They show how far-reaching and demand-inducing a really good insight can be.

Conclusion

To sum up, the query, “How Can You Use Thought Leadership for Demand Generation?” highlights an urgent area for contemporary companies. With our experience and the support of the Demand Metric team, we know that by the next decade, the thought leadership pathway will be more heavily trodden. Today, it’s ours to choose.