Thought Leadership Tips for Lead Generation

Over time you’ve probably read many different articles on what it means to be a thought leader and how to establish yourself as one in regards to product delivery, lead nurturing, and search engine marketing. You’ve likely been shown how this takes passion, market relevance, and reach.

Exposing your target audience to you and your brand in appropriate and relevant ways grows your reputation as a thought leader. The standard approach to establishing your name within your industry includes publishing free content through blogs, social media, industry publications, videos, podcasts, and white papers; writing books on your niche or expertise; and trying to find new and controversial viewpoints that you’re willing to put out there and defend at every opportunity, such as by speaking at conferences and doing interviews with industry media publications.

Specific Tips for Lead Generation

But what about developing and using your thought leadership for lead generation? Here are a few tips to keep in mind for this mission in particular:

Segment, segment, segment. This means not blasting your entire database with every email. Segment your lists based on title, geographic location, or behavior activity (webinar attendees, white paper downloads, web visitors, etc). Know your audience!
Be relevant and target the engaged. Sending relevant content to your most engaged contacts will result in higher conversion rates.
Test, test, test. If you’ve heard this once, you’ve heard it a thousand times. Test different aspects of your promotion. For instance, with an email, test the subject line, personalization, layout (HTML vs. text or button placement), and content. What your audience reacts to might surprise you.
Social media and SEM. Integrate social media and search engine marketing into your marketing strategies to help drive traffic to your site.
Lead gen isn’t just about quantity, it’s about quality. Lead quality requires finding the right buyers at the right time. According to MarketingSherpa, “on average, organizations that nurture their leads experience a 45% lift in lead generation ROI over those organizations that do not.”
Be innovative. Don’t adhere to the status quo. Few people become thought leaders by propping up the current market situation. So you should also be innovative in all aspects of lead generation. Ask yourself: Is there a better way to target your audience? Is there a better way to build a form? Is there a unique message or content or type of asset that resonates with your reader? What analysis can you do to better achieve your goals?

Finally, and most importantly, help others by sharing your experience. This will not only build them up and further establish you as a thought leader, it will also build your brand and that of your company’s.

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