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As business owners, we all want to achieve more sales and build a bigger pipeline of leads.
After all, a company can only survive if it is EARNING.
But the reality is, keeping your sales pipeline full is becoming more challenging with each passing year.
With the ongoing economic volatility, increasing customer demand and tight market competition, it seems that the number of people you can sell your products and services to is decreasing and their alternatives are increasing.
This means you’re probably asking yourself right now:
How can I build a bigger pipeline and earn more revenue?
You’re not alone. Believe me, I’m there too – and so are many of your fellow companies and businesses too.
So, the follow-up question is: what do you do about it?
No matter how big or small your business may be, your natural reaction will probably be differentiation – and you’re not wrong!
- How do I put space between my brand and my competitors?
- Should I come up with more products and better services?
- Or should I ramp up and reframe my marketing mindset?
However, high-quality products or services alone aren’t enough…
Improving your offering is only half of the solution
Nowadays, your potential clients and customers want more. They’re looking for brands that understand their pain points and have a relatable image.
They are looking for companies that can give them answers, deliver assurance and build authentic relationships with them.
This is where establishing thought leadership comes in – this is the other half of the solution.
What is thought leadership?
Thought leadership (or key opinion leadership) is a strategy used by business leaders and content marketers to build credibility for themselves and their brands by pioneering ideas in their niche and spreading insights.
According to a recent survey conducted by SEMrush, 65% of businesses currently incorporate thought leadership in their content marketing, while 29% intend to initiate a thought leadership program soon.
What’s the goal of thought leadership?
The main objective of thought leadership is to become recognised as an expert and a go-to resource in your field. In other words, being the top-of-mind person or brand when people think of your niche or industry.
What is a thought leader?
Naturally, a thought leader is regarded as a brand or person who deeply understands their business, along with the needs of their target customers and the industry they’re in. B2B and B2C audiences are attracted to this expertise and therefore, are more likely to choose them over competitors.
B2B and B2C audiences are attracted to thought leadership expertise and therefore, are more likely to choose them over competitors.
What are the benefits of thought leadership?
It’s good to know what thought leadership is, but ultimately we want to know: how will thought leadership benefit me? How does thought leadership earn business results?
Well, according to a poll by Marketing Insider Group:
- 71% of marketers say they have benefitted from thought leadership with increased website traffic
- 62% have experienced an increase in lead generation
- 56% saw increased media mentions
- 54% gained more email subscribers
- 53% said they improved customer relations
- 32% increased the number of backlinks gained
According to research by The Channel Partnership, 88% of technology buyers say that thought leadership content is either important or critical when they are selecting a shortlist of potential vendors.
A thought leadership study by LinkedIn found that:
- 55% of business decision-makers use thought leadership to evaluate companies they are considering hiring
60% of executives said they were more willing to pay a premium to companies that create thought leadership content.
As a result of thought leadership, 55% of decision-makers have increased the amount of business they do with an organisation and 58% of business decision-makers said thought leadership content was directly responsible for their decision to award business to an organisation.
How do you become a thought leader?
To become a thought leader in your niche, you need to lead! This involves taking an omnichannel approach to spreading your message, ideas, advice and knowledge.
By doing this, you’re essentially creating an organic platform for your voice and building trust and respect for what you do. If you do this right, you will organically create more demand for you and your brand over time.
6 reasons why thought leadership is essential for your business
In this digital age where competition is fierce, especially amongst those who are the face of their brands, if you want to improve conversion rate, sales numbers and differentiate your brand, a thought-leadership marketing strategy is critical.
Always remember, people want to know, like and trust you before they buy from your business.
To explain further, here are the reasons why thought leadership is so important for your brand:
1. It can demonstrate your industry expertise
In a saturated market, what’s going to put you ahead of your competitors? The expertise your brand shares with customers – this is the crucial differentiator.
The insights you offer your customers will be highly valued and therefore influence their decision to do business with you. They’ll know that there’s intelligent thinking behind the development of your product or delivery of your service, giving it more authenticity.
2. It builds brand trust
This is a huge priority for customers, but it must be earned, not bought.
An ongoing and carefully executed thought leadership strategy will establish your brand as a credible one that customers can rely on. By talking about the pain points within your industry, it will show your audience that your business understands their challenges and also has the best solution.
3. It can build your brand’s ‘likeability’ factor
People want to connect with people, not robots. So, a thought leader gives a human face to your business and engages customers with its message on a deeper level.
When you become a thought leader, it means you’re offering guidance, help and support, which brings you closer to people, thus making them appreciate you more.
4. It can keep your business on the radar
Depending on your business, you may have less frequent contact with your customers. For instance, they may only buy every season or year.
However, thought leadership keeps your brand top-of-mind. So, when the time comes for them to make another purchase, you will be the first they think of.
Thought leadership keeps your brand top-of-mind. So, when the time comes for customers to make another purchase, you will be the first they think of.
5. It creates demand for your products and services
Since thought leadership effectively builds brand trust and affinity, this means more people will be drawn to your business, thus creating more demand for your products and services.
When you become a thought leader, more customers will choose your brand over another competitor, because they feel like they know you and can relate to you better. More demand means more leads and more pipeline!
6. Lastly, it can drive more sales!
Ultimately, the goal of any marketing strategy you implement is to convert leads and achieve sales. The brand coverage generated by thought leadership will secure you more leads that you can convert into customers and, better yet, loyal advocates.
How thought leadership helps your business earn more sales
Long story short, the more you and your brand are known as a pioneer in your niche, the more demand you will generate, which then increases your leads and sales potential.
This means:
- writing blogs sharing your expertise (like this one!)
- filming videos where you share ideas
- recording podcasts
- authoring books
- teaching classes
- conducting content marketing.
However, being a thought leader takes patience, strategy, experience and dedication.
It doesn’t matter if you are just starting your own business or have been in the industry for decades. No matter what size your business is, it takes passion to drive both the desire and willpower to start leveraging thought leadership.
Is thought leadership worth it?
YES!
While it may take a lot of work to get there, becoming a thought leader is the key to shifting your business from maintenance mode to a thriving success. Or to put it simply, a business that generates more sales and revenue.
Thought leadership transcends the typical transactional sale – instead, creating long-term value by providing your sales team with the marketing, content, data and evidence that help customers make decisions.
This means thought leadership can help you seal the sales deal
The more you lead, the more organic demand you create, which drives your sales.
Just keep in mind that this involves cultivating a relationship with clients that goes far beyond transactional selling. If you earn their attention because you’re a loudspeaker that’s offering them value, then customers will give you their precious time – allowing thought leadership to become a sales enablement tool that builds ROI.
Subject expertise = build your pipeline = more sales
According to research conducted by Forbes, 61% of marketing executives view earned media (driven by thought leadership marketing and content marketing) as a primary driver of top-line growth in their company.
This goes to show how subject matter expertise and a strong point of view are essential to success in the digital, social and mobile channels that buyers use during the majority of their buying process.
With compelling insights and strong messaging, these allow your business to open doors, start quality customer conversations, generate referrals, cross-sell and influence buyer perceptions of value.
How to build an effective thought leadership strategy to drive results
To become a thought leader, you need to create content with a well-defined content marketing strategy empowered by quality copywriting.
Unfortunately, the BIGGEST mistake brands make is thinking that thought leadership is a single type of content.
Thought leadership isn’t a type of content. Rather, it’s an approach to content.
With thought leadership, you’re proactively demonstrating your expertise and therefore controlling how you want your brand to be seen by your customers, competitors and your industry as a whole.
So, how do you inject thought leadership into your marketing to earn sales? Ok, let’s discuss it.
How to effectively use thought-leadership in your content marketing
1. Know your audience and continue learning about them
Knowing your audience is the key to succeeding with any marketing strategy, and thought leadership is no different. It starts with creating your ideal buyer persona.
- What motivates or inspires your audience?
- What are their pain points?
- What questions are they asking?
- Where are they when they need you?
To figure this out, look on social media, ask your team and conduct customer interviews. Once you know these things, you can begin answering their questions with thought leadership content.
2. Publish more diverse marketing content
Creating thought leadership content doesn’t just mean posting a single article on your website and hoping for the best. It also means being active on social media, speaking at events or even guest posting on other sites.
It’s important to mix it up with owned media versus other media sources. Consider having a combination of written, video, and audio content like podcasts.
Ultimately, thought leadership content should show up wherever your audience is because B2B and B2C leads consume content in many different ways.
3. Be genuine
As a message marketer, I probably can’t say it enough: being too promotional doesn’t connect with your audience, especially in the earlier stages of attracting leads and building an initial pipeline. In fact, being too ‘salesy’ will probably annoy them. You should produce content that is genuine and authentic to your brand.
Make sure your marketing content makes sense to everyone and is supported by market-backed research that can help inform your audience’s opinions or decisions.
4. Create engaging content
As content continues to reign as king, it’s incredibly important to write valuable and engaging content to become a key opinion leader.
Show that you’re an expert in the industry by speaking intelligently on specific issues in the industry.
Sadly, only 18% of business decision-makers rate the
thought leadership they read as ‘excellent or very good’, while 30% of thought leadership is rated as ‘mediocre or poor’.
5. Find a marketing copywriter to support you
Having a reliable and trusted copywriting agency partner who has proven expertise in a wide range of industries will ensure you only produce valuable and engaging content for your audience.
You’re too busy to be writing every day – and your audience is too busy to waste time or poorly written content. So, a smart copywriter you can trust is a godsend in your thought leadership journey.
At Melotti Media, we build thought leadership status for all of our clients!
How does a copywriter help build thought leadership?
A quality copywriter takes your thoughts, ideas and expertise, and can articulate them in a customer-friendly way that earns sales results.
To learn more, see: how does a copywriter help you build a sales pipeline?
Becoming a thought leader is not an overnight effort – but worth it!
It requires ongoing hard work, perseverance, passion and creativity to become a KOL (key opinion leader).
Even when you get there, it still requires further effort to maintain your leadership and stay relevant, but the payoff is worth the investment if you do it right.
Thought leaders need to continuously educate themselves to effectively cater to the evolving needs of audiences and the broader marketplace. And if properly executed, you’re definitely one step closer to earning greater sales and becoming a trusted leader in your industry.
How can Melotti Media help build your thought leadership status?
At Melotti Media, we understand that you want to get cut through in a competitive market and achieve business success – and a powerful way to do this is by implementing content marketing and brand messaging that will drive results.
However, you may find that you’re time-poor and spread thin or you still have a lot of unanswered questions.
You don’t need to worry!
At Melotti Media, we can assist with all your content marketing and copywriting needs while you focus on what matters most to you – growing your business.
Let’s start earning the results your business deserves!
To speak to your trusted message marketers and copywriters, email us at enquire@melottimedia.com.au
We can sharpen your words to achieve your goals today!
The Melotti Media Team
Melotti Media | Copywriting & Message Marketing Bureau
www.melottimedia.com.au
