Friday 24th Aug, 2018
By Rachel Ainsworth.
I bought a new house recently, and the process of having it refurbished has made me a perfect target for cross-selling. The hard floors in the hallway? Fitted by the same firm that provided the carpets in the lounge. The tiling in the bathrooms? Provided by the same guy who carefully fitted new doors throughout. Our new oven? Bought from our go-to department store.
Could I have sourced what I needed more cheaply? No doubt. Would the end result have been as good? I don’t know. For all the decisions above, and many more, it was easy to go with the tried-and-tested option, with people I’d already had a good experience working with. And consulting projects are no different.
However, in making the decision to cross-buy, I did need to know that this other product or service was on offer, and I did need to be confident that the firm was as proficient in this new area as it was in the area of my original purchase. Buyers of consulting services are no different. And most of them are influenced by thought leadership.1 Could your firm be doing more with thought leadership to let previous buyers know what else you have on offer, and to convince them of your expertise in this as yet untested area?
Thursday 15th Feb, 2018
By Rachel Ainsworth
Have you heard: The average attention span is down from 12 seconds in the year 2000 to eight seconds now? That is less than the nine-second attention span of your average goldfish.
The dissemination of this somewhat alarming data can be tracked back to a Microsoft report published in 2015 which has been the catalyst for articles in a range of illustrious publications including Time magazine, The Telegraph, and The New York Times, and continues to be quoted. The falling attention span sounds intuitively correct. And the comparison with the lowly goldfish makes for an attention-grabbing and memorable statistic.
Some professional services firms appear to have responded to the falling attention span, shifting some—if not all—thought leadership from chunky publications to much lighter articles online. See, for example, EY’s Building a better working world, or The Boston Consulting Group’s (BCG’s) much greater use of short pieces on BCG.com compared to its portfolio of content previously published on BCG Perspectives.
Thursday 10th Nov, 2016
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:
Tuesday 4th Oct, 2016
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.
Monday 13th Jun, 2016
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.
Thursday 25th Feb, 2016
By Fiona Czerniawska.
Why professional services firms shouldn’t outsource thought leadership. This morning I saw an advert, targeted directly at consulting firms, offering a thought leadership creation service. The organisation behind the advert claims to be able to create the quality of content you need when you need it; you can even buy credits to redeem as required. We may have misunderstood. Possibly you can’t simply say, “Give me something on digital to appeal to CMOs in Australia,” and hand over ten credits in return for a PDF and some social media-friendly infographics. But it does highlight something that has been niggling away in the back of our minds: the risk of professional services firms forgetting that you’re not just any kind of B2B firm. You’re the kind of B2B firm that is selling the experience and expertise of its people. So, while it may be absolutely fine for a software firm (selling software) to outsource its thought leadership, it’s really not sensible for a consulting firm (selling the experience and expertise of its employees) to do the same.
Wednesday 3rd Feb, 2016
By Fiona Czerniawska The criteria we use to assess the quality of thought leadership – Is it saying something new? Does it attract and keep your attention? Is it credible? Does it provide some practical guidance? – were all originally designed to reflect the experience of the clients at whom it’s aimed. Similarly, all of the research we’ve been doing recently around the impact thought leadership is (or isn’t) having has been focused on understanding how external clients react.
Thursday 8th Oct, 2015
Thought leadership is an important part of the marketing mix for many B2B organisations so it's not surprising that, in organisations where great content isn't being created by other people, marketing teams take the driving seat. But while this level of involvement of marketing teams is understandable it can cause problems: for example, in our experience marketing teams usually recognise the need to get subject matter experts involved but often struggle to get more than a one-off interview with a smattering of consultants. And the process is usually evident in the end product. Signs include:
Wednesday 13th May, 2015
“The Apple what?” asks the sales assistant, blankly. “The Apple Watch” I offer, assuming he misheard me. I am in the Apple store, after all. “Apple doesn’t make any watches as far as I’m aware,” he says, apparently not having misheard. “Oh. But when I was in your store in London they told me…” “Would you be interested in having a look at the new iPhone 4”, he interjects, trying to be helpful. “The iPhone 4?” I ask, confused. “I thought that was old. Aren’t we on the iPhone 6 now?”
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