How (And Why) Thought Leadership Drives Lead Generation

You’ve likely heard of thought leadership or been told that it’s a great way to be viewed as an expert in your chosen field. But have you ever thought of how this tactic can be used as a lead generation tool?

With the right planning, implementation, and consistency, you can start on your journey to building your thought leadership.

So, what exactly does that entail and how can you bring in new leads simultaneously? Let’s discuss.

What is Thought Leadership?

Thought leadership is the practice of delivering authentic, genuine content that shows your expertise and insight with the goal of sharing wisdom and building credibility.

Through your content, you are able to build a personal brand and reputation as someone who is well experienced and knowledgeable in the subject they are focusing on.

How to Build Your Thought Leadership

To get started building your thought leadership, you first need to decide on your area of expertise. You don’t want to try and focus on too many things at once.

Once you determine your subject of focus, you will want to find out where you need to be present in order to reach those that fall in your target market. This will also help you decide on the medium and types of content that will resonate best with your ideal audience.

• Do they prefer audio or video content?

• Or perhaps written content?

• Would they rather receive more in-depth, lengthy content or do they respond best to short bits of content that feed into the bigger topic?

After you uncover what you’re doing to talk about, where you’re going to publish and promote it, and the medium in which you will deliver it, it’s time to create your plan of action and remain consistent with your publishing schedule.

Why Thought Leadership Is Important

By planning out a strategy to build your thought leadership, you’re investing in your rapport and credibility. As you begin to execute your plan of action, you’ll start to accumulate a nice collection of content that highlights your expertise, and increases your personal brand awareness, all while building your thought leadership.

This allows you to ‘sell’ in a more organic way. The content you’re publishing will talk about the genuine benefits and pitfalls of your chosen subject, which will show the consumer that you truly know what you’re talking about and want to provide a solution that best suits them, rather than being solely fixated on selling a product or service that you offer. When you can remove the bias and focus on the facts, you’re more likely to build rapport with those who consume your content.

Then, when it comes time to make their decision, the buyer is going to remember the person or brand who didn’t flood them with a sales pitch, but rather showed that they had their best interest at heart.

How Thought Leadership Will Bring in Leads

So how does this strategy bring in leads if it’s not focusing on promoting a product or service directly? Well, it intrigues people to want to learn more. This can look a few different ways, such as downloading a piece of content, signing up for a webinar, or filling out a contact form.

In addition to piquing their interest, it can encourage those leads to share it and bring even more awareness to you and your business.

Thought Leadership Resources:

Don’t Miss Out on Potential New Leads

Thought leadership has many benefits and can open many doors for professionals in their space, but it can sometimes be overlooked as a lead generation tactic. Most people might solely think that this tactic is about making a name for themselves and being seen as a leader in their space, but it’s so much for than that.

Don’t waste any more time; get started on your thought leadership strategy today!