Don’t let your content mark the end of the road in the audience journey

[Jahangir655]

It is tempting to produce zeitgeisty thought leadership that provokes discussion about emerging topics, but what is it all for if it doesn’t go anywhere?

I recently advised caution to brands planning thought leadership campaigns that are focused solely on lead generation. These campaigns certainly can deliver leads, but they shouldn’t be considered in isolation. Instead, lay the brand-building groundwork with your content first – because a large proportion of your audience simply won’t be ready for a commercial conversation.

Brand-building campaigns, however, face a related challenge. At FT Longitude, we believe that the biggest benefits of thought leadership come from long-term brand-building. The best examples take a long view, and success is often measured over a period of years rather than months; it’s all about building momentum over time and influencing the audience to think differently about your brand or to associate it with a particular topic. Think through the entire audience journey.

Points of view with purpose
But that should not be an excuse to ignore business reality. There’s no point creating content that associates your list of jamaica cell phone numbers brand with an emerging topic without thinking through what that means for your business or creating a clear audience journey that leads back to what you do and the conversations you want to have.

There’s a common misperception that brand-building thought leadership should avoid being commercial. And we often see companies creating content that associates their brand with the latest management thinking but doesn’t link back to their business. So while the content might be interesting and spark conversations and press mentions, interest will quickly fizzle out – because there is no next step in the audience journey. The associations these companies have worked so hard to put in place between their brand and a cutting-edge topic simply wither away.