Thought leadership

By Rachel Ainsworth.

In our recent survey of marketing and thought leadership professionals, we asked about the biggest challenges organisations face when it comes to producing an appropriate volume of high-quality thought leadership. When nearly 90% of respondents placed “measuring ROI” in their top three, we weren’t surprised. Many of our clients have shared with us their challenges around deciding what to measure, and then—in the complex real world—actually doing the measuring.

This is not a debate confined to the B2B environment. Altimeter in The 2016 state of digital content highlights the same conundrum and presents data from a survey of over 500 content strategists across an array of industry verticals:

By Rachel Ainsworth.

I know an author has succeeded in prompting me to think differently when I want to discuss the article or book with someone else. But the real test—and less than 1% of what I read passes this test—is when I (a frugal, clutter-hater) choose to order a hard copy of a book having read it initially on my Kindle, because I want to ensure that I keep returning to the key messages.

By Rachel Ainsworth.

I have to confess to having described, in some of my more confrontational moments, pieces of thought leadership as something that could have been produced by “any business-savvy intelligent person, locked in a cupboard with a desk and an internet connection”. However, having read Man v machine: can computers cook, write and paint better than us? in The Guardian’s weekend supplement, it seems the “person” element of my damning description is now defunct.