Decoding the Myth of Data-Driven Objectivity

Relying on data is often nothing more than outsourcing your subjectivity. Data doesn’t say anything. People say things. Saying things takes sense-making. Sense depends on human context.

The Power of Thought Leadership for High-Stakes Decisions

One thing B2B marketers often get wrong—they use generic, mass-market tactics for small-to-mid-sized businesses when their buyers are large enterprises. They put traffic ahead of trust. This mistake seems more common among smaller and newer providers, but it happens elsewhere, too. The thing is, the buying decision for a high-stakes, high-ticket purchase doesn’t work like […]

Breaking Free from the Commodity Box

So many thought leadership efforts get stuck in the commodity box. So how can they break out and keep out? First, focus on insight. Make sure you’re not just creating safe or informational content. It’s easy, but low value. Instead, help people rethink an issue. Next, make your POV personal. The best thought leadership shares […]

Beyond Metrics, Embracing Conversations

Here’s my challenge to you as you think about how to measure thought leadership outcomes in 2024. Stop focusing on metrics like views, clicks, likes, and leads. Stop worrying about SEO. Instead, start having conversations. Ask your sales team, “Did you use this in a meeting? How did it help you? What else would help […]

A Strategic Roadmap for Marketers

Marketers can take a practical step towards building 2024 thought leadership TODAY with one simple action. Schedule a 30-minute call with client-facing subject-matter experts. If you don’t have names, find them out. The agenda is to ask them about what questions clients have started asking lately and what trends they see emerging. Develop and share […]

2024 Thought Leadership Strategy

Here we are in September, and yes, it is time to start planning your approach to thought leadership in 2024. I’ve noticed companies that don’t have a plan in place before the start of the year tend to get stuck and not produce anything until much later in the year. Companies with a plan in […]

The Power of High-Value Thought Leadership in B2B

If you think about spending $200K to develop one major anchor piece of thought leadership, your immediate reaction might be that it’s far too expensive. On the surface, it may sound egregious. Who has budgets like that? Very few. On the other hand, in certain B2B categories and segments (high-trust, high-ticket products and services), if […]

From ‘Demand’ to ‘Delight’: Transforming Your Marketing Paradigm

Everything changes when you realize that “demand” is just an anagram for “damned.” Many marketers (maybe most) live in a world of pain and demand and targeting. These are the actual words used. Ok, “but they are just metaphors.” There’s no such thing as just a metaphor, my friends. If you can get your marketing […]

Unpacking the Implications of the ‘Fill the Container’ Mentality

We call it “content” because we inhabit a world where we fill the databases and filesystems that were designed for us. And at some point, it became our job as “content creators” to fill those containers. It seems as natural as calling one of those several things that hold up a table a leg. The […]

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