The 2024 Edelman B2B thought leadership report: Key takeaways
The writing’s on the wall. The 2024 Edelman and LinkedIn B2B thought leadership report leaves no room for doubt – when done well, thought leadership is a powerful driver of revenue.💰 (We can vouch for this from our own experience.)
However, the report also highlights that thought leadership is an area often misunderstood and underinvested by businesses.
To help you understand the true value of thought leadership and what effective thought leadership looks like, we've summarised the key takeaways from the report. Drawing from our expertise in creating B2B thought leadership content for over 15 years, we've interwoven our expert opinions throughout this summary. 👇
Effective thought leadership is needed now more than ever
According to LinkedIn’s 95/5 rule, approx 95% of your business customers are not actively seeking goods or services (at any given time). And as Edelman’s report points out, lingering economic uncertainty is extending sales cycles, with nearly 90% saying their sales cycles are more drawn out.
In our experience working with multiple clients across SaaS, data, technology, and consultancy, we've seen firsthand the challenges due to these drawn-out sales cycles. Buyers today want to be educated and guided through their purchasing journey, aligning with the way B2B buyers prefer to make decisions.
As Edelman puts it; “In an era where getting buyers off the sidelines is imperative, B2B brands need to rethink their content strategy and put thought leadership front and centre—as a first step to stimulate demand.”
Thought leadership has the power to activate decision makers
Nearly 3/4 of executives trust thought leadership over other marketing and product materials
7/10 decision makers say they are very likely to think more positively about an organisation that consistently produces high-quality thought leadership.
When done well, 75% say thought leadership has the potential to convince buyers to research a product or service they were not previously considering.
Similarly, 54% say that an organisation that consistently produces high quality thought leadership has prompted them to research the organisation’s offers or capabilities.
In fact, 60% said that thought leadership made them realise their organisation was missing out on a significant business opportunity. And 29% said they realised their organisation was more vulnerable to a potential threat than previously thought.
Bottom line: Thought leadership spurs business leaders to rethink their challenges and is a powerful tool for stimulating demand for your business’s products and services.
We often see companies focusing too much on the 5% ready to buy with hard hitting demo requests and product-led content. But it's crucial to give B2B buyers the time they need to make informed buying decisions. Because the process often involves:
Becoming problem aware
Prioritising solving this problem
Becoming category/solution aware
Ensuring the buying committee is on board
Allocating a budget to solve this problem
Choosing your brand & buying
Thought leadership content should aim to understand how buyers prioritise problems and research and evaluate solutions throughout this journey. By providing valuable thought leadership insights tailored to each stage, businesses can nurture prospects effectively and position themselves as trusted advisors.
B2B decision makers and c-suite leaders consistently consume thought leadership content
B2B decision makers read high-quality thought leadership regularly. In fact, 52% of decision makers and 54% of C-level execs spend an hour or more on average per week reading thought leadership content.
According to the average time on site reading a blog post, that’s the equivalent of reading 15 blog posts a week. That’s a lot of content. 📖
These stats really show the immense appetite for insightful, educational content that can guide B2B buyers through their purchasing journey.
If your business is not consistently creating and distributing thought leadership content, you can be certain that your prospects and potential customers are consuming someone else's content instead.
A steady stream of high-quality thought leadership is essential for capturing the attention of decision-makers. Failing to make this investment means ceding ground to competitors who are actively nurturing these valuable prospects.
By committing to a consistent cadence of insightful, relevant content, businesses can stay top-of-mind, build credibility, and ultimately drive more informed purchasing decisions in their favour.
Executives trust thought leadership over marketing materials
Nearly three quarters of decision makers (73%) say that an organisation’s thought leadership content is a more trustworthy basis for assessing its capabilities and competencies than its marketing materials and product sheets.
But consistency is key.
7 in 10 decision makers say they are very likely to think more positively about organisations that consistently produce high-quality thought leadership.
What this demonstrates to me is how crucial it is to strike the right balance of thought leadership content across the demand generation and demand capture stages.
A well-rounded content strategy should include a mix of content types, from high-level trend analysis and industry perspectives to more targeted pieces that demonstrate your brand's expertise and capabilities in solving specific pain points. This balanced approach ensures that you're consistently delivering value to prospects at every stage.
How this breaks down across the demand generation cycle, looks a bit like this;
[Roo & Eve’s demand generation diagram]
💡Key takeaway: You never know where a buyer is in their journey, when they might need more education, or when they are ready to buy.
Plus, buyers will often loop between stages depending on:
how big their problem is at any given time and whether priorities change;
feedback from their colleagues who may raise issues they haven’t considered;
or if they decide to deal with the problem later.
Thought leadership can help B2B buyers to be problem aware and solution aware
More than 75% of decision-makers and C-suite executives say that a piece of thought leadership has led them to research a product or service they were not previously considering.
Moreover, 54% say that an organisation that consistently produces thought leadership content has prompted them to research the organisation’s offers or capabilities.
It can even reveal previously untapped business opportunities or identify new threats. Helping them to become problem aware AND solution aware. (One of the ultimate goals of thought leadership content.)
Among decision-makers who say that a particular piece of thought leadership has led them to research a product or service they were not previously considering:
60% said that piece of thought leadership had made them realise their organisation was missing out on a significant business opportunity.
29% said they realised their organisation was more vulnerable to a potential threat than previously thought.
Daniel Van Otterdijk, Group Chief Communications Officer, DP World says it best; “thought leadership allows us to get into the hands and heads of customers and prospects wherever they are. If you know your customers’ challenges, you can shape content that sharply identifies those problems and brings your unique solutions into focus.”
Thought leadership prompts the 95% to step off the sidelines
A whopping 9 in 10 of B2B buyers say they are moderately or very likely to be more receptive to sales and marketing outreach from a company that consistently produces high-quality thought leadership.
86% also say they would be moderately or very likely to invite them to participate in the RFP process.
Moreover, 23% say they began buying from or working with that organisation and 60% said that good thought leadership makes them willing to pay a premium to work with that organisation.
Ophelie Janus, Global Head of Thought Leadership at Siemens says; “Consistently and repeatedly delivering credible yet actionable insights to customers, during and outside sales cycles, offers a unique opportunity to strengthen trust.”
Thought leadership helps you retain more customers
Of course, thought leadership isn’t only about winning new customers. It’s also about retaining those you have. The good news is thought leadership can help inoculate you against competitors trying to poach your customers.
This is so important. And here’s why:
70% say that a piece of thought leadership had at least occasionally led them to question whether they should continue working with an existing supplier.
54% say the piece of competitors thought leadership got them to realise there were other suppliers they could work with that had a better understanding of the challenges their organisation was facing.
51% say a competitors thought leadership got them to realise that other suppliers were smarter or more visionary.
The hard truth is; your competitors’ thought leadership can hurt your business. In fact, 25% said it had led them to end or significantly reduce their relationship with a current provider/supplier.
Your customers might rethink their relationship with you if they see your competitors offering thought-provoking thought leadership content.
But there’s a problem.
Despite the clear power of thought leadership to drive business results, most organisations say it is under-resourced, misused, and not measured appropriately.
30% say their organisation does not really know how to use thought leadership as a sales or marketing tool.
And only 29% can link sales leads back to specific pieces of thought leadership content.
But the main barrier is that it’s under-resourced, with 50% of producers of thought leadership citing that reason.
And 26% say their organisation lacks the skills to produce high-quality thought leadership.
So what does good thought leadership look like?
According to the report, effective thought leadership has three key attributes:
it cites strong research and data 📊
helps buyers understand their business challenges 🤔
and offers concrete guidance 💡
As Edelman and LinkedIn puts it; “Doing any of these will elevate your thought leadership above the pack. Doing all of them will put you in the top tier.”
But in an era of AI-generated content, good is no longer good enough.
Not surprisingly, less than half (48%) say the overall quality of thought leadership they read is good. And only 15% say the quality is very good or excellent.
As well as the three key attributes of effective thought leadership listed above, the report says well-known authors and interesting formats are considered essential.
And these three things will help take your thought leadership from good to great:
55% say it should reference strong research and data.
44% say it should help them to better understand challenges and opportunities facing their business.
43% say it should offer concrete guidance and case examples.
Brian Jochum, SVP & Global CMO at Virtusa says; “ In today’s fast-paced economy, many organizations struggle to identify and address potential threats to their business, and the consequences of moving slowly against those factors are more significant than ever before.”
He goes on to say that; “Thought leadership has emerged as an effective tool that brings clarity and perspective to the process, helping leaders not only precisely define their challenges and opportunities, but also quantify the opportunity cost of inaction and drive urgency in making key strategic business decisions.”
B2B companies need thought leadership now more than ever
B2B companies need to find ways to make buyers reconsider their challenges as a way to generate demand. Thought leadership can give them an advantage.
Thought leadership is not only about creating demand. When done right, it makes buyers look at their business and the challenges it is facing in new ways and protects you from competitors producing their own thought leadership.
✍️The writing’s on the wall: Companies should prioritise thought leadership as an effective way to gain a competitive edge. If you’re ready to get to work, talk to us. We’d love to help.