Follow the Leader

There’s more to thought leadership than curating marketing copy. It’s about building chemistry with your audience through developing new insights that provide answers to their most pressing issues, says Keith Brookbank.
My son’s recent birthday heralded the arrival of a new set of Top Trumps playing cards. I loved them as child – portable and intuitive to play, they saw me through long car journeys, rainy Sundays and the occasional chemistry lesson. It turns out that, amid the iPads and apps, children still enjoy them.
Simplicity is the key to the game’s timeless appeal, where one example of a genre is assessed for how it compares to another. Which car has the most powerful engine, what animal can run fastest and who has scored the most goals? You can easily gauge who’s best at what and who’s best overall.
ADDING VALUE
The challenge when positioning financial services organisations is, alas, less easy. Putting aside price or word-of-mouth, how do people distinguish or differentiate one insurer, accountant or broker from another?
The answer lies in developing a bank of thought leadership, which harnesses the intelligence and insight that resides within companies and uses it to raise their profile and engage audiences on the things that really concern them.
When potential customers are looking to be informed and understand pressing issues, it is companies that demonstrate authority and provide insight that will offer relevance and meaning for their target market.
According to Michelle Arnold, Head of Marketing and Communications, BLME, good thought leadership raises questions, creates a discussion, demonstrates expertise and is interesting. ‘You can’t be a good thought leader unless you add some value,’ she says.
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