Thought Leadership - Most Valuable Asset

As a B2B marketer, thought leadership is one of the most valuable assets your brand — or you — can attain.

In down economies, prospects conduct even more research leading up to the purchase. This means B2B marketing professionals must help educate prospects in the early stages of the buying cycle; doing this well can help frame their buying process and establish your brand as a trusted advisor that understands their problems and knows how to solve them. Therefore it's more vital than ever for your organization to be viewed as an industry leader and trusted resource for all key stakeholders: customers, media, analysts, investors and everyone in between. Unfortunately thought leadership is not as easily quantifiable as other demand generation metrics like revenue, sales or leads. And investing in reputation building may not produce the same short-term, immediate effects of efforts such email marketing campaigns. But cultivating thought leadership can have a significant long-term payoff, as in time it elevates your brand at scale.

What are the qualities that define thought leaders? Thought leaders:
1. Develop relationships with customers, prospects and others by engaging them in non-sales, industry-
relevant conversations.
2. Become the go-to source for research, insight and interpretation of the latest news and trends.
3. Gain trust among prospective customers so that when the time finally comes to purchase, customers
turn to the thought leader organization.

Try incorporating some of these ideas in your marketing efforts to build your organization's reputation:

1. Provide original research.
2. Use your company blog to provide insight.
3. Be a solution for specific problems.
4. Join the speaking circuit.

If you still aren't sold on the value of cultivating thought leadership, consider the indirect result of these measures. Done well, reputation-building efforts can:

1. Provide you with additional quality inbound links to your website
2. Increase higher-quality referral traffic
3. Elevate your brand to become referential

What's not to like about that?