As many of us head back to the office after a well-earned summer break, I reflect on the quality time I spent in France with family and friends. I’m reminded that while holidays come in all shapes and sizes, there are certain attributes that help us judge the quality of one against another—the sun, the sea, the ice cream.
In much the same fashion, our recent White Space Quality Ratings report assesses the quality of thought leadership produced by top professional services and consulting firms. We do this with four common attributes in mind: Differentiation, Appeal, Resilience, and Prompting Action (you can find a quick summary of our quality methodology at the end).
Like jumping into an unexpectedly cold pool to escape the sun’s heat, we came up against a surprise in this year’s ratings. As with an icy plunge, we can recognise with the benefit of hindsight and a cool head that this is neither unpleasant nor entirely unforeseeable. In a nutshell, what we found is that the quality gap between firms is closing: This year, scores are at their highest, with less variation between firms across all attributes.
Looking at “differentiation”, average scores have improved and are at their highest since 2018. However, the highest scores are lower than we’ve seen in previous years. In this sense, firms can consider their ice cream sundae glasses to be half full. There’s an opportunity here to ditch the vanilla in favour of more exciting flavour combinations: exciting new topics, a range of sectors, and content focused on buyers.
“Appeal” scores, on the other hand, have remained fairly static for the last three years, as all firms demonstrate their aptitude for executing their brands and content digitally.
When it comes to “resilience,” average scores have remained static, but the lowest score is the highest it’s ever been. Firms now seem to recognise that thought leadership can only be badged as such if there is primary or secondary data there to underpin it. A robust methodology is a hygiene factor of any quality thought leadership, and it continues to distinguish it from mere content marketing.
Last but by no means least, “prompting action” remains the weakest attribute, despite showing signs of improvement last year. This is likely due to inconsistencies in how firms execute prompting actions within their thought leadership portfolios.
Three ways to increase the audience impact of your thought leadership
Specificity of audience is crucial: We see a lot of content aimed at a homogenous group of “business leaders”. It stands to reason that the sharper you can define your target audience, the sharper your messages and recommendations will be.
Leave your audience with a sense of urgency: All too often, conclusions are missing altogether. Be sure to pay as much attention to these as you do to your research and analysis.
Convince your audience of your right to play: At times, firms are opaque when it comes to the true authorship of their thought leadership. Thought leadership is only as good as the credibility of those who authored it. So, be selective in who you name as an author, and include a short, relevant bio of all writers featured in the piece.
It is widely recognised that effective thought leadership raises brand awareness and plays a crucial role in building relationships with buyers of consulting services. This close alignment of scores in our quality ratings this year seems to suggest as much, with firms putting more emphasis on producing and activating high-quality content. Like taking a summer break, thought leadership is worth the investment—but only if the right mix of key attributes is there.
Please drop us a note and tell us what you think, you may even wish to include your favourite flavour of ice cream! (Mine has to be a Fior di Latte, but I’ll take a 99 Flake all year round—come rain or shine.)
Postscript
Note on our scoring methodology
When we assess long-form thought leadership content (which we define as being over 2500 words over eight pages), we look across four dimensions, putting ourselves in the eyes of the audience and asking…
Differentiation – Is this piece of thought leadership relevant to me right now? Does it tell me something useful that I didn’t know already?
Appeal – Am I encouraged to read on? Is it easy and enjoyable to digest?
Resilience – Can I trust what I am being told? Do I know who is writing this and why I should believe them?
Prompting Action – Do I have a clear sense of what I ought to do now? Will a conversation with this firm be useful to me?
To find out more about our White Space offering and a more detailed methodology of our quality scoring, visit here.