Today’s post comes from Josh Inglis, founder and principal of Propllr.
It’s not your imagination: SEO has been getting harder for years – especially for B2B brands. Ever-more crowded SERPs, zero-click results, and now the Search Generative Experience (shudder) have squeezed B2B startups. Heck, they’ve squeezed everyone.
But there’s still value in publishing online. A lot, in fact. The key is to focus your efforts not solely on driving traffic to your site but on establishing credibility and authority, building momentum, and educating your audience.
While traditional “SEO content” won’t help you with those, thought leadership will. Here, I’ll explain how B2B brands can focus their online publishing efforts on the things most likely to drive ROI.
Background: What I Mean by “Thought Leadership”
When I say “thought leadership,” I mean opinionated and insight-driven ideas from experts in your organization. These ideas don’t have to be controversial, per se, but you have to take a side. Expect plenty of people to disagree.
You can also expect plenty of people to agree with you. Passionately.
And when these people come across your ideas, they will say, “Yes!” Or they’ll do the digital equivalent: They’ll like your LinkedIn post. Forward your newsletter to their colleagues. Google your company to learn more.
Each of these activities expands your universe of influence: that LinkedIn reaction brings your post to new timelines. The forward lands your name in new inboxes. The online search brings your website and all its information to a new potential customer.
Logistically, when I say “thought leadership,” I mean ideas presented in formats like…
- Contributed articles in media outlets.
- SME appearances on podcasts.
- SME quotes as expert sources in reported articles.
- Etc.
Let’s take a look at how these kinds of thought leadership can drive growth by establishing credibility and authority, demonstrating momentum, and educating your target audiences.
Objective 1: Build Credibility and Authority
You’ve probably seen the Gartner stat that B2B buyers spend more than 80 percent of their buying journey not talking to salespeople. Even more relevant: more than a quarter of their total buying time is spent doing independent online research.
But here’s where SEO can get you into trouble: even if you manage to score those ever-rarer SEO wins, the content that ranks may not be the content that resonates with B2B buyers – aka the people whose problems have pushed them to the point that they’re undertaking what’s likely a months-long buying process.
That’s because content that wins in search is too often optimized only for search. When your potential customers find it, it may leave them cold.
Enter thought leadership.
Regardless of format, thought leadership content is optimized for human engagement. It provokes that aforementioned “Yes!” response (or at least a “Hmm,” or an “I had no idea!”).
By demonstrating that your internal experts have thought deeply about the problems keeping your customers up at night – and that they have a clear point of view on how to solve those problems – you automatically boost your brand’s credibility and your SMEs’ authority.
In the right context, thought leadership can also do more.
A big part of B2B PR is the “contributed article” – often a piece bylined by one of your SMEs for publication in a media outlet. This adds an additional hit of credibility and authority because your idea had to pass muster with an editor who’s deeply familiar with the industry. That third-party validation is why we trust Consumer Reports and Wirecutter more than a Super Bowl ad.
Plus, publishing your thoughts with a third party means you get them in front of an audience beyond what you already “own.”
Don’t have a PR program in place? It’s possible to achieve something similar by posting to LinkedIn (you can also hit us up for some free advice). As your prospects see people in their networks engaging with your content, your credibility soars. If what you say resonates with these prospects, your authority increases as well.
Objective 2: Create a Sense of Momentum
News coverage doesn’t happen on its own for most startups.
And yet, sometimes you come across a startup that just seems to be everywhere. You read about them in an industry newsletter one day, then see colleagues engaging with their CTO on LinkedIn the next. They win an industry award you meant to apply for. Their CISO is on a podcast you love.
What’s their secret?
Usually, it’s not that they’re releasing new products or features all the time. It’s much more likely they’ve decided to invest in maintaining relationships with folks in the media and in capturing and distributing their thought leaders’ ideas.
This isn’t to say these startups are creating only an illusion of momentum. Rather, they’re using thought leadership as a way of demonstrating to people outside the company how much is going on internally – something that’s otherwise totally invisible.
How can you create the same sense of momentum for external audiences? Four key tactics:
- Build relationships with reporters, editors, and hosts. Make sure they know what expertise your SMEs have and that your SMEs are available as sources in reported pieces.
- Pitch and publish your thought leadership in earned channels via contributed articles, podcasts, etc. With the unfortunate layoffs in many media organizations right now, many publications are hungry for thoughtful, relevant content.
- Rethink “news.” Press releases shouldn’t be the main drivers of your PR efforts, but they can be a great supplement. Consider announcing R&D milestones, new hires, new clients, new partnerships, award wins, etc.
- Publish and distribute thought leadership on owned channels: social media, blogs, etc. You have something to say and you have complete control over the message in these formats. Use that to your advantage. This content can also bolster your pitches: demonstrating your SMEs have something to say can help their commentary get picked up in media outlets.
Collectively, these tactics increase the odds that your message reaches the ears of your prospective customers, investors, partners, and employees.
Objective 3: Educate Your Audience
Every audience needs some education, but the type and nature of that education can vary greatly. It will also vary depending on your market’s overall sophistication (think: the difference between selling EVs vs. gas-powered cars).
This seems simple on its face, but it’s an important thing to engage with before asking SMEs to create educational materials. This is true for three reasons:
- SMEs are busy. Preparing them means you’ll be able to use their time – and their insights – more effectively.
- SMEs often have such deep expertise they struggle to explain things to an unfamiliar audience. They may need help crafting messaging that draws in non-expert audiences.
- What matters most for an investor audience usually differs from what matters to customers, partners or employees. Depending on the context, you’ll need to make sure SMEs are framing their messages appropriately.
Also important for educational thought leadership: repeat, repeat, repeat.
The idea that’s been common knowledge to your SME for a decade is new to some people in their audience. Those people will need to hear it 10 times before it sticks. With educational messaging, don’t move on to the next thing too quickly. Make sure you weave core messages into every communication.
Thought leaders can be resistant to repetition because they may feel like they “already said it.” It becomes crucially important, then, to educate them on the benefits of expanding your digital footprint: the more places your core messages appear, the more likely it is that a potential customer will see them.
SEO Is Good Manners. Thought Leadership Holds Your Place Online
A CMO I talked to last week mentioned that a lot of leaders he’s worked with underestimate how hard it is to get value from SEO – especially for B2B brands.
I’d take that a step further: SEO is tricky because it’s table stakes. It’s good manners. Today, good UX is a part of SEO. If you’re not doing the basics – if you don’t have good “online manners” – you’re going to lose people over it. At the same time, SEO is no longer a viable primary lead gen strategy for most B2B brands.
The more powerful lever in online publishing today is thought leadership. Capture your SMEs’ original thoughts and distribute them in places where your audience is likely to be, and you’ll provoke the emotional responses that translate to lasting connections – and, ultimately, sales.
About the author
Josh Inglis, a Business Insider Top People in Tech PR, is the founder and principal of Propllr, a PR and content marketing firm that helps B2B technology companies gain authority and credibility with key audiences.
