Chris Van Veen Marketing Communications

Thought Leadership Helps Boost Visibility and Awareness

Over the years, I've been drawn to a topic called thought leadership. Basically it's a way for small- and medium-sized companies to become leading evangelists on a technology or a product category. Lacking marketing muscle (read: dollars) to advertise in any meaningfully comprehensive way, small companies still need a voice. They still need to gain traction in markets that are often crowded and loud. A small company can do themselves a world of good by embarking on a white paper campaign. This starts by charting up to a dozen worthy topics and then assigning content managers to them. These can be product marketing managers, business development managers, or MarCom folks such as me. But it's very important to list topics where true leadership exists. If you can't define a topic and then agree that a leadership position exists, then move onto the next one. The list should then act as a road map for a repertoire of white papers (sometimes called 'position statements') that help the company win visibility in the marketplace.

Too often, companies take a promotional approach to their white paper campaign. This is a cardinal sin, because a white paper ought to be a discussion on a technology and a particular vision of it, without actually pitching a product. Companies love pitching products, but that's where advertising comes in. The white paper truly needs to be devoid of any hype or promotion, even going so far as to eliminate product names. Treat your white paper campaign this way and you'll win the day: customers and prospects will value your white papers and share them among colleagues. And people who read white papers are the influencing type; they're the ones who often make buying decisions. Finally, make sure you have a regular drumbeat of whitepapers culled from your initial list. Space them out over the course of a year, highlighting major conferences and events as places to launch them.

Thought leadership can also be won through good analyst relations. Every industry has industry followers. These are the (usually) impartial eyes and ears of any industry, and they gain respect and esteem because of that impartiality. A small company can seem like a much larger one by getting face time with key industry analysts and keeping their tanks filled with technical developments. Remember, they depend on you at least as much as you depend on them. Done and managed properly, it's a true symbiotic relationship.

One final area where thought leadership can yield green shoots is at trade shows and conferences. Buying a booth and exhibiting is easy. A much more powerful one-two punch occurs when you pair up a display with a presented paper. One helps the other, especially if you can talk about a technology in front of industry peers and colleagues upstairs while showing off your wares downstairs. You'll also notice that industry editors and analysts will crowd the conference sessions, because they know the heartbeat of any industry resides a bit more robustly there than it does on the show floor.