Thought Leadership
Marketing Practice The MarketingSavant Group
www.marketingsavant.com
888.989.7771
dana@marketingsavant.com
Attaining market
leadership through an
intellectual, competence
based approach to
business development.

Thought Leadership Marketing
MarketingSavant’s Thought Leadership Marketing™
approach provides a sustainable go-to-market strategy
based on your organizational competence and
Thought Leadership
intellectual capital employing elements of insurgent
Marketing
marketing principles and delivering value to the
marketplace through a balanced digital and traditional
channel approach to create market capital and demand
generation.
Insurgent/Underdog Social Media &
 Thought Leadership Marketing turns organizational activity into intellectual
Marketing Digital Marketing
capital that supports relevant advocacy positions, tacit domain expertise and point-
of-view platforms to shape and influence market perceptions and establish your
organization a thought leader, knowledge resource, subject matter expert and
ultimately, a trusted client advisor
 Social media and digital marketing combine with trusted, classical marketing tools
to form a foundation for sharing and relevant dialogue with clients and markets that
builds market capital and provides the insights, access, and influence required to
create demand generation
 Effective Thought Leadership Marketing employs insurgent marketing principles
that deliver immediate and measurable lead and prospect opportunity
improvements and drives demand generation by focusing on delivering wins and
competing on higher ideals, not lower prices, in the age of the empowered buyer.

The Thought Leadership
Marketing Equation
Competence, purpose and Strategic use of TLM tools Thought leaders and
core market and channels with media trusted advisors occupy
understanding inform the collaboration garner your the greatest share of mind
point of view & thought share voice in the industry among business buyers.
leadership platform. and spark the industry Share of mind predicts
Thought leaders outshine dialogue around your share of market. Thought
their competitors who ideas. Leadership Marketing
As buyers seek out more
compete on price and steadily increases your
real market dialogue, SOV
advertising. SOM with buyers,
is an increasingly important growing your share of
factor contributing to market.
marketplace success.

The 4 A’s of
Thought Leadership Marketing
Assets – Attitude – Acceptance – Alignment
Attitude Alignment
•Intellectual capital •Client willingness to listen
•Experience & results •Market demand for a
•Desire to educate •Clients embrace thought
thought leader
•People, process, products
leadership
•Long-term industry •Sufficient credibility to gain
stewardship mindset •Front line embraces POV,
industry leadership
channels & tools
•Altruistic, willingness to
share •Relevant conversations in
the industry
Assets Acceptance

Thought Leadership
Gets Attention
• 9 of the top 11 effective ways of getting a
business buyer’s attention of involve Thought
Leadership Marketing
How would you rate the effectiveness of the following marketing vehicles in getting your attention?
Mean Rating (N~344)
3.7
Speech or presentation at a conference or trade show
3.7
Case studies describing successful customer solution implementations
3.4
Article in the business or trade press
3.4
Invitation to a Webinar, seminar, or workshop
3.3
Analyst firm recommendation (such as Gartner/IDC/Forrester)
3.2
Search engine hits when doing research or surfing the Web
3.1
White paper offered on the Internet
2.9
Electronic newsletter from the service firm
2.8
Conference sponsorship
2.5
Direct mail brochure
Email from a sales representative from the service firm 2.3
Phone call from a sales representative from the service firm 2.3
TV or print advertisement 2.3
Vendor's blog 2.3
Online advertisement 2.2
Sporting or cultural event sponsorship 2.0
Source: ITSMA, How Customers Choose Study, North America, 2007

Thought Leadership Delivers
• Coherency out of marketplace chaos
• Diminished price resistance
• Valid and credible value proposition
• Self-qualified leads & opportunities
• Shortened sales cycles
• Value-forward marketing & selling platform
• Ongoing market dialogue
• Prospects experience your value before buying
• Buyers invested in your ideas before purchasing
• Growth in media placements & requests
• Search engine find-ability

Thought Leadership Marketing
Toolkit

The MarketingSavant
Thought Leadership Marketing
Engagement Process
Assets +
Attitude + Thought
Acceptance Leadership
+ Alignment Point-of-View Go-to-Market
Channel

Are You Ready for
Thought Leadership Marketing?
• Do you love what you do?
– Passionate enough to push TL
– Sustain interest in years to come
• Are you willing to teach?
– “Educate the market” mentality
– Do you “enjoy helping your customers & prospects”?
• Are you comfortable with “reaching outside”?
– Expand beyond your existing network
• Are you will to take a stand with your message?
– Do you have a unique position on industry issues?
– Can you frame & express those views?
– Can you get people to notice?

Are You Ready for
Thought Leadership Marketing?
• Are you a “confident learner”?
– Balance your positions with listening
– Ears to the ground for trend shifts & opportunities
• Do you have a “long-term” perspective?
– Spend time today for reward tomorrow
– “Faith in the future”
• Are you comfortable with “no end point” to TL?
– Willing to work a long time toward this goal
– Stay motivated!

Recognizing A Thought Leadership
Marketing Opportunity
• Significant shifts or changes in your industry or
field
• Recognition that getting your ideas out ahead of
your competitors is critical to success
• A mentor leads you to the opportunity
• No one’s having the conversation you want to
have in the industry or local area
• Facing a business crisis
• The desire to ‘attract’ more of the right clients
than to ‘hunt’ the “right now” clients

Barriers We’ll Help You Overcome
In a survey of professional service firms, they identified
key barriers to pursuing a thought leadership marketing
strategy.
• Marketing Resources (time, money, people)
• No Incentive (no reward for TL activities)
• Lack of Process (ineffective approach to TL capture)
• Secrecy (can’t talk about clients or ideas – no “proof”)
• No Skills (lack of know-how to capture IC)
• Burdensome Approval Process (red tape)
• No Recognition (firm doesn’t value TL)

Five Keys to Successful
Thought Leadership Marketing
• Be Generous With Your Knowledge
– Share beyond the marketing speak
• Be Consistent
– Calendar your activities – daily, weekly, monthly
routine
• Always Deliver Value
– Listen, think, revise, teach, repeat
• Take A Stand
– Take your strong positions to market
• Focus On The Long-term Benefits
– Track your results in months & years

Altruism Before Capitalism
“In short, this is simply an organization putting the
needs of its constituents ahead of its own needs.
Or, aligning itself with advancing the welfare of its
customers before (and while) advancing its own. “
Dana VanDen Heuvel

Thought Leadership Marketing
Success Metrics
• Reach
– How many hear your message?
• Acquisition
– Who’s attention did you get?
– Did they “get” your point of view?
• Conversion
– What information did you gather?
– Who can you contact as a “lead”?
• Retention
– Who follows you after the acquisition?

Thought Leadership Marketing
Success Metrics

About
The MarketingSavant Group
The MarketingSavant Group is a specialist company that focuses on developing our clients into the preeminent thought leaders
and trusted advisors in their industry. Through our thought leadership marketing approach and deep experience in digital and
social media marketing we do extraordinary work for B2B clients to move your entire organization beyond the competitive realm
and into the unique niche of industry thought leader. We focus on genuine organizational transformation through marketing,
innovation, intellectual capital development and not on producing a campaign that’s merely a quickly forgotten flavor-of-the-
month tool.
MarketingSavant helps clients leverage thought leadership and social media marketing through precise strategy development,
targeted user-centric research, expert resource engagement for content creating and distribution, all using our proprietary
Thought Leadership Marketing methodology.
Like the thought leading clients we work with and in the spirit of the social media tools we employ, MarketingSavant is a
transparent, honest, professional, credible, driven, responsive, hard working, open-minded, and results-oriented team that serves
our clients with the utmost integrity and respect and treat their business and success as our own. Our value-forward approach
means that our first priority is delivering wisdom to our clients and prospects to make us all better marketers and servants to the
customers who trust us.
We formed MarketingSavant to work with ethical, intellectual, innovative and challenging clients in the Business-to-Business
market sector. Our approach and our philosophy are to always put altruism before capitalism. We do well by doing good, and we
like to work with clients who share our philosophy.
MarketingSavant’s offerings range from thought leadership strategy development, training and workshops, campaign
management, customer community development and anything else that helps to position you as the preeminent thought leader
in your industry. Contact us if you’re interested in become your industry’s thought leader!

Thought Leadership
Marketing Practice The MarketingSavant Group
www.marketingsavant.com
888.989.7771
dana@marketingsavant.com
Attaining market
leadership through an
intellectual, competence
based approach to
business development.