Mastering Thought Leadership: Four Key Challenges and How to Overcome Them

Initiating a successful Thought Leadership program requires careful planning and coordination at the concept stage. Over the years I’ve seen some common hurdles that can delay, sidetrack, and even derail programs—as well as some methods for overcoming them.  

Challenge #1: Making it fresh. The best Thought Leadership finds new angles on much-discussed topics by identifying best practices—actionable insights that can lead to improved outcomes for the audience. It’s tempting to create a quick take on a hot issue, but research that advances the conversation and provides meaningful insights is the gold standard for building your company’s reputation as a trusted advisor in the market.  

Solution: Think from the perspective of your audience. How will your research illuminate ways to improve their business outcomes? Solicit input from across your organization, regardless of seniority, then connect those dots to create a novel angle on your topic that is relevant to your position in the market. Always check what’s been published to ensure you offer fresh perspectives. Some companies have editorial boards that review ideas and create content strategies, others engage with target audiences to understand what they need most. The best may deploy their own proprietary data, frequently supplemented with original research and always analyzed by experts, to make their work unique.

Challenge #2: Finding friends in high places. Thought leadership needs both conceptual and actual buy-in from senior executives. Even if your company already has a dedicated Thought Leadership team, maintaining support and input beyond that team can be hard—and getting it when you need it can be even harder. That risks delays to the project timeline and the value of the research, especially if it includes timely, variable data.

Solution: Pre-identify your key internal stakeholders from across the business—experts whose technical or thematic knowledge would add weight and reach to your research, leaders in marketing and sales who can help plan public-facing strategies, and don’t forget to include procurement and legal. Ask in advance for their support and let them know approximate needs for their time by sharing a preliminary timeline. Build your workflow to accommodate their needs—for example the Quality Assurance process at a professional services firm may be delayed if scheduled while key people are on holiday or working on other deadlines. Good communication and realistic planning reduce the risk that you will have to scramble or cut corners later.

Challenge #3: Defining success and following though. There is no single measure of value for a Thought Leadership program. Important metrics abound: downloads, page views and media mentions are just a few. But without clear goals and a plan to activate your deliverables, even the most compelling content can fall flat, frustrating your supporters and endangering future Thought Leadership efforts by your team.

Solution: Include in your core project plan an activation strategy for distributing the work and measuring its reach. Discuss expectations with relevant parties. Critical partners include marketing (how will they use the research to strengthen brand reputation and reach new audiences, which media professionals and groups on social platforms are good targets?) and business development (how should they position the research with clients and prospects?). One large technology company we work with holds internal training sessions with marketing and sales to streamline this process.

Finally, the people who produce the research and can speak about it fluently are essential. Your program isn’t over when the deliverables are released—some of my clients from best-in-class Thought Leadership teams estimate they spend anywhere from 25% to 50% of their time focused on amplifying research once it’s published.   

Challenge #4: Funding. Thought Leadership studies can be time-consuming and expensive. Why should your company invest? Analysis from Cindy Anderson and Anthony Marshall, who surveyed thousands of executives for their book, The ROI of Thought Leadership, suggests that Thought Leadership studies influence as much as $265bn in purchasing decisions globally each year. That’s a compelling figure but getting a green light for your program can be difficult if your theme, plan and budget don’t clearly tie back to business opportunities.

Solution: Create a formal business case that lays out the fundamentals of your plan. Include a summary of the theme and how it is relevant to your company’s target audience, support from internal stakeholders (including their time commitment), how the content will be activated both internally and externally and which metrics will be tracked to determine reach, and of course a realistic budget for the program.

The bottom line: No project plan predicts the future perfectly but launching a meaningful Thought without one is a recipe for disaster.  

From Insight to Influence: Mastering Global Thought Leadership

Debra D’Agostino, Managing Director of Thought Leadership is hosting an exclusive webinar exploring how organizations can turn expert insights into lasting impact.

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