Decision-makers know what they want. So respect them. They prefer concise facts rather than reams of ‘intellectual speak’. This is no thumb-suck or journo opinion. This is proven.
Why Having an Opinion Matters
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One Shot at Gaining Trust and Credibility:
Thought Leadership Used Wisely Helps Seal the Deal
Global communications firm, Edelman and LinkedIn have collaborated for the past three years to investigate the business-generating impact derived from publishing quality thought leadership content.
The 2020 B2B Thought Leadership Impact Study by Edelman- LinkedIn offers insights from 3,275 decision-makers based in the United States, Australia, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Singapore and India.
The study highlights, ‘B2B decision-makers and Chief Experience Officers told us that strong thought leadership content not only strengthens a company’s reputation but also positively impacts Request for Proposal (RFP) invitations, wins, pricing and cross-selling that occurs post-sale’.
This is a powerful (and very useful) claim!
On the other hand, if thought leadership is not well executed that is lost opportunity. The 2020 B2B Thought Leadership Impact Study cautions, ‘poorly executed thought leadership, however, can have an equal and opposite effect, leading decision-makers to remove a potential vendor or partner from consideration altogether’.
“After three years, our survey has undeniably established how much B2B decision-makers respect and count on, thought leadership content to inform buying decisions,” said Joe Kingsbury, U.S. Managing Director, Business Marketing at Edelman.
A Must When It Comes To Trust
Most people who engage in thought leadership spend at least an hour a week on this. The lion’s share of decision-makers surveyed (89%), agreed how effective thought leadership is in enhancing their perception of an organisation. In fact, 59% of them reported that an organisation’s thought leadership is a more trustworthy base for assessing its capabilities and competencies than its marketing materials and product sheets.
Content Can Boost Sales
Effective thought leadership has huge sway over purchasing decisions: almost 49% of decision-makers verified this. Yet 54% of decision-makers surveyed ‘came across thought leadership while researching’.
The conclusion: marketing is overlooking thought leadership content. Most marketers are missing the opportunity to connect thought leadership efforts to measurable business impact. The 2020 survey confirmed that only 26% of marketers can tie the thought leadership they produce to sales and business wins.
Key characteristics of quality thought leadership content:
- Explores potential challenges or new opportunities I had not considered before.
- Points out things I had overlooked in thinking or strategising.
- Includes guidance on how to respond to the issues raised.
- Short, easy to absorb content makes thought leadership very compelling.
Impact of PR
Pleiades client Andrew Davies, CEO of South African healthtech business SignApps shared his company’s experience with successful thought leadership through PR:
“One of the challenges for an early stage company like ours is establishing a track record or reputation. We are dependent on enterprises for revenue while operating in a historically conservative industry. Yet, I am happy to report that we have been successful in getting early traction with some blue chip clients.
“We engaged with Pleiades in 2019 to run our PR as part of a broader marketing strategy. Since engaging Pleiades we have found media exposure to be a very useful marketing tool.”
Davies shared that the experiences of companies and individuals using their platform and views on where technology in healthcare is moving, have been instrumental in creating a knock-on growth effect in a relatively short period of time.
“In several cases we have been able to directly attribute deal closure specifically to PR, in two ways”:
- Using media as a starting point for initiating a focused conversation with potential new leads.
- Incorporating media as a tool in closing deals with long sales cycles.
Ultimately PR’s effectiveness can be summed up in one word: ‘credibility’. This is gained by providing reliable and relevant information, presented in engaging and accessible ways.
Credible thought leadership is always enhanced by using the powerful impact of third-party endorsement. Successful PR has always focused on media and industry influencer communities, the amplifying power of publicity and the reputational effect of an expert talking about your business and products. A 2014 study conducted by Nielson confirms this. The study showed that expert content—credible, third-party articles (earned media)—is the most effective source of information in impacting consumers along all stages of the purchase process across product categories. More specifically, when measured against owned media (branded content) it showed that earned media is 80 percent more effective at the bottom-of-the-funnel or purchase consideration stage, 80 percent more effective at the middle-of-the-funnel or affinity stage, and 38 percent more effective at the top-of-the-funnel or familiarity stage.
In other words, brands that actively engage in media outreach will likely see a greater consumer impact at all stages of the purchase process than brands that primarily rely on content marketing.
Hands-down! It is earned media – defined as content created by third party experts – that has consistently provided more benefit to brands than user generated or branded content.
Kerry Botha
A passionate advocate of the free press and a specialist in media relations, Kerry Botha has transitioned Pleiades into the digital age welcoming the opportunities new platforms bring to tell her clients’ stories and how they contribute to the world in which we live. Her approach is designed to build confidence and trust among client stakeholders and deliver results to their bottom line. Kerry has a degree in journalism and politics from Rhodes University, is married to Michael and has two daughters – one a budding animator and the second currently studying fashion sustainability in Berlin.
