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Thought Leadership is NOT Content Marketing

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I recently opened my inbox and found an email from a reporter I worked with early in my career.

My former colleague had just read my blog post and she had one burning question for me:

“So WHAT IS thought leadership? It’s an inside baseball term. Can you define it?”

Good question
But it’s also one that we marketers also need to ask ourselves. Even among marketers there seems to be some confusion about what thought leadership is. I often hear people use thought leadership as a synonym for content marketing – another big buzzword du jour.

But they are not one and the same thing. Not at all.

Thought leadership, to summarize Forrester Research analyst Jeff Ernst, is the strategic process of coming up with and sharing big ideas, insights and new perspectives on the critical issues that buyers face.

On the other hand, content marketing is the tactical process of producing communications (i.e., content) for your prospects, customers and other key target audiences.

Blurring the lines
Much of that content marketing typically focuses on building awareness for your company and selling its solutions.

That’s the stuff many marketers spend the bulk of their days creating: product brochures, web content, sales presentations, email campaigns and the like.

Most business people would never confuse this type of content as thought leadership.

But there are plenty of executives and even some marketers who think of white papers, eBooks, articles and blog posts as thought leadership content.

But it isn’t necessarily so.

That white paper or eBook may do a nice job of summing up current industry trends, thinking and approaches, but it may be little more than a thinly disguised product pitch.

In my view, it’s not true thought leadership unless it does one or more of these 6 things:
• Challenges current assumptions about a business challenge or approach
• Presents new insights, perspectives or ideas
• Offers innovative solutions to an existing problem(s)
• Pinpoints areas of opportunity, process improvement or profitability for prospects and customers
• Provides real leadership that inspires people to believe, contribute, collaborate and take action to address a problem
• Anticipates future trends and challenges

The future of thought leadership

True thought leadership will never go out of style. The world will always be hungry for fresh thinking and leadership.

However, to be effective, thought leadership must build credibility and attract followers. Most importantly, it must offer a vision for change and must lead on the issues that matter most to buyers.

How do you define thought leadership? What would you add to the list of requirements for true thought leadership? What do you see as the critical differences between content marketing and thought leadership?

Sheryl Roehl is president and chief marketing officer of Avenue L Marketing, Inc. She can be reached at Sheryl@AvenueLMarketing.com.

 

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