Establishing your brand as a thought leader is no longer a nice-to-have. It's an essential part of your B2B strategy. 

Providing actionable insight and building trust pays real dividends.  In the annual B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report, Edelman and LinkedIn surveyed nearly 3,500 management-level professionals in various B2B companies. It found that 7 in 10 decision makers are very likely to think more positively about companies that produce high-quality thought leadership content on a consistent basis. 

Furthermore, 86% of decision makers said that they are more likely to invite companies with compelling thought-leadership content to participate in the RFP process. That means thought leadership has real business development value. 

Why it matters 

In today’s content-saturated landscape, a clear thought leadership strategy helps you shape your brand narrative, lead with insight over self-promotion, and build trust with prospective customers. By focusing on your audience’s challenges and outcomes, you strengthen your reputation, value proposition, and credibility with key decision-makers. 

There are many ways to establish your company as a leading voice, including participating in industry events and conferences, panel discussions, maintaining a consistent blog, contributing to industry insights reports, developing the public-facing profiles of your top executives, and pursuing op-ed pieces in industry media. 

These are the five most important considerations for optimizing your brand’s ability to lead the conversation on multiple channels, enact change, and make your content work toward your business goals. 

Activate your internal champions 

Your organization is full of smart people with valuable insight. Are you making the most of your institutional knowledge? 

The first step in devising an effective thought leadership strategy is to take stock of your internal champions. These could include senior leaders, technical experts, specialists, analysts, business development teams, and anyone with a distinct and engaging viewpoint.  

With the proper media training, even midlevel team members can serve as authoritative voices on trending topics in your industry. Your spokespeople will serve as ambassadors for your brand and exemplify what makes it compelling and unique. 

It’s a good idea to have several spokespeople to offer insight across different customer segments, industries, and specialty areas. A deep bench of experts will help you build a diverse library of content.  

Say something valuable, and new 

It’s one thing to have a variety of voices, but thought leadership means more than echoing storylines that are already out there. You need a new perspective that challenges long-held beliefs or provides a point of view that few have considered or experienced. 

This doesn’t mean you have to start from scratch. Owned data, customer case studies, insights from surveys, or simple career lessons are all sources of inspiration for valuable thought leadership content. 

To provide value, bring your audience into your process. Provide wisdom without trying to make a sale. Bring something to the table that inspires, informs, or empathizes with your customers and the trends in your industry. 

Ultimately, show why your company is qualified to speak on the topic and should be considered a trusted voice. 

Leverage industry media 

Media relations remains one of the most powerful tools of third-party validation. In the B2B space, trade media is king. 

Trade media outlets speak directly to the niche audiences that make key decisions in your competitive market. They’re almost always looking for expert voices to help lead the conversation, and their audiences are well-versed in the nuances and technicalities of your industry.  

While many brands seek media coverage in massive mainstream publications, it’s important to not overlook the influence of trade publications. Being featured in a trade publication can carry more weight than a flashy mainstream placement, as it frequently has a direct impact on sales and brand awareness in your target sector. 

Developing relationships with reporters and editors over time can increase the likelihood that they will think of you when they need expertise on a topic. This takes time and resources, but the long-term value is immeasurable. 

Also, be sure to consider the media habits of your intended audience. Trying to reach truck drivers on the road? Maybe podcasts are your best bet. Trying to connect with younger audiences? A video may be more effective than a long-form written piece. Follow the engagement and make it a frictionless experience for those you’re trying to reach. 

Build your owned content library 

A few well-placed articles can go a long way, but long-term impact takes consistency and a variety of materials for your audiences. According to a survey from FocusVision, B2B decision makers consume an average of 13 pieces of content before making a purchasing decision: Eight pieces from the company itself, and five from third-party outlets. 

Your owned content library will include things like blog posts, videos, print materials, social posts, whitepapers, and podcast episodes that reflect your brand’s knowledge, values, and points of view.  

Connecting the dots 

Now that you’ve taken necessary steps in learning the most critical parts of thought leadership as a B2B brand, it’s time to put it into action—which is easier said than done. 

Only 30% of B2B companies producing thought leadership content know how to effectively use it as a sales or marketing tool to drive business growth. As a result, they struggle to connect the dots or scale their efforts. 

Don’t forget to ensure connection to business goals--what gets measured gets achieved. Define success, measure impact of your message and optimize along the way. Are you trying to increase RFP opportunities? Drive traffic to your website? Nurture leads? All of these outcomes may require slightly different versions of thought leader activity. 

Align with your sales teams so thought leadership acts as an effective tool in your marketing toolbox that helps you be seen, heard and close new business. 

Thought leadership takes an investment of time and energy, the benefits are real. By following these guidelines, you can elevate your people and brand and become a voice companies come to trust and want to do business with. 

Not sure how to start the conversation, much less lead it? Reach out to our team to learn how to build a program that amplifies your voice, earns trust and gets results.