Paul M. Kaplan - Essentials of Thought Leadership and Content Marketing: Boost Your Brand, Increase Your Market Share, and Generate Qualified Leads

ESSENTIALS OF THOUGHT LEADERSHIP & CONTENT MARKETING

BOOST YOUR BRAND, INCREASE YOUR MARKET SHARE, AND GENERATE QUALIFIED LEADS

Paul M. Kaplan

Essentials of Thought Leadership and Content Marketing

Copyright 2020 by Paul M. Kaplan. All rights reserved.

Original illustrations by Robert Pizzo.

All adapted material reproduced by permission.

Published by Quill Driver Books

An imprint of Linden Publishing

2006 South Mary Street, Fresno, California 93721

(559) 233-6633 / (800) 345-4447

QuillDriverBooks.com

Quill Driver Books and Colophon are trademarks of Linden Publishing, Inc.

ISBN 978-1-61035-316-8

135798642

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file.

For my twin brother, Andrew Kaplan, a communications professional at the U.S. Justice Department

Contents

Acknowledgments

Id like to thank everyone I interviewed for this book, including Rob Leavitt at ITSMA, Tim Parker at the Bloom Group, Bonnie Kintzer, Rich Sutton at Trusted Media Brands Inc., and Amy Stein-Milford and Hanna Griff at the Museum at Eldridge Street. I also thank the research library staff at Harvard Business School, the faculty at the Yale School of Management, and Christine Kasman at the Yale Club library. Im also grateful to these organizations for sharing their reports and decks for inclusion in this book.

A project as intensive as this is better served with the support of family and friends. I am thankful to my parents Jack and Eileen, brother Andrew Kaplan, uncle Ted Katz, and cousins Diane and Ed Ziegman, Robert and Jane Katz, David Allon, Daphne Balick, and Mango and Willow Ziegman. Thanks to Karen and Deha Rozanesmay this book serve as an inspiration to my nephews Kyle and Julian Rozanes when they start their careers in years to come.

I wish to also thank friends, including Barney Pearson, Jiyoung Cha, Jacob Koskimaki, Josh Brook, and Sharon Goldman for their support. I also am thankful for the encouragement of other friends: Christine Allers, Alfred Robert Hogan, Yan Ma, Sumesh Madan, Angela Pruitt, Karen Seiger, and Felix Kaplan. I thank Martha Soffer for her friendship and copy editing advice.

I also acknowledge the support from colleagues, professors, consultants, and managers at various jobs that I have held over the years for their insights and teaching in the digital marketing space.

Finally, many thanks to my publisher Kent Sorsky and publicity and marketing director Jaguar Bennett at Linden Publishing / Quill Driver Books for their advice and guidance throughout the process.

Introduction

Content marketing and thought leadership are terms that are frequently tossed around at companies, but often without defining them precisely or creating a rigorous system for producing and publicizing content marketing and measuring its results. Some books discuss how to create content marketing. Others are about marketing automation. Still others focus on customer relationship management tools. Few books put the pieces together.

Thats where this book comes in. It connects the dots. To get the most out of it, though, I suggest that you read the book sequentially. Dont skip around or just read the chapter that seems most relevant. The book has a narrative. It begins by looking at how to develop a robust content marketing strategy. It shows how you can research your customers needs and identify your companys areas of expertise. It then looks at how to bring this content to market through a variety of channels. These include email, social media, paid social media, and web marketing. It identifies best practices in developing a campaign landing page and explains how to draw in new users, as well as ways to pitch your most promising thought leadership to the media.

The book then examines how to turn campaign responders into leads through scoring, grading, and tracking them with campaign automation tools. Next it looks at ways to route leads to sales effectively and tools for sales enablement. Finally, the book suggests how to measure your results and report them to senior management.

Peppered throughout the book are primary interviews that I conducted with business leaders, thought leadership consulting companies, and business academics. I also interviewed business-to-business (American Express OPEN, IBM), consumer (Whole Foods), and nonprofit organizations (Museum at Eldridge Street) as mini-profiles for using content marketing.

In addition, there are visual representations of concepts throughout the chapters. These include models referenced, metric dashboards, infographics, survey findings from research companies, and screenshots.

I wrote this book for a wide audience, including marketers at consumer or business-to-business companies considering content marketing, as well as staff at agencies, consulting firms, and ad-tech firms, and freelance consultants advising their clients. The book is also relevant for entrepreneurs looking to grow their businesses. The content applies to both large and small for-profit and nonprofit organizations.

Visit my website at paulkaplanauthor.com to learn more and to leave comments.

Enjoy the book.

Section One

Developing a Thought Leadership and Content Strategy

What Content Marketing Can Do for You

In this chapter:

What content marketing doesand what it can do for you

Definition of content marketing and thought leadership

How thought leadership educates buyers

How thought leadership relates to the rest of your content marketing

Content and inbound marketing simultaneously solve three of every marketers knottiest problems: generating leads, qualifying potential clients, and educating buyers about your products and services. Effective content marketing brings customers to you, because buyers self-select through their interest in the content you provide. Well-targeted content marketing screens out unqualified buyers by addressing the specific problems your company solves. Most important, content marketing educates buyers about the best solution for their needsallowing you to influence how clients evaluate possible solutions.

The Content Marketing Institute defines content marketing as a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audienceand, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action. This approach usually involves a long-term commitment to producing, sharing, promoting, and improving online materials that create prospect or customer interest in the companys products or services.

Importantly, content marketing, for the most part, does not try to promote the products themselves. The purpose is to build a companys brand and enlighten, educate, or entertain prospects and customers. Typically, companies use online channels such as social media, blogs, videos, games, polling, or interactive web pages. In some cases, companies conduct content marketing in their stores or at other events. The business goal is ultimately to increase customer acquisition, spend, and retention. Examples may be a recipe from a food store, advice from a tool manufacturer, or trends on retirement from a financial planner.

Thought leadership, the highest strategic level of content marketing

Thought leadership is a subsection of content marketing. At its best, thought leadership brings a fresh perspective to the marketplace on a particular issue. For example, it may explain the effect of a regulation or a market shift. Besides outlining the situation, excellent thought leadership will chart a course of action. Its not enough to define the problem or issue; thought leadership should guide the reader. The most helpful thought leadership also offers commercial insights so readers can see how to improve their businesses. Ultimately, the value of thought leadership is the value it brings to readers organizations. Channels for thought leadership engagement usually include blogs, videos, social media, influencer blogs, tweets, pitches to media, and industry events and conferences.