Instead of just speaking to and sharing non-financial measures, such as metrics related to the marketing funnel, be sure to tie thought leadership directly to the sales funnel as well. You can do this by correlating items such as marquee whitepaper downloads to specific clients and prospects. This will give you a sense of how your thought leadership content is influencing both types of audiences and impacting pending revenue opportunities. This data will give you valuable insights as to how many of your top clients and prospects are reading your thought leadership content and the timing compared to key new deals.
Innovation and thought leadership: strategic initiatives for the long-haul
The most successful organizations have a programmatic approach to managing innovation and thought leadership, which helps them build organizational competency over time in both disciplines. How it’s structured is less important since it can be centralized, decentralized, or hybrid, but having a defined program with a mission, vision, strategy, and operating plan at a minimum is critical. As an example, the US Navy set a vision for 2030 related to the future of naval information warfare, creating a Hollywood-produced video, which became a north star for the organization, unlocking millions in funding for AI.
The focus and types of innovation and thought leadership you pursue are important, too. In addition to an internal and client-facing focus, have a known set of innovation enablers you plan to pursue such as data and analytics, automation, adaptability, cloud, digital twins and AI, but be open to adding others as needed. The same is true for your editorial calendar for thought leadership and the topics you plan to address. And hear out new thought leadership topics that may come from left field, which could benefit customers.
