Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us. This is an exciting session, and as you know, with our live Q&A, we're going to jump right into it. I would like you to welcome with me today, CeCe. Hi, Cece, how are you?

Hi, Sourabh. I'm doing good. How are you?

I'm doing very well. You know how this works. I'm not going to do… If I did your intro, it would just be like name dropping, you know, brand after brand and NYU. So we're just going to jump right into the first question. Okay. That's good.We're talking about thought leadership, and so we're talking predominantly about top of funnel. Is that correct?

That's a great question. And I'm glad we get a chance to talk about thought leadership, because it's relevant and it's evolving. And to answer your question, I'm going to say yes and. I'll touch on some of the ways that you can incorporate thought leadership tactics at different levels of the marketing funnel. But absolutely, you're right. Thought leadership plays at the awareness phase. The top funnel activity is all about getting your name, your brand out there, including news media, social media, but the articles and the research you publish deserve a spot on your corporate blog and other channels as well. 

And I think of those owned media and social channels for thought leadership content as kind of further down in the funnel, the interest and preference phases. No one's really going to stumble over your corporate blog unless you have amazing SEO. But at the interest phase of the funnel is also opportunities for visibility at targeted events. And oftentimes that can be speaking opportunities at an event and ties into your speakership topics, your message framework, speakers, bureau, media training, all of those kind of coalesce around those speaking opportunities.And at those, we really align the content calendar around those events or speakerships to really blow out a topic. So for example..

Sorry, I have to ask, and I'll hand it back over to you. When you're talking about events for B2B decision makers, are we talking about like the mega like Dreamforce where people walk in off the street? Or are we talking like, you know, hyper focused symposium by Gartner or CIO? What do you mean when you talk about events? 

Yeah, that's a great question. And there's, you can actually work on either kind. And I'll start first with that smaller event. I think those have a lot of potential, especially around that leadership and real engagement. And a lot of those events, Sourabh, have become pay to play or require consideration. But I'll note, this may not be a bad option, especially if that event is highly targeted to your intended audience. And I've worked with a small events firm, which let me effectively reach the decision maker for a service, the CHROs of organizations. And the goal of that event is not to sell, but to bring forward discussion on your thought leadership topic, to build rapport and relationships. 

And those introductions then become really helpful, and really allow us to build that relationship and kind of break down any concerns or questions they have about the company. But you asked about larger events. And I'll note, when we think about big events like CES, HIMSS, or even the JPMorgan Health Care Conference, a lot of those thought leadership opportunities are adjacent. 

So invitation-only meetings for targeted groups, hosted breakfasts or dinners. This is a great way to get your audience attention or time. So from that audience perspective, they may not carve out time to go to your webinar, but they will make time for someone they're interested in talking to, or a topic they're interested in, especially when they want to make the most of the time traveling to a conference. So events can be an effective part, and really help to align that content strategy as well. 

I love it. And I will let you, thank you so much for taking these live, I know it's a little nerve wracking doing live Q&A, but it's such an important thing that's growing so quickly, right? There's been a lot of demand for people to get more people to their events, right?

Right, right. And I've seen events where companies don't even have a booth, or don't even do a sponsorship, but they do their own thing, and really kind of make their own presence there in a very targeted way. It takes a lot of planning, a lot of preparation. And by the way, these events take investment. You can't say, well, we're not sponsoring, it's not very expensive. All the planning, all the intention, and then really blowing out the content in terms of, you know, once you speak at an event, you're preloading it, you've got your clips, you've got your case study, you may even have the presentation that you give to the Salesforce end to let them share it post event. 

So all of these things take a lot of planning, a lot of effort, you know, there's T&E, there might be sponsorships, and that all goes into that ROI calculation. So I'll note, though, as we go further down the funnel, you know, and when you think about even that bottom funnel, when you get to the purchase intent phase, there's an opportunity to bring that subject matter expert with emphasis on that expert to spend time with the organization you're hoping to work with. And this can be done in a workshop, meeting, call, training, you know, it's really having that perspective that can help to illuminate something for that organization that you hope to work with. And then, you know, don't forget at the bottom of the funnel, purchase the loyalty, continue to engage your customers. 

Information and insights never get old, right, this is their business, it actually lets you have a closer relationship with them. And at one company, we would hold influential distributors or host them for retreats, bring in our leaders to share information and engage in roundtable discussions. And the topics that are most interesting ones are, you know, the ones that are challenging. There's evolving regulatory guidance, lack of clarity. So having that access to our leaders provided really high value. And at a minimum, a quarterly insights newsletter for clients is a great mechanism.

I love this. And I just want to let you know, half the audience watching you right now, because I peeked over, they're experts themselves. Most of them are. I'm going to I'm going to invite them to bring their questions and I don't care how controversial it is. And I'm actually going to just touch on one point you mentioned, ties into I think the next logical question. It's a really key consideration for seasoned marketers, they know that their year three revenue is significantly higher than their year one revenue. Conversion is just one point in the value. So the fact that you're continuing that thought leadership, that access to experts post purchase, I just think that's brilliant. I mean, it makes you like unbeatable, honestly, as a brand.

It really does. Right. And this is it helps you and it helps your customers.

Right. Exactly. Right. And then you get easy referrals for multimillion dollar deals. People wonder how that happens. It's not accidental. It's not luck. Right. 

No, it's not luck. Yeah.

OK. So I do need to ask, as you're laying out this, you know, this process and you've got like we're talking about dozens of touch points. Right. Right. Up to purchase and dozens of players for marketing and sales and sometimes even partners. Right. Yep. This is a major investment of time, resources and money. 

If you do it right.

Right. Well, I guess that's my question. How do you know that the quality of your thought leadership is good enough at each stage?

Yeah, that's a great question. And we should probably touch on metrics. But, you know, first of all, Rob, you can do some research to ensure that your topic is of interest to the target audience and that it aligns with your brand. So you can do some initial kind of validation that you're on the right track. I would say that that concern around, you know, is this right? Are we strong enough in this topic to take a stand on it? Diversity keeps a lot of organizations from starting. Right. And, you know, the pushback or concern internally is we're not ready because we're not perfect at whatever it is. 

Most organizations are not where they want to be on diversity, equity, inclusion, consumer digital privacy, sustainability. But that doesn't let them stop from outlining what they see as a need or even a rallying cry for something different. And the example I want to give you is, you know, does Fortune magazine top their annual rankings for the best employers to work with? They don't. This year, it's Cisco Systems and then Hilton. But does that keep Fortune magazine from writing about it and sharing what it takes to be a great employer? No, of course not. So as you establish your program, you set it up for a long term investment and set metrics to assess the progress there.

Well, I mean, this naturally, thank you so much for this, because I think, like you said, you know, if you're 70 or 80 percent ready, let your ICT, let your audience, let your decision makers do the last 20, 30 percent, because they'll certainly refine very quickly with their feedback what they care most about. Right. So this gets us obviously I mean, Cece, you already set it up, right? What are the metrics for thought leadership? What should we be measuring? Because I'm not going to get the investment I need for this with vanity metrics.

Right. And, you know, you've got the long term outcome metrics, sales revenue, new customers. You know, those are perfect for outcome metrics. But you also want to measure some operational or kind of process metrics to see how you're doing as you go as well. So here's a few just to consider. It could be media inquiries. So being sought out for your perspective on related topics and the time that you or your company are mentioned on the coverage of that topic. 

There's also publications, the number of articles and frankly, the number of op eds published that you had ceded to those publications. There might be an opportunity to measure requests to have someone from your company speak on this topic or approved speaking opportunities for those that you've applied for from a company perspective. And then, of course, from the sales side, new contacts, new inquiries from the outreach meetings with targeted customers and leaders, and this can fit into your ABM strategy. And then, of course, the marketing and sales funnels, the contacts, the marketing qualified leads. So all of those are ways that you can measure how you're doing and if you're on track through your own thought leadership funnel.

Thank you so much. And I just want to take 30 seconds here to outline, you know, that this doesn't just apply to the incredible brands you've worked with. This correlation I've seen firsthand building a billion dollar brand at a startup is as we got that market penetration and our customer validation, right? And we started to put out more of our data and transparency, we started to end up speaking at conferences. We started being quoted, right? Our CEO almost every month in public.

Yeah, that's I mean, that's a great way to measure that you are having success in this area. Right. And it's, you know, it is a long play. This is not a short, you know, one month later, here's our sales. This is really an investment. So it's really impressive that you're able to achieve that. And that's a great way to measure it.

Yeah. And it happens at every size company and in every industry. So I guess the key question, though, because we talked about how to measure it, and we talked about, you know, how to how to market it. But where's the thought leadership coming from, Cece? Are you bringing in external experts? Or is this your C suite? Where's it coming from?

That's a great question. And oftentimes, it can start with the C suite, or there may be other experts within the organization that have specific knowledge, have published or have credibility in the market. And it kind of depends, but it really needs to be aligned to who your company is, what they stand for, what they do. And by the way, from a thought leadership and topic perspective, you had mentioned you got to be 80% there. If you were 100% there, this would be a solved kind of topic, it wouldn't be interesting anymore. If there was no, you know, gray area or no evolving thinking, it's not a thought leadership topic. 

We've evolved and we've moved on, right? So there are some companies, and I'll talk about a couple that have provided thought provoking content to their key audiences, or advocate for change, but you'll note that this is part of kind of who they are, and you see this in their operations, as well as the communication. So just a couple of examples, Apple has a focus on consumer digital privacy, and that lets them focus is different from others in the technology ecosystem invested in monetizing consumer data. And this also aligns with how they position themselves and, you know, even how their products are set up. 

Now, on, you know, in another industry, Patagonia has a focus on environmentally responsible manufacturing. They donate 1% of their revenue to restoring and preserving the environment, and the customers know and expect this company is not fast, fast fashion, but focused on societal good, right? So this is a topic they can talk about with their supply chain, differentiate them in the market, and be able to tell that story through their customers as well. Now, could Apple also have a focus on environmentally responsible marketing? They probably could, if that was an area they focused on, right? So that's adjacent to what they do. But conversely, Patagonia would not find consumer digital privacy a relevant topic for them. So that's kind of how I look at this and how it really fits into who you are, and what you're intending to do in the market.

Yeah, and I'd like to, you know, point something out that is just the sheer brilliance of brands like this, you know, because you think about markets like apps, and, you know, fast fashion as having no barrier, there's no moat. But think about the moat Apple's created, compared to the Android marketplace because of their focus on privacy. Apple apps have so many more requirements, you feel safer than wait, who's the other player? Google.

That's a great point. So yeah, it's not just they're talking about it, they're they're trying to walk the talk.

And they're making money from standing true to their commitment. So to your point, the thought leadership is extremely credible. Yes. I have to ask, right, because we generate, you know, very top of funnel, middle of funnel, bottom of funnel, and sometimes almost beyond bottom of funnel, right leads for very large brands, we do, right? And you've done it most of your career. How does thought leadership get used by sales?

Yeah, that's a great question. But it goes back to the alignment of that thought leadership with the company. It's got to be related to the industry, the insight what the company stands for. So I know, Rob, I would argue that thought leadership can help accelerate the pipeline for the reasons we talked about earlier, this is the opportunity to get the brand greater visibility to the market. And one thing we talked a lot about in one organization is how much more value there is, for example, at a conference to have a speaker than to simply sponsor the speaking opportunity gives you that ability to share the insights with your core audience. 

So customer meetings, follow ups can include the speaker or you share the highlights. So we've often shared the highlights, which could be a clip, a quote, the case study as part of that campaign aligned with our thought leadership and shared out through customer presentations, presentations with the field, social and more. And this also lets your sales team up level a little bit and even speak to the higher purpose of a company. So in fact, when we did some ABM for a key prospect, we started the materials with how aligned the two organizations are on their forward thinking, our organization and the customer we wanted to sell to. Right. We started with here's why we should be working together. So really the key point is to have relevant and insightful perspective and carry it through that communication.

I love this. And, you know, there's it's often misunderstood. Right. But I want to I want to call this out and lead right into my next question. Right. Marketing has a ton of writers, designers. Right. And data is a ton. But yes. Well, compared to sales. Right. So yes, marketing has a role for marketing. Yeah. But the thing that sales has that marketing doesn't is unlimited access to customers. What is the role of customers in thought leadership? How do you how do you use your relationships and your knowledge or relationship with customers?

You know, that's a really interesting question. And I think you get real time feedback from the customers in terms of what's relevant, whether it's believable, if this is aligned with what they're thinking. But I have seen thought leadership that actually is enhanced by the customers. And one, I would say, technique maybe of thought leadership is to serve as a role of a convener. 

So bringing together even peer organizations and talking about, you know, not an immediately competitive topic, but kind of that future of the industry or something that's a really big challenge to solve and facilitating that discussion. This is really great for companies that are in consulting or advising because it lets them facilitate, you know, bring together these different customers or different peer organizations. And they also benefit from the insights as well. |So I think that's a really interesting technique that I've seen used effectively.

Well, thank you. This brings up a sort of natural question. I'm going to just throw a reminder out because we only have a few minutes left. Well, we'll run out of time. So if anyone wants to get another question in, I've covered most of the ones we received in advance. OK, their last chance. But when you're talking about convening, you know, existing customers with whom you're growing revenue, very important, right? 

And your ABM and top, you know, of mine prospects with whom you're looking for that conversion, this concept of convening and bringing decision makers together in experiences or even digitally in publications, right? Is this something that you're doing as a standalone brand or do you have to facilitate this with like a research partner or another provider in the market?

That's a great question. You can do it as a standalone brand because, you know, you should have insights from your work. You should have insights from what you're seeing in your own strategic intent. There's nothing wrong with doing additional research and bringing that to bear. So that can, you know, research is one of the key areas where you can bring thought leadership. But you also have knowledge that no one else has based on the work that you do. And there's no shame in using that and talking about here's how we see, you know, this market evolving or this opportunity ahead of us.

And of course, social is just one small slice of the channels you have. You know, there's still the four traditional channels to reach any decision maker. But when you talk about sharing your own learnings, your own data, I mean, think about the authenticity there, right? It's just like, hey, where did this come from? This is our own data. In fact, let me name a customer. And now, boom, you're super credible, right?

Right. And, you know, the case studies that you create or the webinars where you have your customers talk about so much more believable for, you know, your prospect than just to have you say it. So it's one thing if you say it, but if your customer says, wow, we were able to do this or this is how it changed our program, that's really credible and really relevant.

Yeah. And I think we all know you and I have reached a point in our career where we are senior decision makers. Right. I mean, that's what I'm listening for. There's a certain amount I discount the entire brand voices. Wait, what do your customers say? Right.

Right. Right. How did it really work when you went to, you know, implement it in your organization? That's what we want to hear. Yeah. What were the challenges that you ran into and how did you resolve them?

Yeah. And this is my most nuanced questions. You can take your time with this and this will be our last question. We're running out of time, Cece, but when you are getting your audience's attention with thought leadership, right, it's useful to focus on and to articulate, right, the problem. Right. There's so much urgency around the problem. But what is and this is why it's nuanced. This is a real editorial skill, right? How do you shift the focus because ultimately you're going to sell the end state, which is the solution. How do you balance in your thought leadership, the focus on the problem versus the solution that you or others provide?

Yeah, that's a great question. And it kind of depends on whether it is kind of a near term or kind of an existential problem, if you will, like, you know, climate change, right? That's a huge we're not going to solve it right away, but we can talk about what steps we see or what we need to do or what steps we'll take as a company to be carbon neutral by a certain date. So it kind of depends. 

And then there's more near term things. One thing I've worked on is maternal health, right, during pregnancy and looked at, you know, IA enhanced solutions that create greater safety throughout pregnancy. Those are things where we can talk about here's the problem, especially in developing nations, and here's a low cost approach to it that can help to alleviate that. So you can you spend just a little bit of time kind of going through that problem and the impact that it has. And then you're able to talk about the solution and how it's implemented. So it kind of depends on how big that problem statement is.

Cece, I love your thought leadership. I'm not sure if you realize what you just did there. You actually took a massive multi-million dollar investment by a brand into technology that would completely fail in the field in medicine unless it was positioned with that human perspective. It’s that AI can pick that up, it can give the recommendation. But now we're able to give that recommendation to the practitioner, the physician without on-site tech, right, that human element. And I think this is why this is so powerful for key decision makers, is when you reach a certain point in your career, all you care about is people.

Yeah, that's a great point. Yeah.

You will make or break your budget, you will make or break your numbers, you'll make or break your own career move based entirely on people.

Yeah, and the impact that you can have. That's a great point, Sourabh. Exactly. 

I love how you nuance that, is that though the thought leadership can be about this incredible technology or amazing research, it has to be delivered with those case studies that are about people making it happen.

Right, and the impact, absolutely. 

Love it. Oh my gosh. Cece, I will try to get you back. I know you're super busy, right? But this is such an important topic. If we get any other questions, would it be okay if I followed up by email? 

Oh, absolutely. This was really fun.Thank you for this, Sourabh.

Thank you, Cece. Thank you for everything you're doing and for everybody joining us. We'll see you all soon. All right. Thank you.