Comment pouvez-vous mesurer l’impact de votre leadership éclairé sur votre marque?

The fastest way to understand thought leadership - influence and leave an impact without throwing a sales pitch. All other goals are just passive outcomes. However, leaders should be clear in their mind, whom to influence, to what extent and what to expect in return. I normally consider incoming questions and sessions on key subjects as the primary KPI.

In this day and age of incessant distractions and increasing number of "thought leaders", it is super important to understand who are you trying to lead and what are your thoughts! And it starts by assuming that your target audience is constantly overwhelmed and distracted so I have personally evolved the most by keeping that front and center! The thoughts are the next piece - Why, How and What. - Why are your thoughts of value? Social Proof, Credibility, Wins (and Losses) - How do you convey these thoughts? Livestreams, articles, videos .. - What - And finally what are these thoughts anyway! -

There are many different measures you can use to track the impact your thought leadership content has on your brand. The most important thing is picking a small number (no more than 3) of strategic KPIs best aligned with your brand's objectives. You need to get buy-in early on with any thought leadership campaign because you need to be realistic with your stakeholders on timeframes. A quality thought leadership campaign has to be measured over 6-12 months.

Basically, I would differentiate between quality and quantity KPIs. Look at how your thought leadership content is performing across platforms. Are people liking it, sharing it, and commenting on it? High engagement often correlates with influence. Possible KPIs: Engagement metrics include website traffic, lead generation, SEO rankings, media mentions, and sales metrics. For qualitative measures, I suggest working with audience feedback, employee advocacy, and peer recognition as well. That is, are other thought leaders in your field recognizing your contributions? Peer validation can be a strong indicator of the quality and impact of your content.

Always begin with designing a funnel; a thought leadership funnel. measure the attrition rate of the incoming traffic (audience) at every level. If PR is integrated in your thought leadership strategy then the number of organic (non-sponsored) invitations for interviews, podcasts, keynote sessions and other engagement activities are a good metric.

As B2B marketers, we have access to almost unlimited data to track and measure whatever key KPIs we want. But this can lead to data blindness, as it gives you information about the "what" but not the "why". It's important to look for ways to get qualitative feedback to support your quantitative data. Use surveys and audience listening sessions to understand how your Thought Leadership content is landing and what else you may need to explore to make it even more relevant.

The truth is, it is hard to measure ROI for thought leadership as the goal is not to sell, but to share, inspire, and teach. It takes years to see traction and to be accepted as a thought leader. Social media analytics can guide you on the type of content to write but in the end, these are vanity metrics. Once accepted as an expert, the closest way to measure ROI would be to see how your network has grown and how many people refer you to others. And from these introductions, how many new clients do you get?

Based on the outcomes, I always recommend drawing a 'T-Shaped' analysis of all the skills involved in the thought leadership campaign. Skills, campaigns or activities that have shown the best results are positioned at the vertical bar of the 'T' while others can be positioned at the horizontal bar.

It's vital to analyse and optimise over time, but it's also important not to do it too early in the process. If you've laid the right foundations for your Thought Leadership campaign: • Listened to your customers • Alligned your objectives • Created a strategic content plan • Clear on how your measuring and why Then you should be confident in your approach for at least 3 months. Optimising before that time (unless something has gone badly wrong) means that you won't have a full picture of the efficacy of your campaign. It's important to have patience and confidence in your approach, and that's also why stakeholder management is so important.

A Thought Leadership strategy involves many moving parts over a long time frame. That's why, from the outset, you need two things to be clear: • A strategic stakeholder management plan - whom do you need to influence, and how can you best influence them? Some will involve more of an education approach; others will get it but might need hand-holding. • What's the story we're trying to tell? This needs to be a compelling narrative that aligns all stakeholders behind your strategy. If you've considered these two points then showcasing your impact at the end will feel like a culmination of a narrative you've already prepared your stakeholders for. Thought leadership content should feel like a partnership, not a transaction.

Note this down - the MOSCOW analysis of the campaign that lets your prioritise appropriately and set the right expectations. MO (Must have activities) S (Should have) CO (Could have) W (Won't have)

Thought Leadership content is growing ever important in B2B marketing. We're seeing B2B businesses now considering their brands to be a key marketing pillar, not just a nice to have. However, Thought Leadership is still little understood by senior leaders. Most of them know it when they see it but would struggle to say what it should look like in their own businesses. Having clear measures - both quantitative and qualitative - and aligning those measures to key strategic business KPIs will go a long way. Your Finance team will be more likely to give you the time and investment to develop a Thought Leadership strategy if you speak their language and build a clear business case they can understand.