When embarking on becoming a thought leader, your content marketing campaign requires more than simply putting pen to paper (or fingertip to keyboard?) It involves strategizing to ensure your content is high-quality, authentic, original, and valuable for your target audience. If you opt for creating materials just to have something to throw into the web universe, you won’t receive nearly as much traction as you could with a well-strategized campaign.
In the words of our Director of Content Marketing & Strategy, Don Power, “Thought leadership is like singing.” To successfully roll out your content marketing campaign, “you need to find the right pitch and genre that your audience will learn to expect and count on you for.” He leads our team of content marketing strategists with the principle that focus and consistency are the keys to helping thought leaders impact their campaigns.
Remember, your content marketing campaign’s goal as a thought leader is to establish yourself as an industry expert. This won’t be so clear if you try writing to please everyone, especially on subjects you’re not familiar with. To become a credible source, you need to hone your content so it’s always on-brand and appealing to your audience (who are your potential consumers at the end of the day.) Now is the time to demonstrate how you’ve mastered the field and climbed to the top. So, show off what you do best through your content marketing!
If you’re ready to take the plunge with your thought leadership, follow these steps when strategizing your content marketing campaign:
1. Find Your Target Audience
First and foremost, you need to review who is already supporting your business and then consider whose attention you want to gain through your thought leadership content. Your platform is an extension of your company brand, so you’ll want to work with what you already have and then conduct research to find who else would benefit from your shared content.
Here’s how to define your thought leadership target audience:
- Monitor current and past consumer data
- Identify common trends in your current consumers to identify other potential consumers like them
- Consider their location, lifestyles, and shared interests to help you gauge what the people supporting your business will want to learn from you
- Conduct consumer research through methods like polls, surveys, social media engagement, customer interviews, etc. to understand more about them and know what they want from thought leaders in your industry
- Expand your access to your target audience by being an active thought leader through social media and guest posting
2. Choose Your Content Marketing Themes
With your target audience defined, you need to focus your content marketing campaign to be worthy of their attention. In other words, find the topics that your target audience will want to know more about. By establishing a set of main thought leadership pillars (around four is ideal), you have committed guidelines that will ground your content so it remains relevant to your niche industry.
However, pillars are not walls. They don’t need to enclose your content marketing, so you’re recycling topics over and over again. That’s why you should relate your pillars to general themes or values that your business is rooted in and then write content that promotes them. Your content will always be on-brand and always somewhat consistent as you offer information about industry topics that always lead back to your company.
3. Offer Information, Not a Sales Pitch
You may be more familiar with creating content that’s promotional for your products or services. But thought leadership isn’t about selling. It’s a more passive method that will bring more attention to your business and drive consumers to support it in whatever way you need them to.
According to a marketing study, 61% of consumers are influenced by custom content marketing. People will support companies that share information that’s useful for them. If you create materials catered to your audiences’ needs without overtly pushing your products or services, you’ll see your conversion rates climb.
Your content marketing campaign’s strategy should be to share valuable information that matters to your audience. You can incorporate your insights on industry trends, current news, innovations in your field, helpful how-tos for people who want to climb the ladder as you did, and more. In these pieces, you draw your readers’ attention, engage with them through your content, and offer them opportunities to access your website to learn more or take action. It’s a funneling system to draw your readers, share valuable information, and then guide them to your business.
4. Draw Inspiration From Other Thought Leaders for Your Content Marketing Campaign
Take a moment and think of the leaders who inspired you in the past. Are there any current thought leaders who you rely on as a valuable industry resource, too? Consider what they share that has raised your intrigue and continues drawing your attention. Do you appreciate leaders who are factual and concise in their content or who sprinkle some personality in there? From other thought leadership campaigns, you can draw what makes their content impactful and apply it to your work.
With your content marketing campaign, you’ll establish yourself as an inspiration for members of your industry’s community and even your employees. If you invest thought, care, and passion into your content, you could genuinely make an impact that will benefit your business. You’ll contribute to dynamic, pronounced company branding by connecting your voice to it. Many other corporations are missing this extra element that will give you an advantage and bring more attention and revenue to the company you lead.
Not a Content Writer? Article-Writing.co Has You Covered
Led by our Director of Content Marketing & Strategy, Don Power, our team of content strategists will do the heavy lifting to help you find focus and consistency in your content marketing campaign. He assures, “We will consult with you personally to identify your unique strengths and your business values so we can create a content strategy that intertwines your company brand with your personal voice.” At Article-Writing.co, we’ll capitalize on what makes you a remarkable industry expert to drive an influential thought leadership campaign.
Want to expand your audience, earn higher revenue, and make a legacy for yourself and your business? Learn more about our Thought Leadership Package and contact our team today!
