How to Create Valuable Thought Leadership Content: 4 Easy Steps

You’re good at your job, and you prove your expertise daily to colleagues, clients, and customers. That should be enough, right? Well, not quite.

Today’s leaders are also expected to contribute thought leadership, as it’s proven to drive revenue and engagement while increasing trust with employees and stakeholders. In fact, the annual value of thought leadership is said to be $2.7 million, rising to $3.6 million among Fortune 100 executives.

And here’s the kicker. Although most executives (90%) agree that thought leadership is essential, only 20% think their current thought leadership strategy is effective.

Over the last several years, a large portion of my work has been devoted to ghostwriting, helping executives and their teams bring their ideas to life in company blogs, guest posts, and expert forums. I’ve learned that even though most of the people I work with have valuable business experience and vast swaths of knowledge in their industry, they struggle to identify ideas for their own unique content.

However, crafting great thought-leadership content doesn’t have to be difficult. Your next best idea or article is sitting right under your nose, ready to be discovered. It’s all about where you look.

These are the strategies I give my clients to help them source ideas for blogging, guest posting, and other thought leadership content that their customers, stakeholders, and employees are hungry for.

Here are 4 ways to kick the writer’s block and get started on your next great thought leadership piece.

1. Your Mundane Thoughts are Another Person’s Treasure

Many people don’t see their experience as an important resource that others might need. They take their day-to-day work for granted, overlooking its novelty and value to someone else. Most of us assume that everyone knows what we know, but even the most mundane expertise that you put to work daily could be made into relevant thought leadership material.

• Dig up your bio or refamiliarize yourself with your own LinkedIn profile. Your personal background is a gold mine and is also quite unique. Write down all of the things that are different about your particular combination of life and work experience that could help someone else.

• Don’t take your own knowledge for granted. What do you do in your job on a daily basis that other people don’t, or that you especially excel at? What kinds of questions have you gotten from colleagues or clients lately where the answer was obvious to you, but a lightbulb moment for them? 

• Solve your own challenges. Research challenges that you’ve been facing lately and think about questions that have been difficult to answer. It’s very likely that other people are searching for the same solutions.

 2. Always Tie it Back to Your Business Solutions 

At the end of the day, you want to use this thought leadership material to represent your business, as well as your own personal brand. Without making it a sales pitch, centering the piece around what you or your company is known for will increase engagement and give the piece credibility.

• Use a value-first approach. How does your idea tie to the vision and values of your company? How can it help current or future clients?  

• Anchor it to a solution, method, or process that you love using in your work or that one of your clients has benefited from. Use those examples.

• Look at industry trends and news. Anything particularly interesting that you have the expertise to elaborate on or can tie to your business is a great start.

• Address client pain points. What have your clients been talking about lately that others might find useful? 

• Look at what your competitors are writing about. Think about how you might say it differently or even what they’re getting wrong. 

• Ask around. Bounce some of the above questions off of colleagues and brainstorm together how ideas could tie back to the brand. 

3. Every Client is a Potential Case Study

According to Content Marketing Institute’s 2022 research study, 73% of the most successful content marketers use case studies. When a client or company experiences transformation because of your work with them, a case study is the perfect avenue through which to illustrate it. And those case studies can be great fodder for thought leadership pieces. They bring out new ideas, solutions, and challenges to solve. Even if you can’t get permission to share the client’s name, the stories themselves are still very powerful and help readers connect with your brand.

4. Keep a List of Ideas on the Go 

Get in the habit of collecting interesting ideas, websites, articles, and current events. Use Apple Notes, Evernote, voice memos, or a pocket-sized notebook. Whatever your preferred method, the act of recording something daily will never leave you without a wellspring of content to pull from.

Go Forth and Create Content

Using the methods discussed above, you can relieve the pressure of coming up with the perfect idea for your next thought leadership piece. Let your own experience guide the process, have fun with it, and make it about something that interests you. After all, thought leadership that is centered around your unique, expert knowledge will be the most compelling for your audience.

Is there room for improvement in your team’s communication skills? Ask me about my business writing and communications course for professionals, which can be tailored to solve your team’s biggest communication pain points.