A great article from Peter Weinberg and Jon Lombardo who well summarise B2B’s unexplored growth opportunities. I suggest all B2B marketers to have a look. Actually, there’s only one point I find myself in disagreement with. Back to the article, I read:
“Thought leadership that you create for your core buyers won’t work either — an IT Trends Report will be ignored by a CFO, for example, who won’t be interested in the trends in IT but rather how much they will cost their business.”
Peter Weinberg, Jon Lombardo
Well, a proper formulated strategy kernel (diagnosis>guiding policy>coherent action) will tell us in advance who is the audience (here: CFOs) and will provide a profile of such an audience, including pains, interests, unanswered questions. Based on the right diagnosis we will be able to build the right piece of thought leadership content, answering CFO’s unanswered questions and attracting their attention.
This is clearly NOT substituting memorable and creative brand advertising; it’s complementing them. It’s the beauty of the two-speed marketing approach.