Thought leadership = emotional connections on steroids

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

"What return on investment can I expect?"

This is typically the first question I receive when speaking to companies about their thought leadership program. While I can talk passionately about this and rattle off numerous benefits, there is one sentence I read the other day which I think absolutely captures it. It is from well-known blogger Gary Vaynerchuk , who said: "You will not catch up with monye, because the people who have the emotional relationship will stay ahead."

In this one sentence, Gary sums up the very essence of why thought leadership or valuable content is so important to a company's marketing efforts.

It's about the emotional connection!

How powerful is that - we all know what happens when we have an emotionally rewarding experience with a brand. Not only do we consciously say to ourselves: "These guys really get me/make me feel special..." but we tell other people about our experience - we become brand ambassadors.

Thought leadership is the extra mile

We hear ad nauseum about going the extra mile for the client, adding that magical quality 'value', and the need to differentiate ourselves. Well I've got news for you - the right thought leadership content aimed at the right audience and preferably information that addresses that audiences' major business issues and challenges delivers all three in spades.

What better way to engage with your clients, imbue loyalty and position yourself and your company as the 'go to' expert in your field.

I can list over 70 thought leadership benefits but the stand out return has to be the emotional connection it creates.

It's amazing how much easier the sale is once an emotional connection has been established.

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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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