One of our agency’s speciality areas is building thought leadership for speakers, authors and brands.
But how? Here’s some insight into our process:
There are a few key aspects we look at right off the bat—namely, client objectives (the why factor), the audience you want to target and build (which helps to inform the media outlets and channels we target), the environment the thought leader is operating in (how can we be unique?), and what their key messages and calls to action for their audiences are (essentially, what do you want them to do?).
After a thorough understanding of these areas, it is then about crafting a plan of attack. This plan may include tactics such as: leveraging the expert’s existing content and “news hijacking” to amass media coverage, exploiting successful case studies with interesting hooks and angles, and announcing any key business milestones.
A vital asset for Agent99 in our endeavours has been creating owned research for the client as a means of creating news hooks and unique content.
How does research help in the realm of thought leadership, you may ask?
Having owned research allows our team to reverse-engineer the sorts of headlines and consumer insights media craves, and angles that they have not explored in the past within the expert’s field. The research also builds credibility by enhancing a company’s image as having its ‘finger on the pulse’ in line with issues and ideas that people are currently discussing.
And contrary to most people’s understanding of research, it’s neither costly, nor does it take long to turn around. We achieve robust research initiatives with a budget of $5k-$10K depending on sample size and specific audience, and we can have the results within 1-2 weeks.
The content, which forms the basis to the stories we create, are oftentimes picked up by top tier mainstream media with quotes from and profiling opportunities for our clients. Once it has run in media, clients repurpose the content for many uses including white papers, social media posts, and event presentations.
Establishing the significance of being “media worthy” and “media ready.”
In order to be media worthy, you must be an expert or specialist in at least one topic or field. That way, media can be genuinely interested in hearing about your content ideas that appeal to the audience in your arena.
With this expertise, you can also once again hijack the narrative by either responding to breaking news with a new opinion in mind, or by timing the news with a key calendar date, such as “International Women’s Day” if your area might be diversity in the workplace, for example.
In terms of being media ready, you know you are there when you can provide organic content that still allows you to get your key messages across, and you can do so with ease. Do not sacrifice your message for the sake of pleasing the media outlet; sticking to the point (whilst still promoting yourself diplomatically) ensures that media will continue to come back to you for future opportunities. To that end, if you are in need of media training, we offer full and half day courses. Please visit this page for more info.
Some PR trade secrets…
- Leverage every single piece of content you have, and amplify as much as possible, through as many channels that touch your audience.
- Building up a great deal of content over time also allows you to repurpose the research as blog posts, EDMs, white papers, social media posts, key note speeches, or potentially as a book concept.
General advice for success in thought leadership…
- Focus on your long-term goals, and never lose sight of them.
- Make use of a source like Google analytics; have the data to support your findings and to track success.
- Take advantage of speaking engagements and events to achieve your goals more immediately.
If you’d like to build your thought leadership, we’d love to hear from you. Please get in touch at sharon@agent99pr.com.
Agent Sharon
