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Is your company demonstrating thought leadership? Chances are, in one way or another the answer is yes. You might be leading the way in product development in your industry, or you might have employees who are frequently published. Whatever your angle, thought leadership is a key component of content marketing and a smart way to drive new business leads. As digital trends continue to evolve, the value of thought leadership will undoubtedly remain. With that knowledge comes an important question:
Are you cultivating the next generation of thought leaders at your company?
It’s important to invest in less experienced employees who can carry your company’s torch into the future. Doing so doesn’t require much time or money, but it does require some generosity from current thought leaders. Companies with experts who are willing to teach are often best prepared for the future, because leadership is developed within. Productivity and retention are higher as a result. When employees know they are valued and worth an investment of time and resources, their work reflects it.
Develop a culture of learning and education.
To encourage employees at the beginning of their careers to think towards leadership, instill a culture of learning at your company. When internal education is part of your employment brand, your team becomes more eager to learn, both collaboratively and from senior leadership.
Making learning a priority isn’t as difficult as you might think.
In fact, sometimes it’s as easy as establishing a series of Lunch and Learns that feature resident thought leaders. Have them share their research and writing process for a recent article, or discuss points of career development that younger employees should keep in mind. We hold similar “Crave” sessions at Movéo and find them to be useful and rewarding for everyone involved. If learning over lunch doesn’t suit your culture, set aside a day–or even a half day–for an internal mini-conference. Pick an industry-related theme and invite senior leadership to share their insight in ways that will help less experienced team members think towards the future. A morning of education might seem disruptive to the regular workflow, but we can almost guarantee that everyone will benefit.
Does your company culture celebrate education? How so?
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This month, we’re focusing the blog on internal investment. Topics will include professional development, company culture and a host of other things that support a company’s greatest asset: its employees. Some executives cringe when they hear the words professional development, assuming it requires expensive conferences and education grants. At most companies, however, a great place for employees to learn is right down the hall.
When companies capitalize on the expertise of their own thought leaders, it works well for everyone. It reduces costs associated with external professional development, and it strengthens resident thought leadership from the top down. It provides newer employees with insight that’s already valuable to the company, which affords them job security and a direction for growth. Often, internal leaders are happy to share their knowledge with less experienced staff members, but the challenge is making time for it amidst busy deadlines.
Here are three ways to celebrate your thought leaders’ successes with minimal time and effort:
1. Regular Email Updates
If your company has a leader who is frequently published or featured as a guest speaker, circulate a regular email sharing that work with the entire staff. It keeps everyone aware of the company’s public reputation, and it celebrates hard work and achievement. At Movéo, we’re proud to celebrate the thought leadership of our Vice President of Strategy & Planning Kevin Randall. His work regularly appears in Fast Company, Forbes and most recently, Vanity Fair.
2. Start a Thought Leadership Board
In the common room, consider adding a thought leadership board to post articles, content marketing pieces and special event photos. Keeping this work front and center inspires younger employees to work towards similar success, leaving the company in good hands for the future.
3. Encourage Connecting With Leaders Over Lunch
Because busy schedules make mentorship difficult, we suggest inviting your resident thought leader to share points from a recent initiative, article or event to a group of younger employees over lunch. Without taking too much of anyone’s time, your company will be strengthened with deeper relationships, and less experienced employees will glean insight on what it takes to work at the level of your company’s top executives.
Does your company celebrate thought leadership in everyday ways? Give it a try, and let us know if it makes an impact.
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In our industry, a lot of value is placed on thought leadership and its impact on content marketing. If your company has hired or developed thought leaders of its own, you understand that their expertise adds a lot of merit to your brand. In fact, the value is so high that it can be tempting to focus on projecting their work outwards. Doing so holds the promise of new leads and increased brand value.
While promoting your company’s thought leadership has undeniable value, don’t forget the added importance of sharing it internally. Consider the impact it would have for resident thought leaders to invest time and effort in developing employees under them. Promising team members who are younger or less experienced can grow immeasurably by listening to their company’s experts, following their work or perhaps even contributing to projects alongside them.
Here are three ways to make the most of thought leadership internally:
1. Invite Co-Authorship
If a thought leader at your company is willing, have them invite a less experienced employee to co-write an article or assist with research for an upcoming piece. Even if the young employee’s contributions are minimal, the new team member will learn a lot about the background work and high level thought that getting published requires.
2. Institute Team-Based Approaches
An excellent way to invite less experienced employees to learn from your company’s resident experts is to establish team-based approaches to projects. Encourage collaborative work styles, and reward employees who demonstrate teamwork. By assigning teams to new initiatives, you ensure each project gets the depth of insight it needs, and you open the door for newer employees to watch and learn how your company’s leaders think, work and solve problems. It’s a smart way to get things done effectively and simultaneously groom leaders for the future.
3. Spread the Word
Though your company’s thought leadership is obvious to some, remember that new or younger employees might be completely unaware of it. Be sure these team members are invited to attend events or speaking engagements that feature your experts. Post an invitation in common rooms, and send internal email reminders. Once they know they’re welcome, new employees will be excited to attend, learn and grow into thought leadership of their own.
How does your company encourage internal learning?
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Engagement is about making key relationships work for your company, and this month, we’ve explored how to connect with three important groups: your prospects, customers and employees. Today, we’re sharing some additional resources on engagement to keep the conversation going.
Here are four great posts from around the web:
This post is particularly relevant for B2B marketers who want to target top decision makers in their industries. In it, Justin Gray explains how the elusive C-Suite thinks differently and helps marketers adapt.
In this infographic, Hubspot shares ten smart ways to increase email open rates. 838 billion marketing emails were sent in 2013, numbers drastic enough to inspire every company to look for ways to become more engaging.
What Makes Content Stand Out?
This Adweek post has been around for a couple of months, but we liked it too much not to share. The demands of content production have become overwhelming for many marketers, so this piece on creating engaging content for your brand is sure to resonate. Hint: originality is key.
This post discusses the power of employee advocacy, how it relates to B2B, and most importantly, how companies can develop their own employee-advocacy programs to make every team member a brand ambassador. When someone recommends his own employer’s product to peers and colleagues, the results are powerful.
How is your company engaging its targets?
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All marketers are being called upon to create increasingly visual and interactive content, so a month dedicated to engagement wouldn’t be complete without addressing video marketing. Video brings a host of complicated questions to the table, and depending on your company, they might not be easy to answer: Should you outsource? Can you manage production in-house? Should you focus on customer or product stories?
Quality video production is challenging in every industry, but when complex B2B products are the focus, it can feel particularly daunting. Sometimes, companies assume that their products are too complicated to be captured accurately in a video format, and others worry that B2B customer testimonials risk being dry or boring. While the intimidation associated with video marketing is understandable, the reality is that when used effectively, the medium can help “boring” products come to life.
Here are three benefits of including video marketing in your B2B content strategy:
1. Search Results
As Econsultancy has said before, videos are engaging and shareable. In today’s fast-paced world, many prospects would prefer to watch a short video than spend valuable time digging through product pages. When a great video is shared and rewatched, your company’s search results organically improve. On your video page, be sure to include links to your site to guide leads down the funnel.
2. Accessibility
Sometimes, video is just what a technical B2B product needs. Complex offerings become accessible and understandable with the help of a visual guide. It might be an example of a company using your product successfully, or it might explain the outside-the-box potential your services hold. Sometimes, seeing really is believing.
3. Human Stories
B2B companies thrive when they find a way to attach human stories to their products. Video is the perfect way to do that by highlighting testimonials of customers who have seen firsthand what your company can do. Use a storytelling narrative to demonstrate how your company’s product impacts real humans and how grateful they are. Sharing the experiences of real people is always engaging, especially in B2B where to some, it might be unexpected.
Has your company used video to its fullest advantage?
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As we’ve been discussing all month, engagement is essential to business growth but hard to quantify. Most senior leaders would agree that it’s crucial to engage prospects, customers and employees, but devoting equal attention to three siloed groups is difficult. This challenge leads many companies to give up on one or two key categories, usually focusing on the one they assume is most closely linked to revenue.
As many have figured out, all three of these groups impact sales and need to be engaged. Believe it or not, it’s possible to manage them all. In fact, we believe that the most successful companies have figured out how to balance all key relationship groups effectively. How can you join them?
Make your brand one cohesive unit, from the inside out.
Forget internal and external branding. It’s all the same thing. Your brand has the power to affect prospects, customers and team members equally. If you’re wondering how to strengthen your brand in every direction, we’ve got some tips. Make these three things a priority:
1. Internal culture
Internal investment has benefits that extend outward. As we shared last week, helping employees grow and play a role in decision making increases engagement. Next month, we’ll be sharing more tips for cultivating thought leadership and mentorship at your company, so stay tuned.
2. Consistent messaging
Clearly define your brand values, and extend them to everyone. Your employees and your leads should feel equally engaged by your brand promise, and it should be present at every touchpoint, inwardly and outwardly.
3. Social business
Movéo’s own Kevin Randall wrote the afterword in The Social Employee, a book explaining that great brands start on the inside and that employees can and should be empowered to share them outwardly. Explore the adoption of social business methodologies to make your brand presence more comprehensive in the modern digital landscape.
How does your company project brand promise in all directions?
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Employee engagement is a hot topic, and for good reason: your people are your best asset. They interact with customers, drive sales and directly impact business growth. Engagement is defined in a variety of ways, but it always means making the targeted party feel valued and helping them participate in a two-way dialogue. If your company is effectively engaging leads, customers and employees, all three groups will feel that your senior leadership truly cares about their needs.
Our tips for engaging employees have been fairly simple. Involve them in decision making. Make brand promise part of their everyday lives. To end the week, we’ve got one more:
To keep employees happy and committed, help them grow.
Here’s how to do it:
Help your team refine existing skills.
Praise employees for their expertise and contributions to the company, and allow team members to capitalize on their strengths. If someone is particularly good at event planning, don’t hesitate to allow them to become involved in the logistics of the next conference or education day. Helping your staff take their strengths to the next level is not as difficult or costly as many imagine.
Encourage employees to develop new skills.
While professional development opportunities outside of the workplace are great, it’s often more practical for employees to learn new skills right on the job. If an employee has an interest in another department, consider letting them help with a project to cultivate new skill sets. Sometimes, departing from strictly defined roles is healthy and rewarding. This maximizes the expertise within your company as people learn from colleagues, strengthening your business for the future.
Making an effort to foster internal professional development will lead to employee happiness and positivity, which results in higher productivity and retention. Eventually, your business will feel the effects right where it counts: increased revenue.
How does your company help employees grow?
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On Monday, we discussed that allowing employees to help with decision making is a simple but powerful way to make them feel valued. Today we’ll continue exploring the employee piece of the engagement puzzle with a reminder that might be surprising. Sometimes, keeping your staff excited about their work is easier than you might think. Instead of worrying about expensive conferences and bonuses, simply extend your brand promise to them each and every day.
Focusing on external brand perception is usually a company’s top priority, but instead, consider making the commitment to deliver internally first. This decision creates a positive culture that leads to higher productivity, better customer interactions and increased sales. Put simply, creating higher levels of employee engagement has a direct impact on business growth.
If you’re wondering what sharing brand promise internally looks like, here are four ways to get started:
1. Continuously highlight company vision.
In the midst of sales calls and client deadlines, it’s often tough to pause long enough to reflect on high-level company goals. However, offering employees clear and frequent reminders goes a long way to boost morale. Keeping the company vision in mind attaches meaning to tasks that otherwise might seem mindless. Consider putting large visual reminders in the office, or making vision-oriented reminders part of a weekly newsletter.
2. Encourage employees to explore strengths.
The best managers allow employees to capitalize on their interests and strengths, even outside of their assigned departments. This helps them develop new skill sets and keeps them engaged and invested in projects they truly care about. Even better, it gives them new places to explore brand values.
3. Offer performance-based incentives.
Companies who reward high levels of performance usually see more productivity than those who do not. Results-based incentives can be controversial, but they keep employees devoted to their projects. Having the opportunity to work towards an exciting perk or bonus inspires employees to stay tuned in to the everyday.
4. Communicate frequently.
Create a culture of open communication at your company. When you extend your brand promise to customers, you probably focus on feedback and listening. Your employees deserve the same dedication. They will appreciate knowing that their voices have value and that supervisors take their feedback seriously. Internal engagement will increase and more than likely, take revenue along with it.
How do you extend brand promise to employees?
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As we’ve said before in our internal branding series, your people are your best asset. They shape every customer interaction, impact public perception of your company and have the power to increase revenue. With that in mind, it’s surprising that more companies don’t make employee engagement a priority. Taking steps to show team members how valued they are goes a long way towards increasing internal engagement, which heightens productivity and retention.
This appreciation can be communicated in a variety of ways – special perks, bonuses or professional development opportunities – but there’s a simple method that is often overlooked:
Give employees a role in decision making.
Allowing employees to be part of decision making at your company gives them a sense of ownership that results in greater satisfaction and loyalty. Taking a collaborative approach in big decisions that affect the business is smart; final judgment still lies with the C-suite, but including employees in the discussion process signals your trust for them and guarantees they won’t be shocked or resentful in the event of big changes.
In the same way, allowing employees to manage small and mid-range decisions and encouraging their collaboration gives a daily sense of responsibility that has no shortage of positive effects. It inspires more dedication to projects, because people are more personally invested in their success.
Consistently involving employees in decision making takes work, and possibly even some restructuring of culture and governance, but it’s worth it. Your empowered team will be inspired to do their best work and excited to come to work each day.
What makes employees feel valued and empowered at your company?
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Lead nurturing is a critical part of marketing, but relationships can’t stop after the sale. Companies must nurture existing customers to keep them engaged and invite them to become brand advocates. Product check-ins are a natural way to get in touch, but in a world where it’s becoming increasingly difficult to cut through the noise, it’s important to think outside the box. How can you make customers feel valued? How can you keep them committed to your brand?
We offered some ideas below, but the answer varies for everyone. What’s important is to know your customers, what resonates with them and how it relates to your brand promise. At that point, you’re free to have a little fun. Be dynamic. Be engaging.
Customer loyalty will follow.
1. Invitation to Customer Advocacy Group
Encourage brand participation by personally inviting customers to join a user forum or customer advocacy group.
2. Testimonial Contest
Even in B2B, people love the chance to share personal stories. It gives you a chance to collect product feedback, and it helps them connect with your brand. Don’t be afraid to offer an incentive for the winner or participants.
3. Insider Deal
Offer a unique deal that’s only available to existing customers. There’s a lot of room for creativity here, depending on your brand, but the bottom line is that people love to feel like part of the club.
4. Handwritten Mail
It might seem outdated, but having your customer service team send handwritten notes to loyal customers makes a big difference. It doesn’t have to be over the holidays, either; sometimes sending mail for no reason at all leaves the biggest impression.
5. Special Events
If your company is hosting or speaking at a special event, invite a few longtime customers to attend. They’ll appreciate the chance to connect with your brand, learn more about the industry and meet new people.
How do you make existing customers feel valued?
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