By Daniel W Rasmus
Thought leadership is not a science. It is difficult to measure its effects on sales, but large organizations continue to develop it because it creates a context beyond products and sales. It helps organizations connect with customers and community, citizens and investors. Thought leadership contributes to good will and helps establish credibility and trust — but perhaps most importantly, thought leadership pushes an organization to look beyond itself internally and become better.
Just what is Thought Leadership?
At the basic level, thought leadership represents the highest form of marketing content. Thought leadership offers insights, guidance, advice, observations and inspiration. As much as those attributes define thought leadership, it is perhaps through negative examples, that it often proves difficult for sales minded organizations to connect it with a revenue outcome. Thought leadership, for the most part, does not promote a product or even a company. It is an idea, more than anything else that define, thought leadership. Thought leadership usually derives from internal values, beliefs or passions, even when it is executed through partnerships with academic institutions or other researchers. Thought leadership begins with good questions, interesting perspectives that can be researched and proven. The best thought leadership goes on to challenge its own assumptions and transparently share the results with the world.
Thought leadership as a marketing tool
An organization can choose to market itself in a number of ways. Most young companies, and many with single products, concentrate on product-focused marketing, choosing to share unique features and offering a value proposition for the product intended to entice potential customers. As a company matures, expands its product lines and market presence, it moves from simply positioning and selling products, to establishing a brand, and eventually the company. Up-scaling marketing beyond product creates entity with which consumer or citizen can have a relationship. A brand or company it stands for a promise, represents a legal entity and acts as a proxy for a collection of people who work and manage the organization.
