Skip to content
Thought leadership is your secret weapon for establishing your company as the go-to expert in your industry.
And according to a senior marketer Jaye Ling, who’s a pro at putting thought leadership content to work for B2B demand generation, thought leadership is like “the gift that keeps giving.”
But crafting an effective thought leadership strategy and content assets to support it is so much easier said than done.
What types of thought leadership content are worth investing in? How do you create trustworthy content that resonates with the market? And what benefits can you expect from a thought leadership campaign?
To get deeper into this topic, we looked at how B2B marketers use expert-led content, customer insights, webinars, and repurposed assets to build trust and support demand generation.
When done well, thought leadership content can help your team:
- Improve brand perception
- Increase pipeline
- Support demand and revenue goals
- Create reusable, valuable content for multiple channels
Otherwise, read further for our recap and deeper dive on how to create different types of thought leadership content to keep your B2B sales pipeline really full.
What is thought leadership and why does it matter?
Thought leadership means sharing valuable insights, knowledge, and expertise to position yourself as a leader and build trust with potential clients.
Thought leadership is often one of the key criteria customers use when deciding whether to consider a company’s services.
But it also goes beyond just selling products or services; it’s about becoming a respected authority that people turn to for industry expertise.
Especially if you’re dealing longer B2B sales cycles and selling items with a larger price-tag, thought leadership is not just important, it’s essential for gaining your prospects’ trust before they pull out their wallets.
And even after you make the sale, maintaining your status as a thought leader goes a long way in fostering enduring customer relationships.
What the annual LinkedIn-Edelman study says about thought leadership
Instead of just hearing from us, let’s also look at LinkedIn and Edelman’s annual B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report.
The study includes responses from thousands of global business leaders on the value of thought leadership.
According to the most recent 2022 report, thought leadership is one of the most effective tools an organization can use during a tough economy like today.
61% of B2B decision-makers say that an organization’s thought leadership can be moderately or a lot more effective at demonstrating their product or service’s potential value as compared traditional advertising or product marketing.
2022 LinkedIn-Edelman B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report
An earlier report also found that 88% of decision makers said thought leadership can be effective in enhancing perceptions of an organization.
This enhanced perception extends to a company’s capabilities. That remained true even if no capabilities were mentioned in the thought leadership content, showing how strong insights can build trust beyond product-focused messaging.
Types of thought leadership content in B2B tech marketing
So where do we start?
Now that we know why such thought leadership content is so crucial, let’s look at some thought leadership examples to inspire your B2B content marketing strategy.
1. Data-backed content and industry insights
Data-backed content is one of the strongest ways to build thought leadership because it gives your audience something useful, credible, and easy to reference.
Instead of relying only on opinions or generic advice, use insights from customer conversations, webinar engagement, content performance, campaign results, sales feedback, and industry trends to create content that helps your audience make better decisions.
This type of content can take many forms, including benchmark-style blog posts, trend roundups, customer insight reports, expert quote collections, webinar recaps, and practical guides.
The key is to turn what your team already knows into clear, useful takeaways your audience can apply. Once published, these insights can also be repurposed into social posts, email campaigns, webinars, sales enablement materials, and content syndication campaigns.
2. Expert interviews
Interviewing experts within your industry is a powerful way to bring fresh perspectives, practical insights, and human expertise into your thought leadership content.
By engaging with industry leaders, you can extract their insights to provide valuable content for your audience.
To find experts to interview, start by identifying industry leaders who are knowledgeable and respected in their field. Look for individuals who have demonstrated expertise through their work, publications, or speaking engagements. Then, reach out to them through email, social media, or professional networking platforms.
Remember, explain your purpose and the value their insights will bring to your audience, and give them a reason to help you! Relationships with mutual benefit are much easier to build, and maintain.
With that relationship built, all you need is to collect valuable soundbites, such as their unique perspectives on emerging technologies, business trends, and challenges they’ve overcome.
Whether you record these interviews as videos, or collect their perspectives as quotes, such thought leadership content can be republished in endless formats. Sharing these stories as opinion pieces will establish your brand as a reliable authority and as a trusted source of knowledge.
For example, you can turn expert interviews into blog posts, webinar clips, email nurture content, social posts, or gated assets for lead generation campaigns.
3. Case studies
Case studies are an effective tool for creating thought leadership content. They provide real-life examples of how your products or services have delivered tangible results for clients, showcasing your expertise and giving potential customers confidence in your ability to solve their problems.
But we know what you’re thinking — aren’t case studies more of a sales-forward asset?
You’re completely right, which is why it’s important to approach case studies with the right perspective.
Thought leadership means offering insightful ways to rethink or solve common business problems without overwhelming prospects with a sales pitch.
Case studies can achieve this by subtly showcasing your expertise and unique selling propositions, while injecting credibility in your offering.
Pro tip: dive deep into the specific challenges faced, the strategies implemented, and the positive outcomes achieved. This will demonstrate your expertise and give potential customers confidence in your ability to solve their problems.
4. Webinars and podcasts
Planning and promoting educational webinars or podcast episodes is such a great way to explore trending topics in depth, while featuring industry experts or your own internal specialists.
It’s that combination that humanizes your brand, while also presenting yourself as an expert.
In terms of how to angle webinars and podcasts to produce great virtual conferences for thought leadership, consider these 4 steps.
How to produce virtual events for thought leadership
Step 1: Identify your expertise
Determine the specific areas where you excel and have valuable insights. This will help you establish yourself as a trusted thought leader in your industry
Step 2: Line up the experts
Feature industry gurus or your own internal specialists as guests to provide valuable insights.
Step 3: Host or record your session
Here, remember to embrace a conversational approach. Especially if you’re opting for a live event, encourage interactive discussions and include Q&A sessions to make sure you address the exact problems your audiences face.
Step 4: Promote and repurpose your content
Leverage various marketing channels to spread the word about your thought leadership content. Repurpose snippets or key insights from your webinars and podcasts into blog posts, social media updates, or even whitepapers to expand your reach.
If you’re in B2B tech and want a quicker, easier way to launch a webinar marketing strategy, we’ve got you covered too.
Try ViB Webinars, a full-service event management solution where we plan, promote, host, and track a virtual event under your brand.
And the best part? All webinars come with a registrant or attendee guarantee, where we ensure qualified leads come to your event to help you hit your marketing goals.
Read Donoma’s customer story with ViB Webinars, to discover how they generated over a hundred targeted leads and several sales opportunities with a single event.
Thought leadership example: Turning one strong idea into a full campaign
A strong thought leadership campaign does not need to live in just one format. One core idea can become a report, webinar, blog series, social content, email campaign, and sales enablement asset.
For example, a B2B tech team could start with a key industry challenge their audience is facing, gather insights from internal experts, customer conversations, webinar engagement, and campaign performance, then turn those takeaways into a practical content campaign.
From there, the team can repurpose the content across channels: publish a blog recap, host a webinar, create short social posts, build an email nurture sequence, and promote the asset through content syndication.
This approach helps extend the life of the original idea while giving prospects multiple ways to engage with the brand.
Getting started with a thought leadership strategy for lead generation
Ready to turn your thought leadership content into qualified engagement?
Explore how ViB Syndication and ViB Webinars can help you promote expert-led content, reach the right B2B tech audience, and generate leads from the assets your team already creates.
