Practical Steps to Executing a Thought Leadership Program An effective thought leadership program is hard to describe and even harder to execute because it is a new management practice that requires a unique blend of art and science. Marketing executives often confuse thought leadership marketing with “content marketing” or “storytelling.” Sales executives call it “value selling,” “trusted advice” or “challenger selling” but are hard pressed to define a program to make it happen. Based on our experience executing Thought Leadership Key Success Factors Selling Programs for over a one hundred market leaders such as Adobe, CBS, DuPont, EY, Intuit, Intel, Microsoft, 1. Focus on quality over quantity – Focus on Oracle, PwC, SunTrust Bank, and Tableau, we define a creating original ideas and proprietary research Thought Leadership Selling Program as taking a that opens doors, breaks through clutter, and programmatic approach to delivering new ideas, relevant changes buyer perceptions of value. advice and compelling solutions to prospects and customers 2. Go-to-market alignment – Make sure your using sales, marketing and media channels. A successful marketing content is designed to support every Thought Leadership Program will provide your salespeople step of the revenue cycle – from brand awareness, to demand generation, sales with a disciplined and coordinated stream of advisory engagement, value selling and proposal content that helps open doors, make more effective sales generation to customer retention and expansion. calls, differentiate your offerings and deliver relevant 3. Create a structure – Put a person in charge of advice. Specifically, there are three steps to designing and documenting a thought leadership strategy that executing a Thought Leadership program that will help articulates an institutional point of view and addresses client concerns, sales priorities and your sales force generate measurable sales growth in the your brand positioning. next sales quarter: 4. “Channel readiness” – to drive sales outcomes 1. Define a thought leadership strategy that aligns with in marketing, media and sales channels, your your growth strategy thought leadership content needs to be actionable, targetable, useful, trackable, and 2. Publish thought leadership assets that enable the go- reusable across many channels and devices. to-market process 3. Engage customers using a mix of marketing, media and sales channels These three steps are outline below with examples and illustrations to make them more tangible. To move faster you might consider asking for help in outsourcing aspects of the process. Three Steps to Designing and Executing a Thought Leadership Program Thought Leadership Selling Page 5 © Revenue Enablement Institute 2022