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For the past three years running, we’ve seen evidence that thought leadership marketing is at or very near the top of all B2B marketers’ agendas. With more B2B marketers, like Indium’s Rick Short, questioning the efficacy of advertising as their primary marketing promotions spend in a B2B context, we’re going to see more B2B marketers notch up their marketing strategy sophistication and pursue a well-integrated mix of thought leadership, content-centered promotion and social media with advertising repositioned to a more supportive role. Let’s have a look at how we got here.

In 2007, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) published the “12 Megatrends in B2B Marketing [PDF download]” and showcased the trend of “the shift to 360 degree thought leadership” as their #1 trend of the 12 for 2007 (and beyond). While they did not specifically ask “are you doing more thought leadership marketing”, their question focused on the value of various marketing activities, all of which happen to fall in the realm of thought leadership marketing, and thus pointed to the trend that we see manifesting today in B2B marketing. According to The Economist:

Today B2B providers view a broad array of sponsored programmes, such as conferences and white papers, as a valuable means of capturing attention and persuading decision makers.
This is not to say that traditional advertising has lost its appeal. Instead, the conclusion is that organizations seeking to promote their businesses are increasingly relying on a range of channels, including print.
Specifically, these cross-channel programmes engage, inform and motivate target markets across a broad range of both active (meetings, webcasts, user communities) and passive (print) promotional channels.
The way forward is clearly a heavier reliance on creating a programme of thought leadership that takes advantage of multiple-entry-point messaging.

The EIU came back again in 2008 with their report, “10 Megatrends in B2B Marketing 2008” [PDF download]. Once again, they touted thought leadership marketing by again placing #1 with the bold headline “Thought leadership becomes a top priority.” According to the researches at the EIU:

Thought leadership is fast becoming the most widely used B2B marketing practice. In last year’s B2B provider surveys, thought leadership was viewed as one of many important marketing techniques. However, in this year’s survey, thought leadership leaps ahead, ranking second only to building new business as a key B2B marketing objective. It overtakes many other traditional marketing objectives, such as building awareness of products and services or networking with senior executives.

Not only that, but this time they asked some very specific questions about the topic of thought leadership and backed it up with the following results:

As you can see, thought leadership and other elements that feed thought leadership lit up the top of the results board. But that’s not the end of it! When they asked actual clients (always a good thing to do, right…) or end users the question “What will be the best way for providers of B2B services to market to you in the next 3 to 5 years?” they got some very telling answers.
Even as recently as this past week in the UK at the IAB conference, Hanne Tuomisto-Inch, online communications director at Banner Corporation, was discussing the importance of positioning your brand as a thought leader …. something that Tuomisto-Inch feels is more important now than ever before.

According to Tuomisto-Inch, “It’s not about saying stuff louder and more often. This is the old marketing model. Old formulas don’t work in the digital world. What was missing was interaction, content and community. These are things we have to put into the B2B marketing models in 2009.”

Finally, the most recent research pointing to the shift toward thought leadership marketing in B2B comes from a newly released research report compiled by Go-To-Market Strategies stating that thought leadership trails just behind email as the area of most significant focus for B2B marketers in 2009.

At the end of the movie, the message is this. If you’re a B2B marketer, there’s never been a better time to pursue thought leadership (and social media, for that matter) as a valuable addition to your existing go-to-market strategy. No, not everyone will, can or wants to attempt to be a thought leader, but the rewards are significant for those that pursue this strategy.

Tags: economist, Thought Leadership, thought leadership marketing