Viva PR: Getting to grips with thought leadership

As a communications agency, we’re big on championing the use of thought leadership to make a measurable impact for our clients, and a recent report highlights that 2023 is the year for all businesses to get to grips with quality thought leadership if you haven’t already.?

The 2022 Thought Leadership Impact Report from Edelman and LinkedIn raises some interesting questions for business leaders.

With the world leaning into an economic downtown in 2023, is your business prepared to pass an even tougher procurement process?

Can you prove your product or service to be an essential cog in the wheel to current and prospective customers, rather than just “meeting the brief”??

Thought leadership is named as one of the most effective tools an organisation can use to demonstrate its value to customers during a tough, uncertain economy and is deemed to be more effective than traditional advertising or product marketing in 2023, according to B2B buyers surveyed in the report.

And not just any old ramblings will do.

Decision makers expect high-quality thought leadership to offer a strong, data-backed point of view on how to succeed during a downturn.?

In fact, 50% of C-suite executives say that high quality thought leadership has more impact on their purchase decision-making during economic downturns than when times are good.

That’s a number too big to ignore.?

As a service-providing business, a couple of other stats that stand out include 43% of decision makers expect us to demonstrate an understanding of the organisation’s major pain points, and 48% want businesses to identify new opportunities or industry trends that are set to arise from the economic downturn.?

The report also identifies an opportunity to measure specific pieces of thought leadership against business wins, with only 40% of content producers surveyed claiming to be doing this already.?

If you can prove your work to be vital to your client’s business and provide the data to back it up, you will position your products and services ahead of the competition during what is no doubt going to be a challenging time for all.?

Top 3 tips to bear in mind for 2023

1. Think like a leader and put thought leadership at the top of your strategy for winning new business this year.?
2. Back up your thoughts with credible data.?
3. Quality over quantity is key. Post topical and insightful content, or don’t post at all.?