Thought leadership is the holy grail of brand communication.
Every brand craves an air of authority — to earn a position as an insightful, innovative influencer. Company executives with knowledge, expertise, and leadership have the power to alter the direction of their industries, inspiring novel products, trends, and best practices.
By publishing insightful writing, presenting at industry events, and engaging in lively social discussions, thought leadership brands become beacons—like Apple, Nike, or Amazon—for devoted followers who are eager to ride the cresting wave of innovation.
Consumers and business partners naturally want to align with winners, immersing themselves in the exciting shift forward, contributing to the company success story, and giving rise to Fortune 500s that become household names.
But for every thought leader, there are dozens more trying to claw their way up.
“These days, products seem indistinguishable. Technologies often offer similar functionalities,” a recent Accenture report points out. “Customers are looking out at a landscape of blandness that presents creators with an opportunity to break through—but few are managing to do so.”
According to The Harris Poll, 9 in 10 executives believe thought leadership is “critical to building authority”—but only 20% are effective at doing so.
And with 14x ROI worth an average of $2.7 million a year, executives can’t afford to get this formula wrong.
So where do you begin?
At MarketSmiths, thought leadership is one of the top requests we handle.
Leading brands know that who you are is only half the battle.
Thought leadership is also about the stories you tell.
They come to us with the common quandary: “How do we articulate who we are, what we stand for, and what we offer?”
As expert storytellers, we have processes in place to extract, digest, and present your unique value proposition in a fresh, compelling way.
In what follows, we dig into the secret recipe for success—how to differentiate, dig into your internal wellspring of resources, and deliver a truly unique message that resonates with your market.
Thought leadership starts with a leap of faith.
Some clients come to us knowing that they’ve got gold nugget insights and it’s just a matter of meeting audiences with their messaging. Armed with a roadmap and a list of paid placements, they’re ready for us to rev up their content marketing and keep the engine humming.
But more often than not, clients come to us saying, “We’d like to say we’re different than everybody else, but there are plenty of people out there who do what we do.”
It’s a classic sentiment! As writers, we feel this all too well: Every theme, idea, revelation—it’s all been explored before. There’s nothing new to say. But the real magic and pizzazz lies not in finding something entirely new—but in presenting it in a novel way to a particular reader at the right moment in time.
Your brand is more unique than you think.
By taking a step back, and working with a team of storytelling strategists outside your organization, you’ll begin to see all the angles for differentiation you’ve overlooked.
For instance, no other company has YOUR:
- Collection of people and personalities.
- Anecdotes of going above and beyond for customers.
- Core values, mission, and journey, with its unique challenges and successes.
- Distinct approach to problem-solving and innovation.
- Connections and relationships with clients and partners.
So the question becomes: how do you leverage these aspects to strengthen your brand story?
1. Mobilize your people and personalities.
The right people for a thought leadership team stand out with deep expertise, a passion for sharing knowledge, and an engaging communication style.
With that in mind, select team members who are collaborative and open to different perspectives, as thought leadership thrives on diverse viewpoints.
It’s also beneficial to include individuals who have a strong connection with your audience. Maybe they’re embedded in the sales or customer service departments.
For one of the top tech bootcamp providers, we interviewed everyone from the curriculum developers to the educators to learn what makes their approach so unique. It also helped that they had case studies from employer partners and bootcamp grad reviews to pull from when developing their thought leadership content.
Takeaway: Ultimately, the “right people” are a diverse mix of founders and top execs, as well as those on the ground who authentically represent your brand’s values and vision on a daily basis.
2. Use a sounding board to extract anecdotes.
As outsiders peering in, a content partner can illuminate where there’s a story worth telling.
Recently, we worked with an insurance broker in a super-saturated market. “It’s not like healthcare where people need our services,” the CFO told us. “People can just go somewhere else and get essentially the same service.”
But 30 minutes into the kickoff call, they were telling us how, in the middle of a hurricane, one of their agents found a police escort and hopped the fence to check on their customer’s home.
They told us how they have agents in all 50 states handling a breadth of complex insurance needs.
They told us they’ve fixed insurance wrongs—picking up a rental car delivered to their customer in a deplorable state to get showroom-detailed at a moment’s notice.
Takeaway: Your anecdotal evidence gives rise to differentiators—the sort of differentiators that give rise to thought leadership and market dominance.
3. Consult your legacy people to reflect on the journey.
Long-time employees, particularly those who have been with the company since its inception, possess a trove of anecdotes that highlight the “why” behind the brand, its defining milestones, and its evolution to the present day.
Some thought leadership questions we might ask include:
- What five adjectives would you use to describe your company?
- What moments and milestones define the company’s history?
- Reflect on a time when the company went above and beyond for a customer or partner.
- What challenges did you face in the early days, and how did you overcome them?
- What key lessons or insights are crucial for the company’s continued success?
Recently, we kicked off a brand refresh that included four meetings with four different divisions. For good measure, we added a fifth meeting with the executive leadership team to elucidate the overarching story uniting all these seemingly disparate branches.
“We’re so proud of the truly remarkable reputation we’ve earned,” one of the founders said. “We do everything the right way,” he added. That became the story we’d explore across the context of their collections, background check, call center, and association management agencies.
Takeaway: It’s not just “what competitors are doing” vs. “what you’re doing” that’s differentiating. It’s how you’re doing it.
4. Weave in product and customer service teams to highlight innovation.
Your product development and customer service teams on the frontlines are constantly problem solving. This, in turn, begets innovation—a key tenet of thought leadership.
While developing a technical apparel company’s core pillars for their brand book, the customer service team shared that customers often contacted them, frustrated by the inability to find mountain-climbing gear in expanded plus sizes. In fact, they weren’t able to find high-quality outdoor apparel anywhere in the market. This realization, in turn, led the product team to expand their size offerings.
We took a small footnote off the product page and elevated it to thought leadership status with this copy:
“A Leader in Body Size Inclusivity,” read the headline. “You belong outdoors. In celebration of all shapes and sizes from XS to 4X, we invite you to see yourself thriving outside in gear that’s comfortable — rebuilt and tailored in all the right places. As pioneers, we were the first company to release a full ski apparel kit up to 4X. We offer our most loved technical gear in a full range of sizes in support of body positivity and frustration-free recreation.”
Takeaway: Real-world stories of going above and beyond to resolve issues and improve products emphasizes a standout commitment to customer care.
5. Talk to sales and marketing teams to define impact.
To tout a first-of-its-kind bridge loan, we needed to learn about the pain points consumers faced in the home buying market. By bringing sales into the fold, we discovered what market niche they were filling.
To build trust, we needed social proof collected by the marketing team. By hearing from the customers they’ve helped so far, we were able to explore common themes and topics that will likely matter to prospects. These insights helped us compose brochure copy that positioned the brand as an innovative player, blending technical sophistication with a warm, friendly attitude to help customers make the leap to their new home with ease and confidence.
Customers are often happy to share their experiences—all you need to do is ask. Testimonials bring your products and services to life in ways that feel tangible to prospects. This proof of impact further differentiates and reinforces your position as a trusted authority.
Takeaway: Thought leadership doesn’t always come from within. Sometimes you need external perspectives that show your company through the consumer lens.
Case in point: Thought leadership is a team effort.
What you may have noticed about our approach to thought leadership is that it’s not “a brand exercise,” a “content team to-do item,” or “something the marketing team does”—in a lonely, autonomous silo. It’s a concerted effort to bring together perspectives and representatives from every branch of the organization to create a holistic picture of your collective vision, mission, and output.
Thought leadership, in our view, is about more than just positioning—it’s about bringing out diverse perspectives and creating meaningful connections within your organization, fostering a sense of unity and purpose. It’s about capturing the real stories and genuine passion that makes a lasting impact in the world beyond your doors.
With the right approach, humans breathe life into a brand.
It’s all too easy to slip backwards—to get lost in the minutiae of features and the magnificence of loftier goals—and to lose sight that humans (your humans) are at the epicenter of it all.
The relentless pursuit of business efficiency has led to this bog of bland where we now stand, up to our ankles in the struggle to articulate differentiated offerings in a sea of similarities.
The trouble isn’t a lack of ideas or differentiators—but an overlooked commitment in wrestling those ideas to the surface. By resisting the temptation to churn out soulless copy that’s cheap, easy, and increasingly automated, an investment in human imagination produces clear and differentiated offerings that drive returns beyond measure.
Now THAT’S efficiency!
Ready to share your story? We’re ready to write it. Contact MarketSmiths.
