Thought Leadership (Glossary Definition)

Thought leadership is what separates us from the pack. It’s what allows us to position ourselves, our companies, and our teams as the be-all-end-all experts on anything and everything specific to our industry.

Regardless of whether or not you call it thought leadership, if you’re the subject matter expert and you’re providing education within your industry -- being the best that you can be in your space -- you’re a thought leader. Is your website the Wikipedia for your industry? It could be.

Remember, it’s all about them. All too often, companies get this wrong. The content on your website and on your social media should not look like it was created by some delusional egomaniac hanging out in the late 1990s. What we mean here is a website that talks only about your company and how wonderful you are, how wonderful your employees are, all of the awards you’ve won, the size of your building, and all of your industry certifications.

At the end of the day, your clients don’t care about any of that. How do we know that? We ask them.

The Buyer’s Journey

The buyer’s journey today is very different than it was as recently as five or ten years ago. The introduction of the original iPhone back in 2007 was a complete game changer. We are now totally and completely addicted to our mobile devices.

Our smartphones are the first thing we look at in the morning when we get up and the last thing we look at before we go to sleep. Do you want to see whether or not you’d have withdrawal? What would happen if your phone was lost, stolen, or broken, and you had to be without it for a couple of days?

And this is why the buyer’s journey has completely changed. People are asking questions like crazy about things that are driving them nuts. They’re asking questions on their phones about their goals, their plans, their challenges, and the problems they’re trying to get solved.

Answering Early-Stage Questions

It’s absolutely critical for your company to be found when they’re searching for those answers -- and be perceived as a thought leader. When your primary and secondary buyer personas (the two most important economic buyers for your company) go to search engines and social media and ask early-stage questions about the kinds of problems your company solves, it’s absolutely critical that they find your advice, resources, educational content, and thought leadership.

But just finding it is not enough. You need to get them on your website where they say, “Wow, this is really good. I’ve been looking for something like this for hours, days, and weeks. I can’t believe I finally found this stuff. It’s awesome. What else do they have to say?” You’re looking for that deep visceral reaction when they see your thought leadership. Then they start to become receptive to seeing if you have a book that goes into more detail, if there’s an upcoming breakfast seminar or lunch-and-learn, or if there’s a downloadable guide. They’re so impressed, they say, “yeah, I'll give them my business card for that information”.

Thought leadership is not about what you think makes you wonderful, it's all about them. It's all about answering their questions, giving them advice on their problems, and impressing the heck out of them that when they land on your digital presence that they have found Nirvana.

The flip side is if you mess this up, they land on your website and hit the back button a couple of seconds later. That sends a bad message to Google that your content is not very good, it’s not relevant, and you're simply not worthy of getting those precious organic clicks on your website.

The Bottom Line

Thought leaders spend a lot of time obsessing about who their buyer personas are, what motivates them, what drives them, and what kind of behavior they exhibit. Thought leaders want to know how they can be more relevant to their buyer persona’s questions and problems, helping them with their goals as early as possible in the buyer's journey.

If you want to be a true thought leader, spend a ton of time learning more about your buyer personas.

How do you define thought leadership for your business? Share your thoughts in the section for comments below.  

To learn more about differentiation, enroll now in our free 7-day eCourse: Go-to-Market Strategy 101 for B2B SaaS Startups and Scaleups.