• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

PropelGrowth

Financial Services Content Marketing and Content Strategy

Menu
  • Home
  • Who We Are
    • Why PropelGrowth?
    • Management Team
    • Acumatica Marketing Team
    • Privacy Policy
    • Close
  • What We Do
    • Marketing Strategy
      • Buyer Personas
      • Strategy Development
      • Acumatica Partner Marketing
      • Integrating PR
      • Creative Design
    • Marketing Programs
      • Content Marketing for the Buying Process
      • Content Marketing Programs
      • Thought Leadership In The Buying Process
      • Thought Leadership Programs
      • Lead Generation and Lead Nurturing
      • LinkedIn Sales Prospecting
      • Marketing Coaching Program
    • Marketing Content
      • Marketing Automation
      • Email Marketing
      • Website Content
      • Blogging and Article Marketing
      • Case Studies
      • White Papers and E-books
      • Research Studies
      • Live and Online Events
    • PropelGrowth LinkedIn Prospecting Mastery course
    • Close
  • Who We Do It For
    • Who We Serve
    • Client Case Studies
      • What This CEO Learned From Buyer Persona Research Transformed Her Company
      • Close
    • Close
  • Resources
    • Sales Resources
      • Solving the No Decision Problem
      • Close
    • Marketing Resources
      • B2B Lead Conversion Rates
      • Close
    • The TrendSpotters Podcast Series
    • Close
  • Blog
  • Contact
    • Close

What’s the Difference Between Thought Leadership and Content Marketing?

By Candyce Edelen

PropelGrowth Blog - Financial Services Marketing

In terms of company growth, marketing content is for the short-term, thought leadership is for the long-term.

Have you ever read through the sponsor descriptions for financial industry conferences? How many of them are clear and easy to understand? Financial technology providers usually struggle with explaining their solutions. Whether it’s an multi-asset class e-commerce platform, pre-trade risk management, or specialized market access; fin-tech providers generally offer sophisticated solutions, and just explaining what “it” is takes a white board and some time.

That’s why content marketing is so critically important for this industry. Content including papers, articles, videos, webinars and blogs can help buyers gradually understand the business needs and the value your solutions can bring to their organizations. In this way, content marketing can drive demand.

But many of our clients are confusing “content marketing” and “thought leadership.” It’s helpful to define the terms in a way that helps differentiate them for use in a marketing strategy. So let’s talk about the use cases for each and how a financial technology vendor should leverage them.

Content Marketing is Selling What You Have Today

  • Helping prospects understand their existing needs
  • Building awareness of the benefits
  • Driving sales of what exists today

Your core content marketing strategy should focus on helping people understand how they can benefit from using your core products AS THEY EXIST TODAY. This content is critical to driving demand for the next 12 months. It should build awareness of needs based on why your current customers bought, and demonstrate value based on the value a customer could obtain with the current product release.

This is the messaging that will attract an audience that you can sell to now. Don’t drive past the headlights with this content. Focus on the needs that you can address with the product as it exists today. That will allow your sales team to meet existing demand instead of developing a pipeline for the next major release.

Software companies often struggle with this. We’re always looking forward to what’s next, how new functionality is going to do more for clients. But your core content strategy should not focus there.

Thought Leadership is About Driving Industry Transformation

  • Being a longer term change agent
  • Building awareness of unrecognized needs
  • Generating demand for what’s coming in 12-18 months

Your thought leadership should have a longer term focus. This is an opportunity for the executives in your organization to be change agents. Thought leadership content helps to change the way the entire industry thinks about a problem, but without an immediate expectation for ROI in terms of pipeline and revenue.

Thought leadership strategy should take your 1-2 year product roadmap into consideration; but the actual content should not be product-focused. Instead, it should focus on a shortcoming in your target industry, point out weaknesses in current approaches, and suggest ideas for how the industry can change to eliminate those weaknesses.

Related: Content and Thought Leadership to Support the Buying Cycle (White Paper)

Being a Change Agent Takes a Lot of Work

Thought leadership can be used to drive industry and regulatory change. But this takes time, consistency and persistence. For example, back in 2007, a company that provided direct market access started pointing fingers at the practice of providing market access without risk controls. They coined the term “naked access” and launched an extensive content and PR campaign focused on this topic. They wrote about the topic, educated the press, and spoke at industry events. They even encouraged competitors to jump on the campaign to push for regulatory reform. This strategy took years. Gradually, attention grew, the term caught on, and the regulators started paying attention. At first, the SEC claimed there was no issue with naked access, but the campaigners persisted. Eventually, the tide turned, and the Market Access Rule (Rule 15c 3-5) was released by the SEC in late 2010.  That is a perfect example of an effective thought leadership program.

But just one or two articles a year on a topic won’t accomplish this kind of result. The book of press clippings related to the naked access campaign was 4 inches thick, filled with articles, press releases, commentary, and announcements that built up gradually over the course of about 3 years. It started slow, and started to catch a head of steam in 2009.

Content to Drive Sales, Thought Leadership to Drive Change

So an easy way to distinguish between the two disciplines is to think of your core content marketing strategy as something that will generated leads and help close sales for today’s products based on why your customers are currently buying. Your thought leadership strategy should have a longer term goal of helping your company be an agent for change. Both are important to your overall marketing strategy. But don’t put all your eggs in the thought leadership basket. Both are necessary. Content marketing drives demand for today, thought leadership drives demand for the long term.

What Do You Think?

I realize that my definitions here could be controversial. So what do you think? Do you have different definitions for these terms?

Explore this topic further:

Best Practices — Content Marketing and Thought Leadership

Get some help

We offer a coaching service to help you develop your strategy for thought leadership and content marketing. Call or email me if you’d like to discuss this further. You can learn more about our coaching service here.

  • Author
  • Recent Posts
Connect
Candyce Edelen
CEO at PropelGrowth
Candyce is the founder and CEO of PropelGrowth. She brings more than twenty years of experience in managing technology companies and has founded four companies prior to PropelGrowth. For the past ten years, Candyce has focused exclusively in the capital markets industry, launching two financial technology companies. Now, she helps financial technology vendors improve their marketing strategy, publish compelling content, and drive revenue through marketing and sales enablement. Contact Candyce at +1 970-300-2280.
Connect
Latest posts by Candyce Edelen (see all)
  • 4 Steps to Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile for Sales Prospecting
  • The Reality of Cold Calling for B2B Sales
  • Can Inbound Marketing Generate Enough Leads?

Filed Under: Content Marketing, PropelGrowth Blog Tagged With: content marketing, Thought Leadership

About Candyce Edelen

Candyce is the founder and CEO of PropelGrowth. She brings more than twenty years of experience in managing technology companies and has founded four companies prior to PropelGrowth. For the past ten years, Candyce has focused exclusively in the capital markets industry, launching two financial technology companies. Now, she helps financial technology vendors improve their marketing strategy, publish compelling content, and drive revenue through marketing and sales enablement. Contact Candyce at +1 970-300-2280.

Company Profile

PropelGrowth helps companies improve their marketing and sales. We start with in-depth buyer research. Then we develop a marketing and sales strategy and customer-centric messaging. Then we coach your team and help you execute on the strategy by developing thought leadership programs, content for every stage in the buying process, sales collateral, and tools to help buyers buy.

Figure out why and how your buyers buy

Develop a customer-centric marketing strategy

Get coaching from a senior marketing strategist

Recent Posts

  • 4 Steps to Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile for Sales Prospecting
  • The Reality of Cold Calling for B2B Sales
  • Can Inbound Marketing Generate Enough Leads?
  • How to Fill Your Sales Pipeline Using LinkedIn for Prospecting
  • Tips from 8 ERP Resellers on How to Leapfrog Your Competition​
  • How to Win 74% of Your ERP Deals
  • Buyer Persona Research, the Key to Niche Marketing
  • 8 Ways a Niche Strategy Improves the Value of Your Practice

Connect With Candyce

View LinkedIn profile Follow on Twitter 

Connect With Phil

View LinkedIn profile Follow on Twitter 

Company Address

3209 Glacier Creek Drive
Ft. Collins, CO 80524
+1 970.300.2280

  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • What We Do
  • Who We Do It For
  • Resources
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Search

Copyright © 2022 PropelGrowth LLC · Designed by Phil Donaldson

  • Home
  • Who We Are
    • Why PropelGrowth?
    • Management Team
    • Acumatica Marketing Team
    • Privacy Policy
    • Back
  • What We Do
    • Marketing Strategy
      • Buyer Personas
      • Strategy Development
      • Acumatica Partner Marketing
      • Integrating PR
      • Creative Design
      • Back
    • Marketing Programs
      • Content Marketing for the Buying Process
      • Content Marketing Programs
      • Thought Leadership In The Buying Process
      • Thought Leadership Programs
      • Lead Generation and Lead Nurturing
      • LinkedIn Sales Prospecting
      • Marketing Coaching Program
      • Back
    • Marketing Content
      • Marketing Automation
      • Email Marketing
      • Website Content
      • Blogging and Article Marketing
      • Case Studies
      • White Papers and E-books
      • Research Studies
      • Live and Online Events
      • Back
    • LinkedIn LeadGen Master Class
    • Back
  • Who We Do It For
    • Who We Serve
    • Client Case Studies
      • What This CEO Learned From Buyer Persona Research Transformed Her Company
      • Back
    • Back
  • Resources
    • Sales Resources
      • Solving the No Decision Problem
      • Back
    • Marketing Resources
      • B2B Lead Conversion Rates
      • Back
    • The TrendSpotters Podcast Series
    • Back
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Search
    • Back