Thought leadership is one of those terms that gets thrown around in B2B marketing. Often, it’s used as a synonym for the big idea stuff. The blue skies thinking about the future. And certainly, it can be that.
Perhaps a better way to think about thought leadership is that it is a strategy for building a brand around what you know more than what you sell.
This may be about what you know about the future of your market. But it could just as easily be around what you know about addressing a specific challenge that good-fit customers struggle with on a daily basis. Or it could be around reconceiving how customers think about your product set versus that of your competitors.
Core to thought leadership is making other customers think differently. Not just sharing information, anyone can do that. It’s about having a perspective that changes how buyers see a problem they thought they already understood.
The best thought leaders aren’t trying to be thought leaders. They’re just genuinely curious about something, think about it deeply, and share what they’ve learned in a way that clicks for customers. It’s less about establishing authority and more about being useful in a way that compounds over time.
Here’s what matters: when someone is deciding who to work with, they ask themselves, “Who really understands this?” Not, “Who has the best marketing?” or “Who sent me the most emails?”
B2B purchases are often high-cost and therefore considered high risk. Working with an expert who understands your issues and has done it all before is a way of de-risking the sale. We want to work with businesses that think deeply and clearly about the real-world problems we’re facing.
The numbers clearly demonstrate this works. Thought leadership has been shown to deliver an ROI of 156% versus 9-10% for typical marketing. (You can see further stats on the effectiveness of thought leadership throughout our site.)
At the core of thought leadership’s effectiveness is basic psychology. We trust businesses that teach us something valuable more than those who are simply trying to sell us something. Always have, always will.
B2B buyers spend an hour a week reading thought leadership because they’re looking for signal in a world of noise. (A world getting noisier by the minute as it is deluged in AI slop.) They want to feel like they’re making a smart decision, and learning from an expert helps.
Some of this comes down to semantics. Both terms are used and abused heavily by “influencers” and LinkedIn bros.
At the risk of oversimplifying things, content marketing tends to be, “Here’s why our product solves your problem.” Thought leadership is more, “Here’s how to think about your problem in a way you haven’t considered.”
One is transactional. The other is about fostering a relationship that might lead to a transaction later, or might just build trust that pays off in ways you can’t predict.
Content marketing tries to close a deal. Thought leadership tries to open a mind.
Of course, closing deals is a good thing, right? Of course. But bear in mind the 95:5 rule. On average, just 5% of B2B customers are in-market at any time. The vast majority just aren’t there yet, and may not be for months or years.
Add to this, Bain’s “Day One” research. This showed that around 90% of customers end up buying from a vendor they already knew before doing any research whatsoever.
The best part: thought leadership can both help close deals and build long-term brand equity. Everyone wins.
Fundamentally, thought leadership changes the question people ask from, “How much does this cost?” to “How do I work with these people?”
When you consistently share valuable ideas that solve real-world problems, three things happen. First, people remember you when they need what you offer (which may be months or years from now). Second, they trust you more because you’ve already helped them without asking for anything (this is called the “reciprocity bias”). Third, they’re willing to pay more because they see you as different from, and better than, everyone else.
A less obvious benefit? Good thought leadership attracts the kind of customers you actually want. People who value thinking, who see expertise as worth paying for, who want a partner instead of just a vendor.
Sales cycles become faster, negotiations smoother, and salespeople get to spend more time on customers who will actually convert.
We split this into four elements:
The best thought leadership often feels like someone finally said what you’ve been thinking but couldn’t articulate. Or it shows you something you’ve been looking at wrong for years.
It’s specific enough to be believable and general enough to be applicable.
Here’s what doesn’t work: generic advice, obvious observations, things that are only true in theory, and anything that reads like it was written by a committee (or, increasingly, AI).
People have good detectors for authentic versus manufactured. You can’t fake genuine expertise without getting caught at some point.
Knowing a lot and sharing what you know are different skills.
There are brilliant people who never become thought leaders because they keep their insights to themselves. Sometimes, they simply struggle to explain things in a way that resonates with others (from the inside of the jar, it’s difficult to read the label). And often, they are simply way too busy doing their day jobs to spend time creating high quality thought leadership content.
One other distinction we could make is that subject-matter experts answer questions, thought leaders make people ask better questions. Both are valuable. But one changes how customers and industries think.
Today, there are many, many ways to get thought leadership out into the world. From white papers and ebooks to blogs, pods and vids.
So which is best?
The real-world answer is: the format that allows you to explain your best idea most clearly and which matches the content preferences of your target audience.
Long articles work when you need space to develop an argument. Short posts work when you have one sharp insight. Research works when you’ve discovered something no one else knows (actually, done well, research works full stop). Stories work when you want people to remember something and empathise with your point of view.
The format matters far less than whether you have something worth saying. There have been LinkedIn posts that changed industries and 100-page reports that no one read. Start with your customers’ problems, develop the cut-through idea, then figure out how to share it.
We’re not going to lie: it’s tricky.
Thought leadership’s value compounds over time. While it will help close deals faster, real results are a long game.
Having said that, you can measure traction: how many people are reading your thought leadership content, how many of those turn into leads, how many of those become customers. That’s trackable.
But the harder stuff: how many deals closed faster because the buyer already trusted you? How many talented people joined your company because of your reputation? How much higher is your pricing because you’re seen as an expert? Those are real but fuzzy.
Ultimately, the best approach will be to measure what you can, but also trust that consistently helping people think better about their problems is never wasted effort. It compounds in ways spreadsheets can’t capture. And its effectiveness is supported by a pretty sizeable body of research.
Where do we start? Some to consider:
To be effective, your thought leadership strategy must flow from your overarching marketing strategy and the wider business strategy. Without this, chances are it’ll under-deliver. But say you have this in place…
Here are 8 steps to get you started:
In B2B, the glib answer is often LinkedIn. But that would leave a lot of value on the table.
The better answer is to go where your audience already is. This may be LinkedIn but it is just as likely to be niche communities, industry publications, must-attend events, specific podcasts, your own website and email lists, the list goes on.
Importantly, the ideal approach will be to use a recipe of tactics (we can help using our B2B Effectiveness Engine data). There is no one size-fits-all or single tactic that will magically do the job.
The reality today, however, is that most tactics and platforms are fundamentally pay-to-play. Organic reach is lovely, but you should view it as a bonus not the core of your approach.
Finally, be wary of building your brand on rented land. For example, if you have all your thought leadership eggs in LinkedIn’s basket, you’ll be subject to any changes they make to their algorithm or business model.
Well, it depends. Sorry.
Looking at it one way…
If we’re talking simply about the kind of ongoing blogging, article writing, posting, speaking approaches, a year of consistent focused effort should get your brand noticed by customers in your ICP. Two years gets you credibility. Five years makes you a reference point. Ten years makes you a legend (or nearly).
But here’s the thing: the compounding is non-linear. Your first year feels like shouting into the void. Year two feels slightly less lonely. Year three, things start clicking. Year five, opportunities come to you that you couldn’t have manufactured.
Most brands quit in year one because it feels like nothing is happening. But that’s when you’re building the foundation for everything that comes later. The ones who stick with it aren’t necessarily smarter, they’re just more patient.
But, but, but…
If we’re talking about a landmark piece of thought leadership, one that squarely hits on a burning hot topic and that’s supported by new, unique research findings, we can gain a massive head start. Even more so when backed by a smart distribution strategy with and a reasonable budget.
This kind of approach can radically accelerate the entire process. The problem? It costs more in the short term.
Thought leadership without data is simply informed opinion. With publically available data, it becomes opinion based on facts. With proprietary data, it can become a must-read source of the latest industry insights and the foundation for rethinking previously held beliefs.
Put another way, it’s the difference between saying, “We think this is true” and, “We know this is true because we checked.”
Original research is powerful because you’re not simply interpreting other people’s data (which has significant merits of its own), you’re creating new knowledge. That’s rare and valuable in a world of platitudes and second-hand opinion. It gives you something to say that no one else can say.
Primary research can also form a powerful platform for ongoing thought leadership. Repeat the study every year and you become the go-to people for customers who want to see how things are changing (and what they should be thinking about next). Well-designed research can be cut and diced in multiple ways. It can be revisited time and time again to inform further content. Publications love it. And it delivers an ownable source of IP.
There’s often the perception that thought leadership is simply a “top-of-funnel” approach. That it’s all about long-term brand building.
Back in the day, we thought this too. Until we did our own research that is.
Our B2B Effectiveness Engine data changed everything. Yes, thought leadership was #1 for brand building as suspected. However, it was also #1 for lead generation and #1 for demand generation too.
And it’s not just our data, research from Edelman and LinkedIn found:
It makes sense of course. Thought leadership pre-sells people on working with you before you ever talk to them.
Someone reads your content, has an “aha” moment and thinks “these people get it.” When they’re ready to buy, you’re already on a very short list (the Day One list that research shows, close ~90% of in-market deals).
The beautiful thing: because your thought leadership laid the foundations, the sales cycle becomes shorter. You’re no longer arguing about philosophy or convincing the customer you’re right. You’re just working out the details.
Even better? You’ll be better able to defend premium pricing and better terms.
First off, we don’t think you should create thought leadership simply to improve your rankings. Too many have gone down this route, compromising their content to stuff a bit more Googlejuice into every nook and cranny.
With the changes in search behaviour, fluxes in algorithms and the growing emergence of generative LLM search, relying solely on SEO is a fool’s errand.
But that’s not to say it’s unimportant.
The reality is, good thought leadership gets linked to.
When you write something genuinely insightful, with a different point of view, using unique data, other people reference it. Those links tell all the search engines you’re worth reading. The technical SEO stuff matters, but it’s secondary to writing things people actually want to share.
Because people will also share that content with other people. Other people who are more likely to be considering products and services like yours. And this kind of sharing generally flies under the radar (the Dark Social that gets talked about so often).
It’s a paradox. Optimising for search too much makes you less likely to say anything interesting enough to rank. Optimising for being useful makes you rank naturally. We’d say, focus on the second.
Now here’s a can of worms. Is AI a powerful tool? Yes, sometimes. Is it overhyped? Absolutely.
In our experience, AI is excellent at research but terrible at perspective. It’s good at analysing the old, bad at creating anything new.
The problem is, there’s no intelligence in artificial intelligence.
It can predict the next word with amazing skill (we’re talking LLMs here). But it can’t create fresh insights that sit outside its training data. It’s simply not what it was designed to do.
We use AI predominantly as a way to analyse large amounts of data and as a research tool. (Spoiler: we used it to help research and fashion the original list of questions for this FAQ.) Even then, when it comes to research we always chase down the original data. Those hallucinations can kill your credibility.
When it comes to writing, we never use it to originate thought leadership content for clients. It’s simply not up to the task. Although, it is a handy wingman when it comes to proofreading (as long as you know when to ignore it).
Some would say AI. It’s the answer to everything, right?
In reality, the answer is that it’s the same trend that’s always shaped thought leadership: people want authenticity of opinion and depth of expertise in a world of shallow noise. It’s just that now, it’s even more important in an environment typified by exponentially increasing AI slop.
The tactics change. Platforms and formats evolve. AI and other tools change workflows. But the fundamental desire to learn from someone who really understands your challenges and can clearly explain what really matters and how to make progress? That never changes.
If there’s a trend worth noting, it’s that audiences are getting better at detecting manufactured expertise. The bar for what counts as “thoughtful” is rising. That’s good news if you know your stuff and actually have something to say.
Great thought leadership can be polarising. Some people will love what you say and want to know more. Others will be turned off and eager to protect the way things have always been done.
In reality, having critics means people are paying attention. No critics means no one cares. At the end of the day, it’s better to be hated by half your audience than ignored by all of them.
It’s then up to you whether you engage with the criticism or take a don’t feed the trolls approach. That’s a judgement call.
True thought leadership isn’t easy. You can’t simply prompt your favourite AI and publish the results.
To get it right, you’ll need to:
The principles are universal. The specifics change.
In many ways, thought leadership is about telling a better story about the future. Sometimes that’s the immediate tomorrow. More likely, it’s about the coming months and years. Those stories are likely to be quite different if you are in technology, manufacturing or professional services.
In technology, for example, you’ll need to balance the desire for bright-eyed, blue sky thinking with the hype fatigue felt by many in the audience. Yes, you want to paint a picture of a better future, but chances are you’ll need to ground it in the real world of your customers if they are to truly engage.
In manufacturing, you’ll likely be talking to some of the most marketing-resistant people on the planet: engineers. You’ll need to back up what you say with specifics and data. Show don’t tell.
And in professional services you need to be prepared for the bar to be much, much higher. Every professional services firm creates what it thinks is thought leadership. Some of it is pretty good. But you’re competing with the Big Four, major consultancies, top universities and the likes of the Economist and Harvard Business Review for attention. It’s a big ask.
Having said all that, the mistake is thinking your industry is so unique that normal communication rules don’t apply. They do. Regardless of the specifics, the best thought leaders translate complexity into clarity, regardless of the field.
We need to separate this into two parts: the thinking and the execution.
High-quality thinking is the kind that makes your audience respond, “I never thought about it that way.” It helps readers and customers reframe a problem they are facing and shift their view point. The best thinking draws people in. It develops rapport.
All too often, people view thought leadership as an exercise in convincing others to change their minds. The reality is that it is more to do with walking a mile in their shoes and then gently leading them in a new direction (in neurolinguistic programming this is called “matching, pacing, leading”).
High-quality thinking will match and align with the customer’s perception of the world. It will move with at their pace, mirroring their focus and urgency. Finally, it’ll lead them to a new way of viewing their challenges and the possible solutions.
Then we come to execution.
Once you’ve got the thinking right, you need to express it in the right way to engage your audience. This will vary depending on whether you are talking to a company bookkeeper, an aerospace engineer or company CEO. However, you’ll want to be focused on a level of writing that wouldn’t feel out of place in a top business journal. It should be crafted but remain authentically human. It should use interesting structures, expressions and word choices but without showing off. It should flow. It must also look great (design matters) and be easy to navigate.
Ultimately, high-quality thought leadership should help people think differently and be motivated to do something different.
The simple answer is to focus on the questions you and your salespeople get asked most often. Or the misconceptions you see most frequently. Or the problems in your market or industry you find most interesting.
But that will only get you so far.
The better answer is to look for the issues that really matter to your customers. Ones that you have expertise in solving. And, importantly, ones which are relatively under-focused on in the wider market.
You want to create signal, not noise.
Then, you do the hard work of developing fresh angles, distinctive points of view and finding the data to support your strategy. You focus on a limited number of core topics (think three, not ten).
Avoid the temptation to write about everything. True depth in a few areas beats shallow coverage of many.
Let’s look at this in another way…
Research by Edelman and LinkedIn found that 70% of c-suite leaders say a piece of thought leadership has at least occasionally led them to question whether they should continue working with an existing supplier. Some 54% say the piece of thought leadership got them to realize there were other suppliers they could work with that had a better understanding of the challenges their organisation was facing. And 51% say a piece of thought leadership got them to realize that other suppliers were smarter or more visionary.
Now, if you’re the brand creating this kind of thought leadership for your own customers, they will be confident they’ve made a good choice. They will realise that yours is the brand that has the best understanding of their challenges. And they’ll see your business as the smarter, more visionary partner.
Add to this that great thought leadership can also create upsell and cross-sell opportunities as you expand out of the box customers may have you placed within. It can help them understand you have more to offer than the narrow range of products and services they already buy.
When customers see you as an expert, they don’t compare you to everyone else.
Pricing is always relative, of course. If you’re seen as a commodity, you are doomed to compete on price. If you’re seen as uniquely insightful, you’re in a different category. You’re not simply selling a product or service, you’re selling deep expertise, a unique perspective and out-sized outcomes.
The clearest proof: research from Edelman and LinkedIn found that 60% of c-suite execs and decision makers say that good thought leadership
makes them willing to pay a premium to work with that organisation.
Customers will pay more to work with a company they trust and can learn from. Thought leadership builds trust at scale. It’s a shortcut to a buying decision.
Here’s something interesting about thought leadership that most people miss: its real power isn’t just in winning clients or building a brand. It also pays dividends for employee engagement and your ability to hire top talent.
When a business and its leadership publicly champion bold ideas, it helps connect what employees do to something bigger than quarterly targets. They’re now part of a mission that matters. This sense of purpose is what separates people who show up from people who care.
Leaders who share insights openly and talk about industry challenges build credibility. Employees see this and think: “Maybe my ideas matter here too.” That trust is what lets people speak up, collaborate across departments and take creative risks.
Thought leadership also signals something else: this is a business that’s committed to learning. Companies that invest in sharing knowledge externally tend to invest in it internally too. Employees get training, experimentation and room to grow. The best people notice. And when they look to make a move, you’ll be high on their list.
Finally, there’s the cultural part of the picture. When leaders and the business regularly communicates core beliefs, inside and outside the company, everyone understands “this is how we do things here.” That clarity helps to hold a culture together, especially when everything else is changing.
Today, many individuals and businesses want to be thought leaders. While the reasons are sound, it’s led to a situation where shallow, noisy advice can drown out deep, quiet expertise.
The risk isn’t just wasted words, it’s lost meaning. People publishing for the sake of publishing, sharing ideas that are just derivative echoes.
The result? Audiences and algorithms tune out.
In the rush to come out on top, turf wars break out. People see being contrarian as a badge of honour and chase the next bright shiny thing – those that claimed to be social media experts and SEO experts back in the day become AI experts, agentic experts and GEO experts.
Ultimately, this endless swapping, changing and limelight chasing may be good for the dopamine rush of a viral post, but they’re counterproductive for building an enduring expertise-led brand. Bad thought leadership damages trust. When content is generic, too shouty or obviously a sales pitch, customers lose faith – “Oh,” they think, “you’re just one of them.”
The point isn’t to stop sharing ideas. Just remember, scarcity creates value. The more a company tries to be seen as all over the latest hype, the more it risks being seen as just another voice in the crowd.
No business has a monopoly on the truth. Sometimes things change. What was right yesterday is a not-so-sure today.
The danger is to be so paralysed by this that you never stick your head above the parapet. Better to be an anonymous follower than a mistaken leader.
This misses the point. While you shouldn’t change your thinking as often as you change your socks, you can evolve it over time. When times are uncertain or changing rapidly, instead of making bold claims, you can ask insightful questions. You can be the brand that hosts the conversation.
Disruption often reveals who’s been thinking deeply versus who’s been repeating conventional wisdom (or simply chasing clicks). The brands that maintain credibility are the ones who adapt their views as new information emerges. The ones that demonstrate that they can see the bigger picture and who can help customers navigate a way forward.
For the most part, this will not be a neat mathematical exercise. A well-established option is regular use of the Net Promoter Score (NPS). Timing this before and after major pieces if thought leadership will give you an inkling. But it’s nowhere near perfect.
You can run qualitative research. Ask people what they think before and after you publish something big. See if their words shift from sceptical to curious, or from curious to confident. Notice whether customers talk about your new ideas when they mention unrelated products. If enough start to say “I trust this business” about key real-world challenges, something’s happening.
You could also look to share of search around the key topics you want to be associated with. In many ways, this is likely to be the best proxy for identifying you’re making progress. Plus, a number of the main SEO tools now make this a relatively easy exercise.
Sadly, the halo effect is always messy, always softer than you’d like.
Ultimately, you’ll see the effect in becoming one of the default choices for customers when they look to solve the challenges you talk about. But attribution is likely to be fuzzy.
On a basic level, great thought leadership gives influencers and analysts something worth talking about.
Often, the best organic “influencer strategy” is creating insights that influencers naturally want to reference. If you publish genuinely useful research or perspectives, people with audiences will share it. Not because you paid them, but because it makes them look smart to their audience.
Trying to manufacture this through relationships and payments works sometimes. But nothing beats being legitimately worth paying attention to.
Analysts will poke and prod your thinking, testing whether it stands on its own – that’s their job. But as with so many areas of marketing, this shows you’re being paid attention to. When they are being pitched yet another AI-powered-zammowidget, a well-researched piece of thought leadership can be like a breath of fresh air.
Analysts show you what’s real, influencers show you who cares, but thought leadership is what gives them something to talk about in the first place.
Jason Ball is the founder and managing director at Considered. With a multi-decade career in B2B marketing, he’s worked with world-leading brands such as Adobe, Google, EY and Cisco together with niche specialists in technology, manufacturing and professional services.