post originally published on our Medium blog

Thought leadership content is at the very top of the Maslow hierarchy of content types if there is one.

Brands turn to thought leadership once they’ve written about all features of their product and all the basic needs of their target market.

When the organic traffic is building up, the revenue is there, and you generally know what to do in terms of blogging, thought leadership is that next level content you’ve been dreaming to create from day 1.

Thought leadership is something that sets you apart from the competition, cements your authority and brand, is hard to replicate, and is absolutely impossible to whip up with an AI tool.

It’s the competitive advantage we all wish we started building years ago.

Thought leadership content is usually your ticket to better clients, easier media mentions and backlinks, massive partnerships, and bigger checks.

If your blog is covering all the foundational stuff, it’s time to become a thought leader.

Let me go over our workflow for planning thought leadership content for our clients, — and I’ll add a recent case study to illustrate the process.

How to plan thought leadership content

In order to add thought leadership pieces into your content plan, you need to do something unheard of in content planning.

And by that we mean talk to the business owner. A lot.

This is probably the type of content where you listen to the founder the most and treat their suggestions extremely seriously.

Thought leadership content ideas, by definition, can’t come from third-party tools, competitor websites, AI lists, or title templates you’ve downloaded online.

To get thought leadership topics you need to use industry experience and intuition of the business owner.

Experience and intuition come directly from the years business founders have spent in the game, something that is not immediately accessible to third-party marketers or consultants like us.

All you have to do is find gems in their thoughts and observations, polish them, and pack them into meaningful and structured pieces of content.

Considering that,

Talk to the business owner

…or the founder, or the CTO, or whoever else has been getting their hands dirty the most & for the longest time.

Get as much input from them as possible. Focus on industry insights, frustrations, expectations, observations, and even anecdotes.

• What are their main constraints?
• What would they do if these constraints did not exist?
• What are their clients usually mistaken about?
• etc.

Put together a list of questions with the intention of making them talk.

Act and think like journalist, because neither you, nor the business owners know what you are looking for just yet. You need to find out.

This, by far, is the most important stage of planning thought leadership content, and it should take you the most time and effort.

Find matches & confirmations

Having extracted all that valuable but chaotic info, you will now have to sort and systemize it.

Split and group everything you were told into seemingly similar clusters, or proto-topics, and look these clusters up online.

This will mean a lot of googling — and I recommend using Google Trends to see related topics, breakout, and rising searches as well:

You will have to look at indirect competitors more than at direct ones, because you need to find new angles and new audiences.

After that show your findings to the client and ask them if you’re on the right track.

Check if you understand things correctly and if your proto-topics make sense.

Optimize your proto-topics

Never neglect the SEO aspect of thought leadership content, even though it’s not the main point.

No matter how innovative your thought leadership blog posts are, you can still leverage great keyword opportunities in them. Don’t count on that organic traffic, it’s not the priority, but checking for these opportunities is always worth it.

So, run some keyword research — both with the new proto-topics and the general niche keywords.

Pay extra attention to extremely low- and zero-search volume keywords you are getting suggestions for. They can be new concepts that are only starting to get traction, so jump on them.

Sprinkle it on, don’t pour it over

Please don’t turn 100% of your blog into thought leadership pieces.

No matter how high you fly and how ambitious your ideas are, focus at least half of your blog posts on down-to-earth things that your market cares about already.

If you think you covered all of them — order a content plan and I guarantee you we will find more great opportunities to target your market’s needs with product-led content.

Thought leadership content case study

Not each of our clients needs thought leadership content in their strategy.

Most of them are starting new blogs and want to minimize guesswork with effective conversion-ready content with the best organic traffic ROI.

But sometimes thought leadership is the most reasonable tactic to focus on. Mainly, this concerns non-conventional and innovative niches.

Innovators and entrepreneurs working at intersections of industries need thought leadership content to educate the target markets and generate demand.

That was exactly the challenge we’ve identified with Ceyse Studios — a unique business offering design, color & fine art consulting, as well as neuroaesthetic and mental health-focused design services.

The founder, Dr. Stacey Denise Moore, has decided to focus on thought leadership content to educate the audience about her services and establish authority in the niche.

We’ve decided to split the content plan for Ceyise Studios into two main parts:

1. The actual thought leadership content based around the topics that the founder wanted to cover, and
2. The more conventional content that will look for intersections between color, design, art, mental health, and tap into new audiences that may be interested in the services.

So we sat down with the founder and picked her brain regarding everything that’s happening in the industry and everything she wants to mention on her blog.

Next, we ran a detailed audit of the clients’ Google Search Console data to see if there are any unexpected word combinations and phrases picking up impressions deep in Google’s SERPs.

These audits are an amazing way to find out the true interests of your audience, first-hand search data, and Google’s idea of your topical relevance:

At the same time we’ve researched everything the client has told us about the business and the industry. We googled, inspected trends, went through scientific research on the topic, and spied on traffic to sites that target similar audiences.

As a result we came across tons of innovative search queries like “psycho-spatial design”, “nft mental health” “ai & sustainability” — all of which are rising in popularity.

Publishing thought leadership content along with reviews of artists and creators helps the blog pack more “meat” and increase internal linking power, leveraging unique searches and indexed pages:

With consistent blog post production Ceyise Studios has been accumulating organic traffic:

…and discovering more and more advanced topics and lucrative search queries in the traffic stats, such as

• benefits of public art
• peaceful architecture
• spiritual interior design
• stem classroom setup
• mass produced art
• dopamin decor
• etc.

All of these topics are relatively innovative, and the more content is produced, the more and more opportunities get uncovered during future Google Search Console audits.

If you you are a unique and creative business as well, you may be struggling with your blogging strategy.

Chances are, you need to publish thought leadership content as well. Use the tips above to get started — or comment below with a question.

Thought leadership content do’s and don’ts

Here’s a quick do’s and don’ts list:

• Thought leadership content is your key to bigger checks and better clients
• Start working on it once you’ve covered all your foundational topics
• Let the founder speak
• Shape and organize their input
• Research heavily, find intersections
• Report back to the founder
• Do some keyword research, but don’t limit yourself by it
• Don’t follow the competition blindly
• Don’t neglect SEO of your thought leadership posts
• Balance out thought leadership with the regular product-led and how-to content

Hopefully this post gave you some insights — feel free to share your feedback and experiences in the comments.

If you need help planning, auditing, or producing content that works, get in touch with us!