At the same time as Hurricane Milton was spinning across Florida, marketers 900 miles away found themselves brainstorming the toughest issues in logistics marketing—and glad to be out of the path of the storm.
In the charged atmosphere of Hoboken New Jersey’s W Hotel, Leigh Sauter, Founder of Glass Ball Consulting, led a marketing workshop that was nonstop with lightning strikes of insight and spinoff ideas.
My key takeaway was that for transportation and logistics marketers, original thought leadership content is the antidote to the superabundance of AI-written content out there.
Generative text hasn’t really made content marketing easier, just different. That was crystal clear from the comments made during the workshop. I mean everyone knows you can’t just use generative text outright.
Attendees of the workshop were well beyond the state of hoping AI could make content “easy”. The starting point of this conversation was very much about how do you make content good.
Thought leadership is the answer—but where it comes from and how to harness it for high-quality content were the main questions posed by the group.
Participants in the workshop primarily advocated going right to the source for thought leadership: company leaders.
It’s such a natural to get your executives sharing perspectives and advice. They’re living the big picture of the company’s challenges and opportunities. They have valuable experience and a singular view of the workings of the company, the marketplace, their customers’ pain points, and the economic forces impacting the company.
The problem is that getting company leaders to write is not always a natural. Marketers from several logistics companies shared that their executives are just too busy to dedicate time to creating content. And they’re not always on board with content marketing to begin with.
Even when you get a Subject Matter Expert (SME) who’s gung-ho to write, they’re still going to need direction to ensure their content is strategic, up to standard, and just good.
It became apparent in the group discussion that having a deep bench of SMEs is beneficial for overcoming access issues as well as for presenting diverse topics and viewpoints.
To build your bench, make a list of the key thought leaders in your organization. It’s not just the top people in the C-Suite. It’s the department heads and key leaders in departments. Target the head of IT, transportation, warehousing, sales, customer Service, and fulfillment—as well as your CEO, CIO, CCO, and COO.
Tapping directly into the source reveals valuable insights and it has brand-building benefits as well. Featuring the different faces of your company demonstrates the many facets of your culture and forms an authentic and distinctive tapestry that no other brand can claim but you.
One thought I had after the summit is to source subject matter experts throughout the organization . For example, if you want to know how ring scanners improve speed and accuracy on the pick line, feature a warehouse associate. Or if you want to know about the lifecycle of an LTL shipment, talk to a trucker that hauls LTL freight. It could open a whole untapped area for interesting, in-depth content.
Relying on thought leaders to write content themselves is not a good strategy. It is time consuming and in the grand scheme, not a priority for them. Trafficking these projects can be tedious. I mean who wants the job of needling the CEO to finish their post?
At least one marketer at the workshop shared that their team ghostwrites content for executives. They craft articles, blog posts, and social media updates based on the insights gathered during monthly check-in meetings. This approach allows executives to share their expertise without dedicating significant time to content creation.
Bringing in a freelance writer to ghostwrite articles for your thought leaders has added benefits. Outside writers aren’t affected by company politics. They also bring a fresh perspective that is valuable for recognizing nuggets of information that might otherwise be taken for granted and overlooked. An experienced ghostwriter knows how to pull in the thought leaders’ mannerisms and leverage their stories and insights to give the piece authenticity.
The fruitfulness of your interviews with thought leaders comes down to many factors, including your interviewee’s preferences. Every thought leader is different.
One attendee made the point that you have to meet thought leaders where they are.
Do they prefer phone calls or video conferences? If you meet by video, make sure your interviewee is okay with the platform you’re using. Find out. If you have to meet with an SME who’s just spent 10 frustrating minutes downloading a meeting app, they’re going to be in a bad mood and you’ll have less time to talk.
If they prefer phone, try not to do interviews while either of you are driving. Too many distractions and disruptions.
Also, try to interview SMEs separately. Some interviewees are just happy to let other people do all the talking, but that’s a missed opportunity to gain additional insight. Another problem with group interviews is people’s tendency to seek consensus in groups. The point is to get unique insights, not agreement.
If they don’t have time for an interview, ask them to respond to your questions by email. One other avenue is to simply have them send voice notes to you if they are more comfortable speaking their thoughts than writing them. You can then take these thoughts and turn them into the relevant pieces of content.
Whether or not your thought leaders are in-person or by-email types, I think it’s helpful to provide questions by email in advance of interviews. Giving SMEs time to formulate their responses always pays off. Fuller answers and faster interviews are the rewards of preparation.
Plus the purpose of your interview isn’t clear, you’re going to waste valuable time getting them up to speed.
Having reasonable expectations will help you get the most out of your subject matter experts.
Your SMEs aren’t writing the content. They are helping shape it. Their contribution is essential to creating high quality content. So know what you need from them:
Get what you need and get out. If you’re respectful of your time, they’ll be more willing to meet with you the next time you need them.
Your need for high quality content is ongoing. Your ability to tap SMEs for their thought leadership needs to be as well.
One logistics company that participated in the workshop told the group their marketing team meets with thought leaders once a month. They have standing meetings with executives to discuss industry trends, company updates, and potential content ideas.
I gathered from the discussion that when you have an organization-wide understanding that content is important to the company’s success, you can have more leverage to do this. This may be easier said than done, but by setting the standard that content is a companywide effort and SMEs need to contribute, you can create a continuous pipeline for material that inspires valuable, high-quality work.
Even with a companywide mandate to create content and a set expectation for monthly check-ins, SMEs still need to be “motivated.”
One participant said they have set up a leaderboard among SMEs to track their participation. In their program, thought leaders are expected to meet with content creators who then ghostwrite articles for them. Gamifying the process uses competition and peer pressure to make it a team effort.
I worked with a company that tied content contribution to compensation. Specifically, bonuses were tied to the creation of a case study. They didn’t have to write and design the case study, but they were motivated to provide input and see it through by the deadline.
So how do you make the most impact with thought leadership? An important strategy that came out of the workshop is leveraging thought leaders’ LinkedIn channels to publish. Why? One participant shared the example of an executive in their organization who had followers in the five figures. It was considerably more than the company’s own LinkedIn following.
Articles should absolutely be posted outside of LinkedIn universe too. On the company blog, they gain search. They also enhance main web pages with a regular stream of thought leadership.
There’s so much hidden value waiting to be discovered through the thought leadership in your organization. That’s not to say it’s easy to mine.
The two biggest challenges remain the ability to identify and extract valuable insights from executives and a commitment to building relationships and fostering collaboration with key stakeholders that keep the content coming.
The good news and incredible upside of thought leadership is that if you do it right and provide differentiated, indispensable and authentic content, AI can’t compete.
There’s still plenty of time to storm 2025 with thought leadership. If you need help coming up with ideas for your program, email me at conrad@conradwinter.com. I’d love to help you brainstorm.