Thought leadership PR is now an essential component of any marketing communications campaign.
The aims of thought leadership are diverse and can be to set the media agenda, shape your industry, lobby government and influence the influencers.
Thought leadership is a classical PR tactic that has increased in relevance thanks to digital media and digital measurement as leads generated from a campaign are much more easily attributed thanks to PR analytics.
PR Agency One is expert in producing thought leadership content. Thought leadership can take many forms and can be part of a media relations campaign, or could involve the production of heavy weight research, papers and other content. You can find out more about our B2B team which delivers the majority of our thought leadership campaigns here.
Thought Leadership and PR
Thought leadership PR is crucial because if undertaken correctly it can influence senior decision makers and put your business in sight of other organisations. Your thought leadership content often resonates with this audience while they are defining a challenge or opportunity, helping shape their requirements at an early stage (e.g. pre-pitch). Even better, in a sales environment, thought leadership can influence buying patterns before a product or service has been identified.
So whatever the agenda of your business it is likely that thought leadership should be on your marketing communications agenda.
Why is thought leadership used by B2B brands?
Thought leadership can be a powerful tool for B2B brands to establish credibility and trust with potential customers. Here are some of the key benefits of using thought leadership as part of PR strategy:
- Establish Authority: Thought leadership positions your brand as an authority in the industry, allowing you to create higher levels of trust with potential customers.
- Lead Conversations: Thought leadership content allows your brand to lead the conversations in the industry and shape the narrative in a positive way. This helps you to stand out from competitors and be seen as an expert.
- Showcase Expertise: Thought leadership can help your brand showcase its expertise, demonstrating that it has knowledge and experience in the industry that potential customers can benefit from.
- Thought-provoking Content: Thought leadership content will create engaging and thought-provoking content, which readers will find interesting and valuable, increasing your brand visibility. This helps to boost PR and create a better customer experience.
- Long Term Engagement: Thought leadership has the potential to create long-term engagement with customers, as it can provide valuable information that readers will find useful and engaging. This helps to build relationships and trust with potential customers.
By using thought leadership in PR strategies, B2B brands can take advantage of these benefits to establish credibility and build trust with potential customers. Additionally, thought leadership content can help to create more engaging PR campaigns and increase visibility for the brand.
Thought leadership PR for lead generation
Thought leadership PR content reaches your prospects before they have created a pitch list or while they are defining a problem or an opportunity. A good thought leadership document is a great sales tool because it is educational and useful to the reader. For this reason thought leadership is perfect for lead generation purposes.
Thought leadership also plays a valuable role in driving leads via search. SEO needs both great content to be visible but also a website needs to earn links to gain greater trust with search engines. The more links into a thought leadership campaign page the more visible a site becomes from commercially relevant non-branded search teams (an example would be online bank for Natwest, or sports retailer for Decathlon). This approach to PR is sometimes called content marketing or SEO PR. We have a dedicated page on SEO PR here.
Other ways in which thought leadership can support lead generation include:
- Thought leadership PR content can reach potential customers before they have created a shortlist of vendors or while they are still defining their problem
- Thought leadership PR documents can act as an effective sales tool by providing educational and useful information to the reader. This type of PR content is great for lead generation purposes
- Thought leadership PR boosts Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) visibility, since it offers quality content that earns links from trusted sources.
- It helps build trust with search engines when the website has earned multiple links from high authority sites.
- Thought leadership PR content should be well researched, written in an engaging manner, up to date and relevant to the target audience.
- Utilising thought leadership PR is a great way to position yourself as an authoritative figure in your industry and attract new prospects.
- The more quality PR content you produce and distribute through multiple channels, the greater your chances of being seen by potential customers and leads.
- This type of PR content gives you the opportunity to demonstrate your industry knowledge and establish yourself as an authority in a particular field.
- Thought leadership PR should be tailored towards the specific interests of your target audience in order to make it more appealing.
- PR content should also be regularly updated and revisited to ensure it is still relevant and timely.
- Thought leadership PR should always present the facts in an unbiased manner, without any biases or promoting particular products or services.
- By utilising thought leadership PR as part of your lead generation strategy, you can increase both visibility and credibility in your industry and reach more potential customers.
- Thought leadership PR documents can also be used to create relationships with journalists, bloggers, and influencers by providing them with interesting content.
- This can help you gain media coverage and further build trust among potential customers.
Building Reputation for Expertise via thought leadership
We work with individuals and organisations who want to establish their reputation as a leader and expert in their specialism or sector.
We apply a five stage approach that includes:
- Audience tracking and insight to identify and connect with key stakeholders and influencers to build connections and reach.
- Analyzing issues to establish the themes attracting most interest and the strongest emotions.
- Training and coaching individuals on how to build personal reputation, creating an authentic voice that connects with its audience and how to build effective relationships.
- Content creation and management to ensure a strong flow of high quality content that connects with its audience and builds influence.
- Measuring the impact of thought leadership on reputation, trust and perceptions of expertise.
Thought leadership is supported by our other reputation management services, which include:
Reputation Measurement and Tracking – showing where strengths and weaknesses lie and how reputation is being affected by campaigns and issues.
Coaching and training – working with organisations and business leaders to help them achieve their potential by maximising reputation.
Communications strategy, stakeholder engagement and media relations – using our insights into client reputation to maximise effectiveness and impact of our work to enhance how organisations and brands are perceived.
Marketing reports, insights and research as part of thought leadership
We have lots of great examples of thought leadership which we can share with you for clients such as YMCA, KPMG and Decathlon. Contact us to discuss your thought leadership requirement.
