Position your brand as an authority with content
AS PUBLISHED ON THE STUFF WEBSITE.
We review one of my favourite content types for B2B and professional services brands – thought leadership articles.
The most successful businesses solve deep client needs and articulate this clearly and frequently to the market. Clients seek trusted advisors, so to be known as an expert in your niche – and ideally become the default choice – you need to educate, entertain, engage and / or inspire.
Thought leadership is nothing new, but how we do it in 2020 is quite different to how we practised authority building in 2009.
It requires a strategic choice of topics based on content for the customer journey and a targeted content promotion strategy.
Let’s quickly take a few steps back before looking at how to roll out your programme …
What is thought leadership content?
It’s no surprise that thought leadership content is content published by you or your brand based on topics you are an authority on. Topics are usually inspired by your products, services and/or purpose as they relate to your customers.
You are not trying to teach clients how to do what you do. The aim is to enlighten them. Show them how, for example, they can be more efficient, make more money, save money, solve a problem, have a better quality of life.
An agritech company, for instance, might show farmers how to optimise farm management with drones.
Whether you publish an article or give a presentation, your tone needs to be editorial, not advertorial, and backed up with data, evidence and examples.
Here are my five tips to help you do this effectively.
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Answer your customer’s questions at the right stage on the buyer journey with our content map.
Tip 1: Think like a media company
Tom Foremski popularised the idea that ‘every company is a media company’ and most companies today have taken control of their direct public relations – publishing via their ‘owned’ channels as well as via a media company or third-party website. But the challenge I see for businesses is how to maintain consistency and quality, and get the highest return on investment.
For the small-to-medium-sized businesses I work with, I recommend the following:
Be realistic about your resources so you create a publishing calendar you can actually maintain.
Publish quality over quantity.
Maintain a blog on your website to engage existing and potential clients. Seed this content out through social media, email and even Google Ads.
Publish thought-leadership articles in industry journals (print and online) or wherever your ideal clients are consuming media.
Grow your email database to keep in touch with clients. Quarterly updates can be plenty.
Use social media as outreach channels.
Choose only those channels your clients spend time on.
Be consistent over the long term.
There is far too much mediocre content out there. Make sure your media is exceptional by investing in proper strategy, and in professional copywriting and photography – because your clients notice the difference.
Tip 2: Think like a magazine editor
Strategic lead-generation content answers common customer questions at key stages of the buyer journey – from stranger to lead to convert to repeat client.
Most B2B and professional services websites are great with content at the end of the sales funnel – decision-making content, such as case studies. But they are often very light in awareness content – the information clients search for before they are aware that your brand exists or can help them.
In the drone example above, a farmer might research ‘farm management technology’ completely unaware of your drone solution. Your article could be on the higher-level topic of farm management and include drones as one of the sub-topics – a similar approach to what a business magazine editor would take.
Tip 3: Plan your keywords
When you invest time and money in creating great content, how do you get the greatest number of eyeballs on it?
For website content, make sure you research the high-volume keywords. For our agritech example above, there are 380 searches a month for ‘drone farming’ in the US and 660 searches a month for ‘farm management’. You can target blogs for each and even create a series.
Tip 4: Increase content reach
A single blog article can be spun out to six channels or more. Called ‘atomising’ your content or ‘content-on-content’, these strategies help you get your article in front of more people. Not everyone reads your newsletter and not everyone checks LinkedIn weekly, so the more places you publish, the more reach you’ll have.
Many brands also use paid promotion tactics for content page reach, such as search engine and social media marketing and retargeting. These tactics can suit larger organisations who are publishing high-value e-books or an in-depth blog article on a trending topic, or when a topic has a very high organic search volume.
Tip 5: Consistency is everything
Some marketing gurus I follow recommend that a business website needs to have about eight hours of content to browse. The more time a prospect or existing customer spends reading your articles, watching your webinars or reviewing your case studies, the better they get to know and trust you.
Being consistent with high-quality content demonstrates your purpose and values, grows your website and email audiences, raises your Google organic rankings, and inspires new clients to get in touch.
Final thoughts
Your publishing topics need to be part of your larger brand story. Start by imagining the book your business would write. The title and cover would pitch your purpose and big idea, the chapters would be your pillar topics, and your subheadings would be individual articles.
This gives your content focus, structure and direction.