Many technology companies talk about writing thought-leadership content to educate IT buyers about new ways to solve their business challenges—and hopefully to help define the criteria by which they judge all other solutions. Yet, often, technology companies approach thought-leadership articles or white papers by starting with their product messages and working backward to problems they solve.
The question is whether this is really thought leadership—or is it product information in thought-leadership clothing?
It can be—but not always. Let’s look at examples of two companies that I’ll call A and B.
Company A
Company A is a multi-billion dollar company with many product lines. It recently decided to create thought-leadership pieces targeting the green energy sector. The company started by looking at their products and deciding which ones would be a good fit for the space.
Next, they searched the company for someone in sales who had sold into that space who could provide insight into the problems that that the company’s problems solved They also tried to unearth examples of any existing customers who may have used the solution for this purpose—but since the sector was a new target for the company, they couldn’t find any.
Next, they went to conferences and spoke with analysts in the green energy space to patch together a story about the problems these customers face. Whew. Now they could weave a narrative about how their product addressed these challenges.
What’s wrong with this picture?
The process of creating the content was a tremendous effort because the project wasn’t really thought leadership at all. It was just a technology vendor talking about its products while attempting to create a veneer of thought leadership.
Company B
Now let’s look at a second company. This company also starts its thought-leadership projects with standard company messages about its products.
This time, however, the messaging has been based on extensive research into its customers typical challenges. The company had then created a messaging guidebook that detailed the types of challenges its customers face and spelled out the specific ways that the product addresses each one.
On top of this, the company had on hand specialists whose job it was to learn about and market to individual industries. Their effort included customizing individual products specifically to meet the needs of various industries where necessary.
Thus, when the content owner applied its standard messaging for use in a thought-leadership article, it was already familiar with its customer challenges and could easily come up with angles that would be interesting to customers because they were based on first hand, factual information.
If you’ve taken the time to determine customer needs and design a product to fill them, you’ll find lots of interesting angles for thought-leadership pieces and your content will flow effortlessly. If you’re having trouble creating compelling content for thought-leadership campaigns and content, ask yourself whether you’ve done your homework on your customers’ needs up front and designed a product that addresses them. If you haven’t, you now know where to begin.
What have your experiences been creating thought-leadership content at your company?
I am inclined to trust my instincts that when there is proper guidance, only positive outcomes will follow. Every word as well as every sentence and paragraph comprise a special place within my writing.
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Posted by: article writing service | January 27, 2011 at 08:50 PM