10 Components of a Success Thought Leadership Campaign

In the past several posts, we've written about thought leadership campaigns, comparing them to product PR and identifying five ways thought leadership can benefit an organization.

In this post, we wanted to identify ten of the success factors for conducting an effective thought leadership campaign:

1. An executive willing and able to provide industry insight, even if it might be controversial. As we mentioned in the prior article, we helped a semiconductor startup take on Microsoft regarding industry standards. That only works if executives are confident in their position. 
2. An executive able to commit the time necessary to brief your thought leadership team and to conduct interviews with them and with reporters, podcasters, and other influencers. We had secured a live CNN interview at a major trade show for one executive but he decided he didn't want to get up in time to be in position for the interview at 7AM so we had to decline. 
3. Identify your objectives. It's important to identify why you're conducting a thought leadership campaign. If it's because the company is looking to raise money, that will help focus on the topic and the audience segment to address. If it's to find business partners, that means a different set of topics and audience, etc. Of course, one of the goals is to build trust and credibility but how you achieve that will be determined in part by the topics you address.
4. Identify the right topics and expertise. The issues you address can be a point of differentiation but pick topics that you can "own" and that are relevant to you and your customers. It can be okay if other companies are also addressing the same topic -- but you need to figure out a compelling perspective. (More on that in the next bullet.) We've had clients who were serial entrepreneurs so that their expertise and topics might be different from a CEO who helps grows companies but doesn't launch them. (Launching requires different skill sets from growing a company.)
5. Need a compelling viewpoint on industry issues. The topic may be the same as what others are discussing -- that's how you know it's a good issue. But you need to make sure you have a compelling perspective on that issue. And that viewpoint can't be seen as self-serving because editors won't be interested and it could turn off potential customers. The viewpoint and insight needs to touch on issues that are important and relevant. And the executive needs to be able to discuss the insight in a compelling way -- and that may not always be possible. We once had a terrific client who, on one topic, couldn't give a compelling interview even though he was excellent on every other topic. We asked him about that, and he said, "Oh, I find that topic boring." We then never let him talk to a reporter about that topic; we used a different executive whenever that topic came up. You need to educate (not sell) audiences about your topics and you need to develop insights that help distinguish your company from others in your market. In addition to insights, we've found that using analogies can help audiences grasp clients' perspective.  Avoid jargon when possible. Provide best practices and lessons learned.
6. Need to use that viewpoint to convey the organization's values and personality. The viewpoint needs to match the company's values and personality. Many customers look for companies that are authentic and whose values mesh with their own -- and they get upset with anything that seems deceptive. By way of example, we recently got approached from an advocacy group but when we checked them out, we found that they weren't nonprofit (though their URL was a dot-org) and they weren't actually nonpartisan (though they said they were). Those were red flags, and we quickly and easily decided not to pursue the opportunity. 
7. Set reasonable, achievable goals. The term "reasonable" means different things to different organizations. It depends on the industry issue -- for example, the issue may be seasonal so it means in off months, there's limited activity. It depends on the executive's availability -- he or she might be able to devote only a couple of hours per month to briefings and to any actual interviews; in that case, you shouldn't pursue dozens on potential media interviews -- you should focus on just a handful. We also once had a potential startup client in stealth mode that wanted two articles in the Wall St. Journal before they actually announced anything. (We told them, respectfully, that if they were in stealth mode, it was for a reason, and therefore two articles before launch was unrealistic. They went elsewhere, and as far as we can determine, never secured a single article in the Journal.)
8. Set reasonable demands. This is slightly different because by this we mean: expecting to blog twice a week may be a very aggressive timetable. We know that executives need to review content, and they may not have time to review content on a timely basis to meet the expectation of posting twice a week.
9. Identify the appropriate channels. One client, for example, didn't have a social media presence. That's okay, we can (and did) set that up for them. But we've had clients, even recently, who didn't have and couldn't secure because they were already taken, social media IDs that made the most sense for the organization. Ideally, a thought leadership campaign will take content and reformat it to be distributed as a blog post, a bylined article in a publication, cross-promoted across social media, pitched to reporters and podcasters for possible interviews, pitched to conference organizers for a possible panel discussion, used as the basis of a webinar produced by the company, etc. However, not all channels may be appropriate so the team needs to look at what are the best channels.  
10. Test and update your content and perspective. It's important to test what content and which channels are most effective. We've found that LinkedIn is great for some clients but that might be true for your organization; we have one nonprofit client where Facebook is more important than LinkedIn or Twitter. Realize that could change over time, and that it's important to test what you're doing from time to time to make sure it's working, that audiences are engaging or sharing your content. Over time, issues evolve and it's important to make sure your thought leadership perspective evolves as well.

Ok that's enough for right now. We'll pick up thought leadership in future posts.

Five Ways Thought Leadership Can Help Your Organization

We recently wrote about the difference between thought leadership and product PR. But we want to provide additional insight into why thought leadership can help your organization.

Thought leadership is generally focused on educating the market on a key issue that's relevant to customers. It's not necessarily about pushing product or directly promoting the organization. Instead, it's about enhancing awareness and perception of the company.

While we know that in the current environment, budgets are such that C-Suite executives are looking for bottom-line results, we also know that thought leadership can breakthrough the sales and marketing noise. For example, one time, a CEO asked us to pitch them. They had a very focused market, with about 100 customers. They had a strong sales team that was hitting a wall. At one point, the CEO asked us, "Why should I hire you, and not just bring on board one more sales rep?" Our answer, respectively given, was this: "You said you know who your customers are and in some cases, they don't return your calls or engage with your sales reps. One more sales rep would be just another person trying to sell customers who aren't interested. But with thought leadership, you might be to get those customers interested by showing how you understand their issues."

So, here are some ways thought leadership can help. 

1. Thought leadership campaigns need new content -- and that can lead to media coverage. That content can be used to develop blog articles, bylined articles, presentation content and interviews. We've often pitched thought leadership content and generated interviews and requests for bylined articles.
2. Thought leadership builds credibility, relevancy and trust. This is because thought leadership is focused on educating customers and the market, not on directly selling product. With the right content, your organization is relevant and earns trust among your target audience, which can include customers, employees, partners, etc.
3. Thought leadership programs can influence the industry. For one company, our thought leadership content not only generated ongoing requests for bylined articles, with editors contacting us but our content was cited by other third parties and was included in at least one peer-reviewed article! Based on the thought leadership we created from content briefings with the client, the client was invited to address a Congressional committee dealing with the client's main issue.
4. Thought leadership can raise brand awareness. Thought leadership can be connected to product marketing, and in several cases, our work to help educate the market on key issues resulted in significant awareness. In one case, we got a small tech client mentioned in coverage about a larger competitor because reporters responded to the key message we helped the client communicate. In a second case, we helped a security startup be included in coverage that previously only mentioned Microsoft and Cisco.  
5. Thought leadership can help raise funds or get acquired. When a semiconductor client came to us saying that the industry standard was wrong, and that their approach provided better results, we made that the focus of our communications, and our work not only got the media's attention, it helped get the client acquired after only 18 months by picking a battle in the media over industry standards that took on Microsoft. In other cases, clients have used thought leadership results to help them make the case that convinced VCs and others invest in the company. For nonprofits, we've also seen our work help raise money from benefactors.

In our next article, we'll address some of the components of a successful thought leadership program.

The Importance of Thought Leadership & Why It Can Benefit Your Organization

Thought leadership combines multiple elements including: 

• Executive profiles and interviews
• Bylined articles
• Blog articles
• Speaking opportunities 
• Podcasts
• Branded content 

From the outset, that could look like a standard PR or media relations program.

But the difference is that many PR programs are focused on highlighting an organization's products or services whereas thought leadership is often focused on key issues.

Thought leadership, on the other hand, isn't about selling. It's about advising. It's offering perspectives on issues that matter to customers so that when they do think about a purchase, they take a look at your organization because leadership clearly understands key issues that keep customers up at night.

The idea is if you provide advice -- as this blog article is doing -- without trying to "sell" the reader on your services, customers will see you as credible and thoughtful, and that may help them decide to work with your organization.

The real difference between a standard PR campaign -- and, keep in mind, touting your products and services is important, too -- and thought leadership is the focus on issues, not product. It's on educating potential customers about what they need to know.

An example of the importance of educating potential customers came from one of our first clients, almost 20 years ago. We conducted a program that communicated information that addressed issues relevant to the customers of a small financial software startup. After a couple of months, the founder, whose still there though the company has grown and operates under a new name, told us what looked like negative news. He said that our work did not increase the number of customer calls but -- and here's the good news -- the calls that came in after our program were 90% more qualified than before. 

By helping the founder provide insight into a problem customers could not solve on their own or with Excel (the standard approach then and now), we helped customers better understand that there was a cost-effective solution for an end-of-month problem that kept them up at night.

Thought leadership in this case raised awareness, spoke to an issue that mattered to customers, and actually made the phone ring.

If you're focused on issuing press releases about your new product, a new feature in your product, etc. -- which can be important, and we've worked on hundreds of those kind of announcements -- you may be able to help with lead generation. 

But product PR generally does not help when a company seeks to raise investment rounds or to get acquired. 

For that, whether your organization is a B2B, B2C or a nonprofit, thought leadership campaigns can showcase their expertise, capabilities, values and successes.

We will be writing more about thought leadership over the next few months. In the meantime, let us know if you have any questions by emailing us at info@birnbachcom.com.

9 Questions to Consider In Preparing to Be a Thought Leader

Recently we got a PR question from a former marketing colleague -- a designer who used to work at an ad agency with whom we collaborated on a range of projects.

She's now running a small rental property business, and asked: "How do I generate some PR about what I'm doing?"

This is someone who's a terrific designer and is smart about marketing. Her website is great, and the properties she manages look wonderful.

But that's not enough to generate media coverage.

There's no story there.

At least not yet.

To get media coverage, we told her she needs to think about the following things (see, list, below), and we thought these questions may help others, too:

1. What story can I tell? We know she (and others have a business) but that in itself isn't necessarily media-worthy. So what insights and experiences can you tell? What advice can you provide? How do you help solve a problem that your customers have? What are you passionate about? These days, providing support for a cause that's important to you can help reach your key audiences, and can be the lens through which you become a thought leader. (A German client has embraced diversity as a core value; part of it commitment includes holding an annual job fair that helps more than 4,000 refugees get jobs. Through their dedication and experience, they've become a thought leader about diversity.) 
2. Who are your customers? Where are they located? If they're local and they're looking for additional rooms for out-of-town wedding guests, the media she needs to go to is different than if most of the renters are from within the state or from another region entirely. What brings them to the area? What are they looking to do? She can find out some of this by asking the renters when she books the rentals or if that's done online, by asking if they'll fill out a survey after their stay. Companies of all sorts need to have a clear understanding of their customers -- and a surprising number don't have a firm grasp.
3. What do customers want to hear? Her potential customers are looking for short-term rentals, so what may interest them beyond good location, nice furnishing and amenities? Perhaps its tips about things to do that only a local might know: the best restaurant, the best shopping, the best place for a walk or scenic vista. If she conducts a quick survey, she might have a better idea of what customers are looking for.
4. What influences their purchasing decision? Is it price, location, amenities, availability? What is her competition? Is it Airbnb? Is it local inns or B&Bs or hotels? Again, the better understanding she -- or any company -- has of its customers, the better she can deliver to her customers.
5. Based on her customers, what media should I target? Again, if most of her customers are coming for out-of-town events like weddings or bar mitzvahs, then local media is the ticket. If from outside the area, perhaps she needs to target travel publications. Understanding the type of media will help answer the next question.
6. What stories will interest reporters? What type of stories are they looking for? A local business reporter might be interested in local business trends, and her insight into her customers can help tell a story about the local economy. A local broadcast reporter may be receptive to a story that has a compelling visual element. A podcaster may want tips or advice for small business owners, for example.
7. What do I need to do to present that story? Do I need a blog and social media? (We'd say, "absolutely," to that. You can't just say, "I'm a thought leader" without being able to show appropriate content.) Do I need video? Does my website tell that story and is it a compelling and current story? (We've found that if it tells a story, the websites of many small companies still tell the story that was appropriate when the company was launched -- but that several years later, the story on the website has not evolved.) Reporters will check websites and if they don't see the story or something interesting, they may not respond to any media outreach, either email or phone. So the website needs to tell your story.
8. What are resources do you have? Take a look at your budget (Do you have enough money to produce a quarterly video -- for example, with the rental property, February and March in New England may be tough times to get short-term renters so perhaps she could produce a video highlighting fun things around town during winter.) Who is heading up this initiative? Do they have the time, resources and expertise to focus on this? 
9. What are realistic goals? What key performance indicators are you measuring? Is it traffic to your website? Engagement on social media? Inquiries, either online or via phone or email? In terms of media coverage, do you have a sense of what's a home run? What kinds of news or stories you are likely to have that's worth sharing -- just because it's good news for you doesn't mean a reporter will find it worth writing about, unfortunately -- and will interest your target media? 

These may not be the only questions to ask but we think they form a good foundation from which to strategize next steps. We think they're useful whether you're trying to generate media coverage or position yourself or company as a thought leader. If you're interested, please check out are other blog articles about developing PR programs and being thought leaders. Or contact us by emailing us here.

Understanding Editorial Boards

There's some confusion about what Editorial Boards at newspapers do, and the New York Times recently produced a section to discuss its role at the paper.

This blog will provide an overview about Editorial Boards to capture some of the information presented by James Bennet, editorial page editor of the Times who oversees the editorial board as well as the Letters and the Op-Ed sections. 

Together the editorial board, op-ed and letters section is part of Times Opinion, whose purpose, Bennet says, 

"Is to supply the wide-ranging debate about big ideas that a diverse democracy needs. Amid that debate, the role of the editorial board is to provide Times readers with a long-range view formed not by one person’s expertise and experience but ballasted by certain institutional values that have evolved across more than 150 years. That’s why the editorials, unlike other articles in The Times, appear without a byline."

The Times editorial board operates as the voice of the paper and the publisher, writing editorials independent from the newsroom. That means the editorial board does not speak for the newsroom or that newsroom staff feel the same way about a particular issue. In fact, there have been stories about newsroom staffs at various papers, including the Times and the Wall St. Journal, being upset about positions taken by their respective editorial boards.

For decades, editorial boards have been influential, offering endorsements for political office and highlighting issues important to the communities they serve. The influence of editorial boards has declined over the last several decades but are still important, in part because they take "a long-range view formed not by one person’s expertise and experience but ballasted by certain institutional values." But as CNN recently noted, "The power of newspaper endorsement -- ANY newspaper -- is increasingly limited in terms of its ability to sway voters. That's especially true of national newspapers like the Times." 

How the Times' Editorial Board works

1. "The New York Times editorial board is made up of opinion journalists who rely on research, debate and individual expertise to reach a shared view of important issues," according to the Times' description. 
2. The board is comprised of 15 veteran journalists who bring "years of research, subject-matter expertise and personal experience," including foreign correspondents and beat reporters. They include:
1.  James Bennet, who has recused himself from involvement in the 2020 election because his brother, Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado, is running for president.
2.  Kathleen Kingsbury, deputy editorial page editor.
3. Binyamin Appelbaum: economics & business.
4. Michelle Cottle: U.S. politics.
5. Mara Gay: N.Y. state and local affairs.
6. Jennen Interlandi: health & science.
7. Laureen Kelley: women & reproductive rights.
8. Alex Kingsbury: tehcnology & national affairs.
9. Serge Schmemann: international affairs.
10. Bremt Staples: education, criminal justice & economics.
11. Jesse Wegman: Supreme Court & legal affairs.
12. John Broder: associate editor.
13. Nick Fox: editor.
14. Carol Giacomo: foreign affairs.
15. Charlie Warzel: technology. Warzel is not a permanent member of the editorial board but has been writing a series of opinion articles about privacy for the editorial board. He writes about the intersection of technology, media, and politics as well as online extremism.
16. James Dao: op-ed editor. He is part of the Times Opinion section and is participating in the Times' process to endorse presidential candidates but is not a permanent member of the board.
3. The board meets at least twice each week.
4. The board discusses significant questions in the news, informed by the members who are subject-matter experts in the topic as well as by an understanding of the positions the board has taken over the years. That's not to say the Times' editorial board doesn't break with presidence: "We try to keep in mind the big questions we’ve gotten wrong in the past — such as opposing women’s suffrage — to cultivate some humility and caution," Bennet notes.
5. "In general," Bennet writes, the board "reaches its conclusions by consensus, though in matters where there is deep disagreement we sometimes have to call a vote."
6. The board interviews all major presidential candidates to get their perspective before the board makes an endorsement.

Why You Should Care about the Editorial Board

The editorial board does more than endorse a candidate. The board will meet with outside experts who can provide insight on a topic relevant and significant to the Times community. Requesting a meeting can be a way to get your organization's perspective in front of the editorial board, with the hope -- there's no guarantee, of course -- that the next time the board writes about that issue, it may provide perspective it got from that meeting.

Please note: getting a meeting can be a real challenge. Each editorial board has a different process of handling meeting requests. Please note: You're not likely going to be able to meet with the entire board. You should focus on contacting the subject-matter board member covering your issue. 

One of the challenges is that it can be difficult to get to the right person at the paper to schedule a meeting. The above list of subject-matter journalists at the New York Times, is valid as of Jan. 2020 but the actual URL indicates the list is from 2018. It may not be accurate even by the end of 2020. Most papers do not list the editorial board members or may not have updated their membership page in a long time; for example, the Wall St. Journal lists "Who We Are" of the editorial board but that was last updated Jan. 1, 2000 -- 20 years ago, and while a number of people remain, many have moved on. Some editorial board members list their affiliation when they publish columns away from the editorial board, which does happen at the Wall St. Journal. By the way, the Journal does provide a more updated list of its editorial board but it does not necessarily list their subject matter expertise. 

Even if you have scheduled an editorial board meeting with the right person -- as we have done in the past -- you are not guaranteed that they will respond or include your organization's perspective the next time they opine on the topic. 

We have fond that the process of developing a compelling reason to meet with the editorial board can help when writing an op-ed article on the topic. Even if you can't meet with the board or with the appropriate board member, the exercise of framing your perspective can have a longer-term benefit by refining your thoughts and key messages.

Let us know if you have any questions about working with editorial boards.

Thoughts on Thought Leadership & 7 Elements for Successful Thought Leadership Campaigns

The press release is still a useful tool when you have news, like an acquisition, a new product, an event, etc. 

But with the decline of traditional media (meaning: smaller staffs and fewer print pages) combined with the ascendency of social media, companies must look beyond announcements to communicate who they are and what they stand for as part of their marketing and branding initiatives.

This article is designed to offer some perspectives on Thought Leadership based on extensive experience that includes helping clients generate new business and led to acquisitions in excess of a quarter of a billion dollars.

What is Thought Leadership?

Thought Leadership is a form of content marketing designed to establish a company's senior executives as having interesting insights and perspectives on issues important to customers. Thought Leadership topics must be timely, relevant, credible and interesting, and can include:

• Blog articles (such as this one).
• Social media posts (such as the ones we'll post to cross-promote this blog).
• Contributed articles to key publications and media.
• Newsletters and direct emails.
• Case studies and white papers (though we're seeing more interest in shorter-than-traditional white papers). 
• Podcasts.
• Speeches (which can be repurposed as content for a blog post, a podcast and social media).
• Surveys or reports on interesting issues. (For example, for one cybersecurity client, we offered quarterly updates on key threats. For a nonprofit, we issued an annual look an important issue, based on a consumer survey, facing its constituency; the results were widely picked up and sparked national coverage.) 
  

Really, Thought Leadership anyway you can get your message out to audiences that matter to you. 

Why Should Companies Consider Thought Leadership? People like to know who their buying from, and like to buy from companies whose values are aligned with theirs. Partly that's because, especially with consumer items, we define ourselves to an extent by the items we purchase: our cars, clothes, technology and other items may help to define our self-perceptions and say something about who we are. (Remember the "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" commercials?) 

Interestingly, this is true for B2B customers as it is for consumers.

Need evidence of that? On this blog, we've discussed the rise of corporate boycotts: "boycotts by companies in order to demonstrate distance from controversial programs and personalities" and as a way to show support for their customers. 

So it's important to clearly define "who" your company is and what it stands for, and Thought Leadership is a way to communicate that.

What are the Benefits of a Thought Leadership Campaign?
Thought Leadership is a way to engage with customers, potential customers as well as employees and potential employees and partners by providing thoughts and insights on issues that matter to them. 

With an effective Thought Leadership campaign, companies can:

• Establish credibility by showcasing expertise on key topics and encourage innovation.
• Start conversations with prospective customers by addressing topics that are important to them. 
• Differentiate themselves from the competition and raise awareness of the company.
• Define who they are by discussing corporate values.
• Establish a sense of community.
• Provide content that can educate and help to qualify customers. (We had one startup client who said that after a campaign we conducted, "The number of calls coming in did not increase -- but the number of calls from people who understood clearly what we do increased by 90%." This was a significant time savings for them because the calls that came in were from people who were better positioned to buy the product.)
• Improve their SEO rankings by generating more searchable content.
• Provide another way to provide context on a news announcement. (Recently a blog we wrote about an acquisition of a client was repurposed and included by several reporters looking for more detail than was communicated in the deal press release.)
• Make it easier to close sales.

Where Does Thought Leadership Fit into the Sales Cycle?
You may have noticed that the last bullet point immediate above stated "Make it easier to close sales" but not "Closes sales."

Thought Leadership can have a call to action (CTA) -- like subscribe to a free newsletter, download a white paper, schedule a demo or sign up for a free trial -- to turn your audience into a sales lead. 

But -- and this is important -- without the expectation that a Thought Leadership piece will lead to a direct sale. It shouldn't be all about your product or service offerings. That's a turnoff for most people. For example, Rubbermaid has received recognition for helping customers stay organized, with tips that include Rubbermaid products without the hard sell of the ABC (Always Be Closing) of selling. People look for Thought Leadership content that will help them solve issues they're dealing with but they don't always want to be sold to. 

Instead, Thought Leadership is about showing customers that you understand what business problems keeps them up at night and having perspectives on key issues and topics they need to address during the day. It's about providing helpful insight and showing that a company is engaged and relevant and is willing to help. It's about building trust and establishing credibility.

When Should You Consider Launching a Thought Leadership Campaign?
Organizations that don't have a lot of news but have a lot of insight and expertise to share are ideal candidates for Thought Leadership.

This is especially true for clients that have complicated stories to tell because their customers likely have complex issues to solve, and Thought Leadership via blog posts can tackle complex stories in a way that press releases, Twitter and LinkedIn can't.

For example, we had a client CEO -- very smart guy, who felt he didn't have much to say as a Thought Leader. He ran U.S. operations for a global software developer, but the U.S. was one of its smaller divisions. First we had to convince him that a blog was the best way to tell their story because of the absence of hard news that reporters like to write about. reluctantly, he signed off on the blog. Within a few months, we started seeing interesting results. The blog articles were cited by current customers, who helped spread the word. Traffic to the website increased, and we started getting recognition for the blog from the other regions within the company. Our direct clients were invited to the company's exclusive global marketing meeting to discuss the success of the Thought Leadership blog, and our content was frequently picked up by the folks in other regions.

We found that blog provided us with a way to tell the company's story in a way that would not have been as effective if we had focused only on traditional media.

For a biotech client that started off focusing on media relations, we added a social media component to be able to address issues important to their customers. Through its blog, the company discusses trends, industry changes, and mostly, tips on how to work smarter, get projects completed faster and on budget. The client has seen significant growth over the past five years, recognition among its peers for pioneering (in their industry) social media, and validation in the form of being acquired by a billion-dollar global company. The client has told us over the year that awareness among prospects has been high because they see a lot of valuable content. And the acquirer company was interested in part because of the client's successful Thought Leadership campaign. 

What are The Elements of a Successful Thought Leadership Campaign?
Here are 7 important elements:

1. Understand your customers and develop content that addresses the problems they deal with. 

Your expertise is important but Thought Leadership really starts with a good sense of what drives your customers. Some clients have based their knowledge on annual customer meetings, input from sales reps or relationship managers. Whatever works well for your organization, make sure you're focused on issues relevant to your customers' issues.

2. Address customers' questions and offer real advice. 

For one client, where pricing was an issue, we discussed pricing transparently (something not usually done in their sector) and offer a lot of articles about how to save money. If you see this as an opportunity to just sell product, no one will read your stuff and you will lose credibility.

3. Stay relevant and timely. 

We can all get caught up with other aspects of our jobs so that we miss timely connections for Thought Leadership. We generally develop a quarterly roadmap that looks at events and calendar items to connect to blog articles. That said, also make sure to write some content that is specifically timeless – what reporters call “evergreen” because it’s useful now and next year. 

4.  Give your Thought Leadership some personality. 

People want advice but they don't want a lecture so your Thought Leadership should be engaging, convey a sense of the clients' individual personality and interesting. Don't talk down to the reader. 

5.  Make it interactive.  

You can invite customers or partners write a guest blog or include interviews with industry people you respect. It could be a great opportunity to profile a customer or a partner, and enhance their credibility – and yours by showcasing smart people.  

6.  Be patient but also be committed to Thought Leadership. 

Successful Thought Leadership has to be built over time to establish credibility. It doesn’t come with a flip of the switch. You should figure out if you have the time to develop your voice and the budget and resources to launch a campaign. You don’t need to post every day, just find a consistent pattern. But Thought Leadership is something of a treadmill – you need to keep going with it. It’s kind of sad to see an abandoned blog or Twitter feed. The company may still be doing fine but an abandoned social media feed leaves people wondering about the viability and commitment of the company. 

7.  Remember to repurpose and cross-promote.  

You should consider repurposing content to play across different channels. For example, we once took a client’s white paper that had underperformed (written before we started working for the client) and broke it out into nearly 75 different tweets, which included a CTA every five or six tweets. Doing so gave us useful social media content and generated a wave of downloads months after the white paper had been published, which helped justify the costs.

Because you never know where your audience will be, you should cross-promote content across all channels to reach your audience wherever they might be (which could be Twitter on Monday, LinkedIn on Tuesday, LinkedIn on Wednesday and Instagram on Thursday)

Thought Leadership is an important tool for marketers. If you have more questions about Thought Leadership campaigns, let us know what they are, and we'll answer them in a forthcoming post. Or feel free to contact us at blog at birnbachcom.com.

Birnbach Communications Celebrates 18 Years with Highlights from 2019

Birnbach Communications celebrated its 18th anniversary in 2019, and we'd like to thank all our clients over the years. 

We love working for our clients. We enjoy getting their brief and figuring different ways to help our clients achieve their goals. There's a solving-the-puzzle aspect that sparks our creativity and passion as we develop and recommend strategic approaches. 

And we love generating positive results for our clients. We love the work of brainstorming angles, developing compelling pitches, and working with the media. Getting hits for our clients is something that never gets old for us. (We may want to score significant placements or to write strong content more than our clients.)

It's been a wild ride so far, and this year brought about a number of highlights, including: 

1. Securing placements in TechWeb and Politico for our newest client, a startup developing robots for lunar exploration.
2. Continuing to support our longest-term client, Seqens NA, a biotech we first started working for eight years ago. What we're particularly proud about Seqens is how our program continues to evolve as their needs change, helping them they stay relevant even as its business and the media world has dramatically changed over time.  
3. Writing and placing more than 15 bylined articles published in a range of publications including the Forbes Technology Council along with more than 150 blog articles on a range of topics for our clients. 
4. Having a successful ebook of our articles published by a client.
5. Writing continue to drive traffic to clients' websites, particularly because our content produced new subscribers to their blogs and newsletters. Many of those blog articles are repurposed and get published in credible industry publications. 
6. Securing dozens of media interviews that resulted in coverage and enhanced relationships for our clients.  
7. Winning new several clients in 2019 while keeping ongoing clients. 
8. Expanding our international reach with current clients based in the U.K., Germany, France and Canada.
9. Working across categories including LED lighting and clean tech, robotics, AI, space exploration, programmatic advertising, fintech, biotech and life sciences, STEM, as well as the travel and meetings industry.
10. Supporting clients at key trade shows including IMEX Frankfurt, IMEX America (in Las Vegas), Spacecom, International Astronautical Congress, LightFair and others.
11. Launching new products including a line of LED fixtures, clean tech roofing paints, and medical-alert tattoos as an alternative to medical ID jewelry.
12. Generating coverage in top-tier media including Politico, The Economist, NPR, TechCrunch and Forbes Technology Council. 
13. Helping clients win awards and recognition including being ranked as one of the largest CleanTech companies in Massachusetts and getting a client named "3 Trends at the International Roofing Expo" by Buildings magazine. 

Our work this year in media relations and thought leadership helped our clients raise awareness, supported their lead-gen program, and ensured they remain relevant and in front of current and prospective customers, investors and funders.

We can't wait to build on this year's success in 2020!