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Preface

I started my career in the newspaper industry, working as an advertising sales representative for a small regional publisher owned by the British-based Northcliffe Media Group. It was while working for Northcliffe (around the mid-1990s) that I was first introduced to the internet. At the time, only one computer, in an office of approximately 100 fellow employees, had access to the web. The connection came via a 14K dial-up modem and you can believe me when I say that this did not provide the superfast broadband experience that we expect and enjoy today.

I had to ask permission to use the single internet-enabled PC, which was located (but never used) in the Sales Director’s office, after being asked by a client to take a look at his website. The site turned out to be little more than a logo and a telephone number (not even an email address – so few people had them at the time) but still seemed to take forever to download. Little did I know that this request would soon take me away from the drudgery of advertising sales and start me down the path to a whole new career in an industry that, at the time, I didn’t even know existed.

My curiosity about cyberspace (as we called it back then) led me to be singled out as the office geek and I was promptly promoted (without any consultation or wage increase) to the newly created position of New Media Manager (or Internet Champion, as it was referred to internally).

Armed only with a HTML for Dummies guidebook, I started planning, building and monetising online editorial and commercial platforms. The internet speed was slow, editors and journalists were reticent to have their articles published online, and advertisers laughed at the idea of spending money on a medium that virtually nobody had access to. It was a time of great uncertainty, but also one of great opportunity for those willing to take a chance; I loved every minute of it.

My work with Northcliffe took me to live in Budapest, where I continued to build newspaper websites for the company’s portfolio of titles in central and eastern Europe. During this time I also began writing a weekly technology column for an English-language publication aimed at the expatriate business community who had flooded into the region after the fall of communism.

After five years I returned to live in England and continued to work for Northcliffe as a consultant. Alongside this work I helped a number of small and medium-sized businesses take their first steps online, lectured in online journalism and online marketing, traded on eBay, managed a series of affiliate marketing programmes, and began writing for a range of publications including the Daily Mail, Yorkshire Post, the Sun, News of the World and Traveller, easyJet’s inflight magazine.

I had no formal training in any of these disciplines – it was just a case of reading up on a subject, making a few educated guesses and then giving it a go. You might say I studied at the Online University of Thought Leadership. In this respect I owe more to carefully crafted blogs and websites from the likes of Econsultancy (www.econsultancy.com) and AuctionBytes (www.auctionbytes.com), thriving community forums like A4uForum (www.affiliates4u.com), and the virtual bookshelves of Amazon.com, than any schooling. I’m not sure if it could happen today, but the early days of the internet were carved out by enthusiastic amateurs (of which I was very much one).

While helping a struggling catalogue company to reinvent themselves as an online retailer, I was introduced to ChannelAdvisor, a US-based technology company that had recently set-up shop in the UK. Although impressed with their software, it was the Thought Leadership presented by ChannelAdvisor’s CEO Scot Wingo in his book eBay Strategies that sparked my interest in the company. Wingo’s style of Thought Leadership, which extended through his blogging and speaking appearances, made what could have been a dry and data-heavy experience entertaining and informative.

I joined ChannelAdvisor in 2007 as their UK-based Product Marketing Manager and started producing a wide range of Thought Leadership content for the European and Australian markets. Encouraged to experiment with distribution channels, I produced whitepapers, blog posts, PR articles, podcasts, webinars, a pioneering series of videos for YouTube, and hit the road with the touring series of Insite events.

During this time, I formed strong relationships with some of the biggest names in ecommerce including eBay, Amazon and Google, who helped add credibility to my Thought Leadership campaigns and distribute them to a much wider audience.

While at ChannelAdvisor, I started using iContact, an email marketing application primarily targeted at small and medium-sized businesses. I had used several other email marketing tools in the past but never really felt like a valued customer of any of them until I discovered iContact. What made me feel so welcome? They picked up the phone and talked to me. I was dealing with humans and not just technology. In the online world this is not always so apparent.

I then joined iContact in the spring of 2011, where I used my experience to help evangelise about the company’s technology and corporate ethos, helping to develop the brand for the European market.

Building on the strength of my relationships and in-depth knowledge, I have written for a wide range of industry publications and websites including Internet Retailing, The Marketer, Direct Marketing News, Fourth Source, uTalkMarketing, Tamebay, Figaro Digital, Business2Community and Fresh Business Thinking, as well as regularly producing content for the iContact Official Email Blog.

Who is this book for?

This book is for any entrepreneur, business owner or marketer who wishes to position themselves as a key influencer within their own particular field of expertise. It has been written to help you develop both basic and advanced Thought Leadership Marketing strategies. These strategies will help you raise your profile, build your reputation, generate leads and ultimately drive profits through the sharing of detailed knowledge and by engaging with the communities which you serve. It will be particularly useful to individuals and organisations that can prove themselves to be both agile and proactive.

We start this book by explaining what Thought Leadership Marketing is and who it is best suited to. We then move on to demonstrate how you can find and develop your voice before showcasing the various channels for distributing your Thought Leadership content.

A great many of the practices discussed in this guide are based on web-based technologies, but this doesn’t mean it is only relevant to tech businesses or those who already have a well-developed web presence. The technologies examined here are accessible and in areas where there may be complexities, a full list of useful resources and tips has been provided.

Thought Leadership Marketing is inclusive and with a little thought, I believe, can prove to add value to any type of business. I have personally worked with a diverse range of companies, from fresh fish merchants on Grimsby Docks to global vendors of highly complex software solutions, and the majority of these companies have benefited from Thought Leadership Marketing. It’s all about understanding your customers, knowing what makes their lives difficult and responding accordingly.

In the first of the aforementioned examples, the fresh fish merchant taught a journalist how to dispatch and cook a live lobster. Similarly, the vendor of highly complex software solutions demonstrated how complex systems could in fact make life easier for their business clients by using video testimonials featuring customers speaking in the plainest English (occasionally in fairly inaccessible regional accents).

I’ve yet to find a single business that could not benefit from Thought Leadership. However, if you believe you fall into this category, send me a message on Twitter (@john_w_hayes); I’ll be happy to prove you wrong and send you a couple of Thought Leadership ideas.