Establish and demonstrate your authority within a narrow area of expertise or across the entire spectrum of a domain.
For start-ups and scale-ups, effective thought leadership programs can put you on the map, help you punch above your weight, and go toe-to-toe with the established players.
For established players, effective thought leadership can help you squash those annoying start-ups and scale-ups who’re trying to take your business.
There are several ways to establish credibility (presuming, of course, that you are actually credible), including:
- Technical marketing content that educates your audiences
- Webinar programs that share information in an engaging way
- Research projects and programs that break entirely new industry ground
Our thought leadership services help with these approaches, and more.
Technical Marketing Content
Technical marketing content, including whitepapers, technology showcases, and demonstrations, is an effective way to bring your knowledge to the fore, thereby achieving several positive results:
- By deeply exploring a subject and teaching your audience new things (e.g., requirements, nuances, trade-offs, etc.), you show that you know what you’re talking about and earn their trust and respect
- By presenting information in a strategic manner, you can shape how your audience thinks about the subject – including how they evaluate potential solutions
- By comprehensively explaining your differentiators, you arm your champions with material they can use to win over doubters and justify selecting you as a solution provider
- By introducing new, robust content, you make life difficult for competitors, who have to keep up with and respond to your material, consuming their time and attention
- By making technical material available on your website, you improve your organic relevance – especially in narrow topics for which relatively little information is available
- By attracting people and organizations to your content, you’re able to build out your contact database and to establish new relationships
In short, technical marketing content is a great way to separate yourself from the crowd of competitors who are all making the same claims.
If you’re interested in learning more about technology marketing, then check out these posts:
Webinar Programs
Webinars are a convenient, efficient, and cost-effective way to show your expertise while growing your video content, building out your contact database, and engaging with your audiences.
While there might be times where sponsored webinars makes sense, that approach can easily consume entire marketing budgets.
A home-grown webinar program is a great alternative, and is very straightforward to execute with the right skillset.
Research Projects and Programs
Research projects and programs explore aspects of your industry or market (e.g., analyzing trends over time, diving deeply into particular subjects, etc.).
They’re usually investigative in nature, and aspire to reveal genuinely new facts, findings, and insights, that can inform your customers’ decision-making.
Research findings are a great way to open doors (provided the findings aren’t accompanied by a sales pitch), and one very powerful potential result is that your company gains fame for discovering something particularly noteworthy.
And, while it takes time, devotion, and commitment, a research program that analyzes trends over many quarters or years can raise your company up to a level of authority that no competitor can quickly match.
If you’re interested in learning more about data-driven thought leadership, then check out Talking Data-Driven Thought Leadership with Dan Deeth (Crommunity Podcast) or our own Waterloo Region Technology Marketing Spotlight.