Thought leadership content 101: what, why, and how
Roisin Woolnough, Insights Media, explores the value of thought leadership content in marketing.
A new study from Insights Media shows what time-starved execs really want from thought leadership and shows content creators and marketers ways to cut through all of the thought-leadership noise to get noticed.
Ask for a word cloud on thought leadership content and these words should definitely be in it: engaging, credible and authentic; insights, data and research; expertise, knowledge and vision. And there’s more: timely, relevant and trends, analysis; solutions, sharing and perspective; quality, innovation and impact.
Senior execs spend an average of four hours a week consuming thought leadership content, according to research by FT Marketing Services. Some people, more than 25%, spend even longer each week, clocking up five hours or more.
“That’s a lot of people, often with very busy diaries and not enough hours in the day, committing a lot of time each week to thought leadership,” points out content marketer and head of content at Insights Media, Roisin Woolnough. “They must really think it’s worth it. And it is worth it, 100%, but only when it’s good quality, high impact content. There’s so much thought leadership being churned out, all the time, and the quality varies hugely. Half the time it isn’t real thought leadership at all, it’s opinion masquerading as thought leadership.”
Given that our organisation is called Insights Media, it should come as no surprise that we are big on insights,” adds Woolnough. “When creating thought leadership for organisations and individuals, we dig deep, using four sources of insights to inform the content we produce.”
Get the full study on thought leadership content from Insights Media: Thought leadership content 101: what, why, and how