A Proven Formula for Writers of Thought Leadership Marketing Content
If you are in the business of selling expertise, a professional service, or consulting engagements, one of the best ways to earn the confidence of a prospective client is to consistently and convincingly demonstrate domain authority and subject matter expertise. Buyers of sophisticated professional services do not make impulse purchases, as the stakes are often high and the commitment to getting it right rigorous.
As opposed to the lifecycle of commodity purchases, much of your prospect’s “customer journey” is taking place long before that person ever has such a pressing need that he or she is actively shopping for a service provider and vetting candidates. In fact, it’s often a matter of those shoppers looking for assurances and confidence that they are making the right selection, and this happens one of two primary ways:
Through a referral from a trusted resource (someone who may also be in your marketing plan’s target market)
Banked trust and respect earned over the long-term through the service provider’s (that’s you!) public demonstration of expertise and the ability to get results.
In either case, your best opportunity to earn that referral or respect is to generously share your ideas and insights with the world, so that you earn the reputation of a proven, reliable and expert problem solver. To my mind, there is no better way to do that consistently than to create and publish content in the form of thought leadership, be that writing, podcasting, public speaking, or even video production.
For today, let’s focus on the former. I will share with you my formula for structuring written content that will earn the interest of your clients, referral sources and prospects, and ultimately, establish you as the preferred candidate for anyone looking to hire a service provide in your particular domain of expertise.
First, Let’s Get Physical
I’m going to only speak briefly here about the importance of having a captivating and inviting headline, as for me, that often comes after I’ve written the article. Until I know exactly what the piece provides the reader, I’m unsure what to promise in the form of a headline that can be paid off through the delivery of the full piece of content.
But I do want to emphasize the importance of the physical structure of the article, specifically in terms of appearance. Be sure to make your content scannable, even though your actual intent and preference is for the reader to consume your each and every word. That’s not how content is consumed anymore. What you want to do is to generate enough interest in that first scan so that your reader will go back and start to dig deeper into every section, until they’ve actually read 80-100% of the article. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but them’s the breaks nowadays, when people’s attention spans have been rewired to even gloss over a long tweet.
But see the subhead I used above? Maybe that caught your eye and told you where to skip ahead to next. Those visual landmarks make longer-form content more perusable, and they keep your scanning reader engaged, at least to a point. And you’ll notice that I chose to get a little pithy with my headline, summoning the Olivia Newton John classic for a little fun with wordplay. That may or may not fit into your particular personality or voice, but if it does, have at it.
OK, Really First: Solve for “WHY”
I typically structure my blog posts and thought leadership articles as three-act plays in the following hierarchy: WHY—>HOW—>WHAT.
The first act is designed to pull the reader in and convince him or her that you have a genuine understanding of people’s pain points, aspirations, challenges or goals, based on your considerable expertise in a given area. If you can show, not tell, the reader why your topic is important, relevant, timely and worthy of attention, you will have achieved the critical first step: reader engagement and a degree (perhaps to a great degree) of trust. This may come in the form of an anecdote, a statistic, a news item or prevalent industry trend, or simply (but not only and always) a position you’re staking out — perhaps even counterintuitively.
Next, Show Me How
Again using the show me don’t tell me approach, my second “act” or article section is typically devoted to how you approach the relevant issue…how you’ve solved this problem or overcome this challenge in the past…how you think differently and insightfully about the pain point or aspiration. You might take a case-study approach here, or actually reveal a bit of your secret formula (just enough so that the reader will want to know more), or provide a guiding philosophy that informs your overall approach. The latter is typically something that seems rather routine for the expert that you are but, for the novice reader, seems innovative and insightful.
Lastly, Give Me the What
I typically conclude each piece with some specific, prescriptive action items that the reader can consider and even begin to implement right away, so that you’re not just leaving the reader hanging. Remember, you are going to have to pay off the promise of your alluring headline and opening. Simply providing an articulation of a problem without offering a solution is not a service to the reader — it’s simply a complaint, and a tease.
This final section may come under the header of something like “Three Steps You Can Take Immediately to Overcome Your Recruiting and Retention Challenges in a Tight Labor Market.” Then you might bullet-point this list out, again for easy consumption and to give the reader another visual landmark as to where to direct his or her attention. Don’t be overly concerned about giving your best ideas away “for free.” In almost every scenario, your target market doesn’t want to handle this problem, in an area of expertise largely foreign to them, by themselves. They are going to hire it out to an expert. What you want is to be that expert — not your competition.
Closing Time
When executed over the long term, each deposit of thought leadership that you invest will be “banked” by your clients, prospects and referral sources. At some naturally occurring future moment in time, when a matter arises that you are strong candidate to address, you will have made enough incremental investments that will pay off to genuinely earn you the position of the natural and obvious solution or service provider.
In many cases, when your prospect is at the point of need and ready to hire someone, there will be no short list of candidates to vet and for you to compete with. That short list will be you.
And last but not least, if you can come up with some clever way to conclude the piece to leave a memorable last impression on your reader and future client prospect, go for it.
And if not…