Treat "thought leadership" like a product, not a marketing asset

What if your thought leadership wasn't a way to sell a product, but was the product itself?

Most companies invest in digital content in the hopes that it'll get their brand name in front of a customer, who will in turn consider the company as worthy of their money, based on the value and expertise they demonstrated in the content. 

However, that's the kind of mindset that makes thought leadership pedestrian, unexciting and ultimately off-putting to any customer wary of shills. Think about the best thought leadership you've ever read. Was it an insightful blog post? A guide on how to do things the right way? A research report that gave you benchmarks and actionable insights about your industry? What all of those have in common is that they were valuable in and of themselves. Their goal was to truly provide something of value to the reader, rather than getting them to consider another thing of value that's somewhat related (i.e. the product the company is trying to sell)

Therein lies the lesson. For thought leadership to truly stand out, it has to be a product, not a marketing asset. A reader should be able to get real value out of it, not just knowledge about the brand that produced it. It needs to help the reader learn something they didn't know, make a decision, or make a plan that'll benefit them down the road. If they happen to consider the brand as a purchase option somewhere down the line, that's a great outcome, but a secondary goal.

Once you've made the decision to treat thought leadership as a product, think about the research, care and continuous improvements your company puts into the products it develops. Why not apply those same development principles to the next whitepaper or blog post you put out? Ask yourself if the content is actually solving a data-proven need of the customer, and what you can do to improve on the content you published before.

For me personally, Hubspot is a great example of this practice. The marketing automation platform has for years published the best content for digital marketers on its blog. It has guides, tips, tricks and best practices for any marketers to use, whether they buy the software or not. In fact I went almost a full-year not knowing that Hubspot was a software, and thought it was an extremely helpful digital magazine instead. Now I haven't bought Hubspot myself. But it's always top of mind anytime somebody asks me about top marketing automation platform choices.

This simple mindset of shifting from marketing asset to product does wonders for the quality of the thought leadership, and crucially, it builds far more credibility with readers, which should be the ultimate measure of success for any brand looking to build its authority in a crowded space.