10 Reasons Your 2020 Content Marketing Strategy Needs Strategic Thought Leadership

Chris McNeil
Jan 26 · 4 min read

Strategic Thought Leadership offers a robust Content Marketing Strategy that can move the mind of a marketplace.

Ever read, “Be a thought leader!” and wonder What exactly do they mean by that?

Let’s consider a more empowering model of Thought Leadership Marketing.

Chess as example of dynamic complexity requiring strategy
Chess as example of dynamic complexity requiring strategy

Strategic Thought Leadership is more about the leadership itself. It isn’t sensitive to how big a name you are or how well known your company is. If you, your company, or you client influences just one person’s thinking, then you are doing thought leadership.

As a structured Content Marketing Strategy, Strategic Thought Leadership Marketing positively impacts marketplace thinking, leading your audience to embrace the uniqueness of your offering above all alternatives.

There are many advantages to building your content this way. Here are 10:

1. Strategic Thought Leadership brings a focus on quality content as opposed to the all-too-prevalent mass fluff production.

It’s not about how much content you output, it’s about how well it leads the marketplace to think differently.

Strategic Thought Leadership content isn’t just about leading prospects to the next conversion step: It leads to inventing a new direction of steps to new ways of thinking that embrace your offering above all others.

So each content piece is assigned a clear purpose to positively influence marketplace thinking a specific way. And doesn’t it show more confidence as a brand to respect your prospects’ time and attention with the high quality content that results from giving it this kind of attention?

And, speaking of respecting your prospects’ time and attention, …

2. Putting your audience’s learning needs first leads to long term customer relationships built on trust.

Trust comes naturally with Strategic Thought Leadership Marketing, which aims to serve prospects’ learning needs. This contrasts especially with targeted online advertising.

It’s not about the clicks on a targeted ad, it’s about the higher profits that come from developing long-term relationships based on trust by putting prospective customers first. Instead of targeting them, you target what they want.

Some say data drives results but data also can drive detachment and can cost empathy for the customer perspective resulting in a negative brand impression. Data measured from their point of view, though, as Strategic Thought Leadership encourages, gives the numbers greater meaning and power.

And, even if you are already working from the more customer-centered inbound marketing model, …

3. Strategic Thought Leadership avoids the Parrot Content Trap.

Nearly every company is pumping out web content. Most is fluff.

Joe Pullizi of the Content Marketing Institute says “(repetition is the) one thing … killing content marketing and everyone is ignoring it”.

91% of B2B companies are using content marketing and 60% of marketers are creating at least one piece of content a day. With web content piling up at such an alarming rate, build content based on new thinking rather than adding to the huge, steaming pile of sameness that is the current state of most inbound marketing. And, fortunately, …

4. Leading the market to new thinking can be easier than trying to outwork the competition in content production.

A shark continues moving or dies. The thinking of the marketplace is moving also and you can either participate in guiding the movement or it’s likely you’ll sink as well.

Simply working harder to create more parrot content can be like trying to chop down the mightiest tree in the forest with a specimen of clupea harengus. It can create fatigue and frustration if it doesn’t resonate with your audience. And repli-content smells a little fishy.

Conversely, strategically leading the marketplace to new territory brings the relief of saving wasted effort and the excitement of faster results. It feels good because every step helps empower the prospect. And if you feel that’s going out on a limb, consider …

Click to continue …

Written by Chris McNeil
Founder of
Thaut and 5th Level Web


Originally published at https://thaut.io.

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade