The rise of LinkedIn as the world’s business-focused social channel has massively increased the importance of thought leadership content. The best thought leadership articles, interviews and case studies can create connections with existing customers and new ones.
Regularly posting insightful and original thought leadership content is a powerful and effective way for leaders to build their personal brands.
How do we know all this? Because at 42group, we’re one of the UK’s leading thought leadership content agencies and copywriting partners. We’re a digital-first agency that understands how content works and spreads online.
The best thought leadership copywriting is clear, consistent and adheres to the highest journalistic standards. But it connects with readers in ways that traditional legacy media can only dream of.
What is thought leadership content?
Thought leadership copywriting is the strategic creation of content that positions individuals or organisations as authoritative voices within their industries.
It’s not (or rather, it shouldn’t be) sales-driven or self-promotional. The best thought leadership content is created to provide insights, shape debates and increase the understanding of audiences around emerging trends, new technology, or sector challenges.
At its best, thought leadership copywriting delivers:
- Original research and data that shed new light on industry issues
- Fresh perspectives and opinions that challenge the status quo
- Clear, actionable takeaways that help audiences move forward
Thought leadership content isn’t a regular, boring blog from a corporate leader with nothing to say.
We call this “me too” content and it’s pointless. This sort of content is dull and derivative and reads like it. Don’t produce or publish this stuff. Please.
When done well, thought leadership content can frame conversations and even define debates.
For example, McKinsey’s global report “The State of AI in Early 2024” has become one of the most cited sources in the AI space, setting the conversation for leaders worldwide.
Microsoft’s annual “Work Trend Index” uses proprietary data from LinkedIn and Microsoft 365 to explore the changing shape of work, influencing HR and business strategy globally.
OK, these are big hitters with huge budgets, but you can also have a voice in your sector or speciality.
According to the Edelman-LinkedIn 2024 Thought Leadership Impact Report:
- 55% of decision-makers say thought leadership is an important way they vet organisations before working with them.
- 61% say good thought leadership makes them more willing to pay a premium for products or services.
It’s only one report, but it shows that high-quality, credible thought leadership copywriting is no longer a “nice to have”, it’s an essential strategic business tool that you need.
Still don’t believe us?
Here are some stats on the impact and effectiveness of thought leadership content…
Why invest in thought leadership copywriting?
Investing in thought leadership copywriting delivers long-term value far beyond short-term marketing metrics. It’s more than capturing attention with a click-bait headline, it’s about adding value.
At a time when trust is fragile and competition is fierce, thought leadership content builds credibility. It can also help to deepen engagement and, in some cases, directly influence purchasing decisions.
Key reasons to invest time and resource in through leadership content include:
- Building trust — 73% of B2B buyers say thought leadership is a more trustworthy way to understand a company’s capabilities than traditional marketing.
- Driving action — 75% of decision-makers say strong thought leadership has led them to research a product or service they weren’t previously considering.
- Differentiating from competitors — 70% of C-suite executives say good thought leadership has made them reconsider which company they work with.
(These stats are all from the Edelman report.)
Let’s look at some real-world examples:
- Barclays’ Corporate Insights series regularly publishes deep dives into financial markets, helping the bank position itself as a trusted, data-driven partner for corporate clients.
- The NHS Confederation’s Thought Leadership Hub provides authoritative perspectives on healthcare policy, helping influence government decision-makers, NHS leaders, and local healthcare organisations.
Importantly, the benefits of thought leadership are not just external. A DSMN8 survey found that 69% of employees feel thought leadership helps strengthen internal alignment and pride.
B2B buying journeys are lengthening, with 90% of buyers reporting longer decision cycles than before. As a result, consistent, credible thought leadership content becomes essential.
Are you creating enough of the right content at the right time for the right audience?
How to write thought leadership content
Are we going to give away all our thought leadership copywriting secrets? No. But we can – and have – provided an outline of the process we follow when developing new thought leadership content pieces.
Audience insights, pain points and priorities
Everything starts and ends with your audience. Thought leadership is about promoting an individual, business or brand, but the outcome is (or should be) to create connections. Anything else is vanity publishing, and you really don’t want to be doing that.
So, how do we get audience insights? Primary research involves interviews and engagement with your internal teams, influencers and key stakeholders. If possible, we’ll speak with clients, customers and other external connections to gain an understanding of their pain points and priorities.
Secondary research involves competitor analysis and benchmarking, social listening, literature reviews and a whole lot of time on LinkedIn to see what the key players in your market are doing.
Together, this provides the insights and intelligence that enable us to move to the next stage: creating a content strategy (or updating an existing one if you’ve already done the hard work).
Content strategy
Thought leadership is about building visibility and relevance. To successfully achieve that, every piece of content must have a clear purpose, audience, distribution plan and outcome.
That’s what we call a strategy. How about you?
We’re not going to go through the process of creating a content strategy. (You can find a good guide on creating an SEO content strategy here.)
The essence of a great and effective content strategy are ideas that. Sure, you can chuck a prompt into ChatGPT and see what happens, but that won’t help you create content that builds human connections.
That only comes from doing the hard work, including interviews and research, outlined above.
For our clients, we provide comprehensive content ideas that build to establish you and your organisation at the forefront of what you do. We’re not talking about endless in-depth articles but a broad range of content, including (yes) articles, case studies, Q&As and more.
This is what we call stock content
As well as pre-planning content, we ensure there’s capacity to be responsive to industry changes and developments. This is called flow content.
The best brands have a mixture of both types of content. They’re also engaged in conversations, too.
Distribution, outcomes and impact
Part of the content plan is to understand the channels you’re going to use. This is about content distribution.
Primarily, thought leadership content is created for, and distributed via, LinkedIn. It’s not the only channel. Your website, newsletters and industry publications can also provide vital channels for distribution.
Once we know the audience, have defined the content type and agreed the distribution channel, we can develop metrics to measure the outcomes and impact.
In a lot of thought leadership content campaigns, the outcomes are vague. You want to become a thought leader in your industry. Congratulations. What does that involve?
We need to move beyond basic metrics like page views or clicks into more sophisticated tagging and tracking that can provide an understanding of influence and impact.
Impact is more than generating engagement. (If engagement is all you want to do, post a picture of a cat on LinkedIn.) It’s about tangible results for your work. That could include lead generation, form completion, downloads, etc.
We recommend that every thought leadership content campaign has a clear distribution plan that’s tied to your expected outcomes and a tangible and clear mechanism to measure impact. This should enable you to create an understanding of ROI, although this will inevitably be quite crude.
Content creation
The fun stuff. We’re a leading thought leadership content and copywriting agency, so we do this for you (naturally).
We use the content strategy to create a brief which provides clarity on the structure, focus and content that will be included in the article.
This is signed off by the client *before* we put (digital) pen to paper.
All content is created by an industry expert with journalistic experience. This matters, because thought leadership content should adhere to the highest editorial standards.
Where possible, content will be aligned with any tone of voice and brand guidelines. However, these shouldn’t be allowed to constrict or constrain creativity, particularly in articles authored by a named person.
Personality & authenticity = authority.
Edits & optimisation
We’re expert writers and content creators, but you know your business and sector better than we ever will.
The edit stage is where we collaborate to ensure the brand voice is strong and coherent but that it doesn’t inhibit or strangle the personality and authenticity that are vital.
Optimisation is the final part of the puzzle. SEO is essential, with the best content both readable and findable. We take a sensitive and nuanced approach to SEO. You simply can’t spend so much time developing thought leadership content with clarity and purpose then change it all for an algorithm.
We work with SEO experts with common sense and creative sensitivity. No keyword loading or cut-price tactics, just intelligent advice that can improve readability, accessibility and search performance.
Publication, analysis and updates
Once the content has been created, it’s time to publish. We’ll let you take care of that (although we can manage social channels if required and requested).
After some time – a couple of weeks – we can review content in the context of your aims and outcomes to understand its impact.
In some cases, content can fall flat. We won’t just idly accept that but look for reasons why and for ways we can improve existing content and new content.
Work with a specialist thought leadership copywriting agency
You’ve read this far and so you’re obviously interested in the power and potential for thought leadership content.
If you’re investing in a thought leadership-based content marketing plan, it’s critical you work with an agency that understands how to create content that builds human connections.
Beyond that, they need the frameworks and distribution networks to share and promote your content. Once it’s out there, it must be monitored, improved and optimised to deliver the best return for your investment.
Is it easy? No. Is it what 42group does best? Yes.
Get in touch today if you want to discuss a thought leadership programme, content plan or individual piece. We’re here and ready to help.
