How to take your thought leadership campaign to market: One – strategic business imperative

Guest post by: Craig Badings
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Your content will die if you don’t shift your paradigm - By Craig Badings

I have never come across a thought leader who didn’t share his or her thoughts the two just don’t go hand in hand.

However, how you take your thought leadership position to market is critical to the success of your campaign and the degree to which you are viewed as a thought leader.

Once you have a thought leadership position worked out, there are six critical actions needed to help you or your brand achieve thought leadership status:

Make it a strategic business imperative
Know your audience
Share openly
Cultivate the media
Write and speak about your campaign
Pump up your content online

This is the first of a series of six articles in which I cover how to take your thought leadership campaign to market.

It is not a box-ticking exercise - you don’t have to complete all of these to drive your thought leadership position. You will, however, need the first two and preferably you will need to carry out one or two of the others well to help get your point of view out there.

Action 1: Make it a strategic business or brand imperative

By making your thought leadership campaign a strategic business imperative it will more easily slot into the short-, medium- or long-term business objectives of the company. Given this, and having identified a thought leadership champion, makes it much easier to position this as a strategic business imperative because you have already won senior management support. It is even better if the thought leadership campaign/idea is owned by the CEO or managing director.

Ownership at the top ensures commitment at a senior level, board buy-in and an easier ‘sell’ to the various departments, staff, third party endorsers and suppliers who may be involved in the campaign.

It also ensures commitment at a senior level and alignment of other business activities to the thought leadership campaign.

Without senior management commitment you run the risk of the organization’s skeptics squeezing the life out of the thought leadership effort.

At times things can go awry or the campaign is not delivering as fast or as well as it should. At this point the avoidance or blame game begins and so starts the death spiral for the campaign…that is unless the CEO or senior management sees the thought leadership campaign as integral to the organization’s strategy and is still prepared to back it as a result.

If a leader makes success non-negotiable it is amazing how much impetus it can give the campaign.

Make no mistake, you will still need to make sure that you have a well thought out and presented plan. This should cover the thought leadership idea in detail but also, importantly, how you intend to roll it out.

As part of this you should identify clear objectives, your rationale for doing this and measurable outcomes. The more measurable your outcomes the more likely you are to gain credibility for the campaign across the senior management ranks and for future funding.

The secret questions of successful thought leaders

Tips on taking your thought leadership campaign to market: Three – share

Tips on taking your thought leadership campaign to market: Two - audience

Three key challenges facing thought leadership

Tips on taking your thought leadership campaign to market: Four - media

David Ogilvy's greatest tip for thought leaders

Thought leadership is a culture not a tactic

Thought leadership's magic cube

Tips on taking your thought leadership campaign to market: Five – write and speak

Are You a Thought Leader

The impact of thought leadership on your employees

Tips on taking your thought leadership campaign to market: Six - online

“A Strategic Approach To Produce A Strong Professional Services Brand, According To Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach”

How to fill your pipeline pre- and post-sale? Thought leadership is the answer

Does product, sales or market leadership equal thought leadership?

“Thought Leadership,” the Next Public Relations Frontier

Thought Leadership Best Practices

Thought leadership blueprint and tips for 2011

Twelve Strategic Leadership Actions To Fire Up Your Employees During Change

Thought Jacking your way to thought leadership

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Your content will die if you don’t shift your paradigm - By Craig Badings

About the Author: Craig Badings

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Craig Badings has spent the past 21 years consulting to small and large brands about their public relations challenges. He is a director of leading Sydney-based financial and corporate communications consultancy, Cannings. Cannings is a member of the ASX-listed, STW Group Ltd, Australias largest communications services group. In 2009 Craig published a book on thought leadership 'Brand Stand: seven steps to thought leadership'. He believes that thought leadership is an incredibly powerful yet underutilized communications tool which if correctly packaged can add tremendous value to your stakeholders and, in turn, your brand. He was a main board director South Africa's largest PR company, Simeka TWS Communications and a regional director of their Cape Town office. In 1999, he started Rainmaker Public Relations. After two years, Rainmaker was bought out by London-based PR multinational, Citigate and Craig headed up their PR division. One year before immigrating to Australia he was appointed managing director of Citigateï¿½s Cape Town PR, advertising and design agencies. In 2003, he moved to Australia and joined the Gavin Anderson Melbourne office. In 2004 he started his own business and in 2005 joined one of the Ogilvy Public Relations Australian sub-brands, Savage & Partners in Sydney. Savage & Partners merged with Cannings in February 2009.
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