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Thought leadership is a culture not a tactic

Guest post by: Craig Badings

Article Overview: Thought leadership is a way of doing things. It should not be a tactic. Instead it needs to align closely to the values of the organisation.

Thought leadership is a culture not a tactic

Thought leadership is not and should not be a marketing or PR tactic - rather it is a culture. Like companies who innovate, thought leadership too should be a way of doing things.

If it is not a function of corporate culture I can guarantee that most long-term thought leadership positions will not get across the starting line. Alternatively the company produces one or two 'thought leadership' campaigns a year that become part of the marketing team's annual list of objectives and kpis and are ticked off as thought leadership but are really just PR campaigns to drive coverage.

The true test of a leadership campaign']);"> thought leadership campaign is to ask the following six questions. Does your thought leadership campaign:

• 1. Add real value to your public's lives/decision making/business
• 2. Position you as a trusted advisor engendering trust in your brand as the leader in that particular sector/area
• 3. Help underpin sales
• 4. Provide a content rich platform from which you can write, talk, publish online and share with clients valuable insights
• 5. Position your people as the experts and 'go to' people in their field
• 6. Move your brand from product and sales leadership to market leadership and in the process delivers long-term, sustainable advantage over your competitors.

If not you should be going back to the drawing board.

In 2009 thought leadership trailed behind email as the area of most significant focus for B2B marketers according to MarketingProfs Daily Fix blog. If marketers are recognising the power of thought leadership and the management consulting industry has been using thought leadership as one of their most important lead generators for over a decade, why haven't other companies jumped on the bandwagon?

From my experience it comes back to the question of whether it is part of their culture or not. As I have indicated in previous posts, true, long-term, thought leadership campaigns need to align closely with the values of an organisation and needs to have the buy-in and ownership of senior management. Historically, the campaigns that do this fly and those that don't fail, or at best limp along, never quite realising their true potential.

Unfortunately the pressure on CEOs, marketing directors and the corporate relations team to produce immediate, measurable results is a big dampener on deep-seated, long-term thought leadership campaigns. The longer-term reputation and trust building resulting from this type of campaign does not satisfy the need for immediate results.

Ask any company which as at its heart a focus on innovation or research and they will tell you that the return on this investment takes years. A culture of thought leadership is no different but the rewards are immeasurable. Ask the multinational management consultancies, they know too well.

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