Canadian Marketing Blog

Thought Leadership Marketing: A New Marketing Field?

I recently joined a LinkedIn discussion group called Thought Leadership Salon, where the latest discussion focused on the definition of Thought Leadership Marketing (TLM).

The discussion linked to a WebWire article written by Gartner (an information technology research company). Gartner defines TLM as: the giving — for free or at a nominal charge — of information or advice that a client will value so as to create awareness of the outcome that a company’s product or service can deliver, in order to position and differentiate that offering and stimulate demand for it.

Their VP elaborated: "The principle of TLM is simple enough: You give away a little valuable intellectual property to establish your potential usefulness to the client, in the expectation that the client will use your expertise and services. Its essence is to show, rather than tell what a company can do, and to do so in a way that positions and differentiates that company’s offering for the chosen target audience".

The article went on to give some interesting B2B examples, and of course, to link to their own thought leadership, a Gartner report called "Marketing Essentials: How to Use Thought Leadership Marketing for IT Services Providers".

While I am not sure that the definition above is not a bit too narrow (I would argue that thought leadership is about more than sharing whitepapers, just like PR is about more than press releases), I am certainly interested that thought leadership is being considered an “organized discipline” of marketing.

Are your B2B marketing departments consciously using TLM in your marketing plans?

Elizabeth Harvey, Manager of Councils and Self Regulatory Programs at Canadian Marketing Association

Our IT firm must demonstrate thought leadership throughout the sales cycle. It is the only way to establish credibility for medium sized busiensses such as ours.

Thought leadership marketing has been around for a long time, although it wasn't always recognized as such. For most of its existence, it has been practiced mainly by professional services firms, which lack a tangible product to show prospective buyers. By allowing people to "sample" one's expertise through white papers, books, research reports and articles, a firm can demonstrate it has the knowledge and approach that can solve prospective buyers' business problems. More recently, product companies, especially software firms, have joined the party and are using thought leadership marketing to help demonstrate the business results a buyer can realize by using the product in question.

I've been working in the thought leadership marketing field for 15 years (including as a founder of two thought leadership marketing firms) and am happy to see it being elevated to an "organized discipline."

Elizabeth, I took part in some of that discussion in the Thought Leadership salon but I was interested to read Bernie's response. He's right, thought leadership has been around for a long time and it's great to hear from an experienced campaigner like him.

Although Bernie I'm not sure it's yet been elevated to an organised discipline. I think it still has a way to go. Many of the professional services firms are old hands at it.

Like you they are well aware of what a powerful marketing tool it is and what a wonderful way to engage more meaningfully with your publics.

I agree with all the comments. I would like to add, however, that I believe thought leadership is becoming one of the key pillars of many firms strategic marketing plans. In my opinion, you shouldn't have separate streams of marketing content and separate marketing budgets. They need to be integrated. TL and other content can work at all stages of the life-cyle of a customer.

One way to avoid this is take a solutions marketing approach instead of a product focus or a services focus or a TL focus.

In my view i dont think organisations have still matured enough to understand what thought leadership actually means. in many organisations they perceive it to be just production of whitepapers & getting leads out of it. in my view thought leadership is a marriage of marketing & strategy ">http://thoughtspotblog.wordpress.com/> & only with this right blend will organisations succeed. though content generation could be a part of thought leadership it is not just restricted to that. thought leadership to me is how you view the future & provide tools/insights which can enable your customers to be future ready.