Thought leadership and the top line: How to use B2B content to increase revenues

[Jahangir655]

Thought leadership is all about ideas, but your work is wasted if there isn’t a clear line of sight between those ideas and a commercial outcome. At FT Longitude, we are strong believers in measuring thought leadership against its contribution to three core objectives:

Increasing revenues
Enhancing reputation
Strengthening client relationships.
For us, every project starts with a discussion with the client about which of those three goals is most important to them. Usually, they want to achieve all three, but the emphasis can differ.

When revenues rule
If a client tells us that revenue generation is their most important goal, we can design research and content to help. Here are some of the revenue-maximising steps we take, which are based on our experience of working with more than 40 global clients on large-scale thought leadership programmes.

1. Map out your buyers
Most B2B purchasing decisions are complex, and typically involve multiple stakeholders. To list of paraguay cell phone numbers stand a chance of influencing the buying decision, your thought leadership needs to resonate with each of the different buyer personas.

For example, selling M&A advice will typically need buy-in from the CFO, CDO, CEO and legal. So your thought leadership must resonate equally with those different stakeholders. Alternatively, you’ll need to create different versions of your content, from a common research foundation, that are more role-specific.

2. Create a burning platform
Thought leadership is a powerful way to create a rationale for change. For example, if your research shows that 70% of organisations are investing in artificial intelligence, then you have a great opportunity to talk to the other 30% and explain that they risk falling behind their competitors. This is the ‘burning platform’ concept: there is a sense of urgency that requires action, and it’s time to invest in a solution.