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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Sprache: Englisch
The power of corporate thought leadership, finally quantified through expansive rigorous empirical research
The ROI of Thought Leadership: Calculating the Value that Sets Organizations Apart reveals the findings of rigorious research conducted by authors Anthony Marshall and Cindy Anderson, leaders at IBM's Institute for Business Value (IBV), where they surveyed more than 4,000 C-level executives—half CEOs, half CFOs, CSCOs, CTOs and CIOs—to ask about their consumption of thought leadership content and the influence it has on their business purchase decisions and investments, as well as the use of generative AI in the production and consumption of thought leadership. The book also includes tools such as an “value calculator” that empowers every reader to assess the potential return for their specific organization.
This book reveals the surprising findings of the research and answers questions, such as:
- How many people consume thought leadership and in what form?
- How many CEOs and executives say they have made a purchase decision?
- How much corporate spending is driven by thought leadership?
- How are organizations that produce thought leadership materials perceived and how are they rewarded?
The ROI of Thought Leadership: Calculating the Value that Sets Organizations Apart is an essential read for all business leaders seeking to finally understand the true business value of thought leadership initiatives.
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Seitenzahl: 231
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025
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Table of Contents
Cover
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Foreword
Introduction
Why Thought Leadership – And Why Now?
The Wizardry of Evidence-Based Intelligence
Why This Book?
Why Us?
Thought Leadership as the 8th P of the Marketing Mix
What Thought Leadership Isn't
Notes
Part I: By the Numbers: How Thought Leadership Creates Value
Chapter 1: Thought Leadership Boosts Business Performance and Drives Spending
Thought Leadership Paves the Executive Career Path
How Thought Leadership Influences What Executives Buy
Thought Leadership Drives $265 Billion in Spending Each Year Globally
A Case in Point: Thought Leadership Spending in the United States
Three Factors Influence How Much a Business Spends
Thought Leadership Serves as the Red Carpet Into Organizations
How Executives Prefer to Consume Their Thought Leadership
Chapter 2: Producing Thought Leadership Delivers Clear ROI
A Brief History of Marketing Measurement
Calculating the First-Ever Data-Informed ROI for Thought Leadership
The Average Thought Leadership Practice Drives $64 Million in Profit to a Producing Organization Each Year
How Much Organizations Spend on Producing Thought Leadership
ROI From Thought Leadership Compared to ROI From More Traditional Marketing Campaigns
Notes
Chapter 3: Calculating Your Organization's Specific Thought Leadership ROI
ROI Calculation Instructions
Conclusion
Part II: Building a Valuable Thought Leadership Capability
Chapter 4: Rise Above the Fray: Creating Next-Level Thought Leadership
Why Generative AI Can't Produce Thought Leadership (And Why It Shouldn't, Even If It Could)
The Five Levers: What Makes Thought Leadership Best in Class
Quality: Establish a Foundation of Trust
Uniqueness: Make the Message Memorable
Reach: Expand Impact Through Personalization and Alignment
The Independence Premium: Prove You Are Agenda-Free
Trust: Build Allegiance – and Beware of Shortcuts
Notes
Chapter 5: Eight Thought Leadership Archetypes
Archetype 1: The Thought Leadership Novice
Archetype 2: The Thought Leadership Academic
Archetype 3: The Thought Leadership Narcissist
Archetype 4: The Thought Leadership Influencer
Archetype 5: The Thought Leadership Pioneer
Archetype 6: The Thought Leadership Nomad
Archetype 7: The Thought Leadership Pretender
Archetype 8: The Thought Leadership Superhero
Using the Thought Leadership Archetypes
Control the Follow-Through
Building a Thought Leadership Practice Through Partners
Chapter 6: Unlocking Value: What Moves the Needle
Improving Client Reach and Penetration Are the Lowest-Hanging Fruit
Improving Mindshare Increases ROI
Increasing the Number of Key Clients Is a Heavy Lift
Boosting Realized Influence Has the Lowest Impact
What Does Sensitivity Analysis Reveal About Each Archetype?
Precision Matters
Part III: The Four Key Elements of Thought Leadership Execution
Chapter 7: Balancing Your Thought Leadership Portfolio
Consider Topic, Technique, and Type When Building Your Thought Leadership Portfolio
Timely Content
Technical Content
Timeless Content
Portfolio Content Types
Notes
Chapter 8: Mastering the Mechanics of Storytelling
The Science of Storytelling
Notes
Chapter 9: Optimizing a Thought Leadership Operating Model
Ideas Lab
Research and Analytics Hub
Storytelling Wing
Production and Distribution Engine
Legal and Governance Protectorate
Strategy Squad
Thought Leadership Operating Model and Workflow for Smaller Organizations
Tips for Individual Thought Leaders
Notes
Chapter 10: Engaging With Targeted Business Leaders
Three Engagement Approaches
There's Nothing Magical About It
Notes
Part IV: Accountability and Outcomes
Chapter 11: Measuring Your Success
Quality Metrics
Uniqueness Metrics
Reach Metrics
Note
Chapter 12: The Thought Leadership Multiplier Effect
Big Ideas
Extender Content
Defender Content
Notes
Chapter 13: The Value of Thought Leadership, Quantified. Finally.
Appendix: Survey Methodology
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Tables
Chapter 11
Table 11.1 Measures of thought leadership quality.
Table 11.2 Measures of thought leadership uniqueness.
Table 11.3 Measures of thought leadership reach.
List of Illustrations
Chapter 1
Figure 1.1 Global thought leadership opportunity.
Figure 1.2 Thought leadership influences billions in corporate spending.
Figure 1.3 Spend in one organization as a direct result of thought leadershi...
Figure 1.4 Direct and influenced spend in one organization as a result of th...
Figure 1.5 Larger US businesses spend more as a result of thought leadership...
Figure 1.6 Automotive, media, and IT companies spend more than other US indu...
Figure 1.7 Organizations in India, the United States, and Germany spend the ...
Chapter 2
Figure 2.1 Thought leadership ROI.
Figure 2.2 How to calculate ROI.
Figure 2.3 ROI calculation – profit parameter.
Figure 2.4 ROI calculation – profit and investment parameters.
Figure 2.5 ROI calculation.
Chapter 3
Figure 3.1 Thought leadership ROI calculation tool.
Figure 3.2 How to calculate ROI.
Figure 3.3 Attribution percentage.
Figure 3.4 Total spend from one client organization.
Figure 3.5 Number of clients in your portfolio.
Figure 3.6 Reach of your thought leadership across your client portfolio.
Figure 3.7 Mindshare of your thought leadership across your client base.
Figure 3.8 Profit margin.
Figure 3.9 Investment in producing thought leadership.
Figure 3.10 ROI calculation.
Chapter 5
Figure 5.1 The thought leadership novice.
Figure 5.2 The thought leadership academic.
Figure 5.3 The thought leadership narcissist.
Figure 5.4 The thought leadership influencer.
Figure 5.5 The thought leadership pioneer.
Figure 5.6 The thought leadership nomad.
Figure 5.7 The thought leadership pretender.
Figure 5.8 The thought leadership superhero.
Chapter 6
Figure 6.1 Relative sensitivity analysis of factors contributing to thought ...
Figure 6.2 Summary of thought leadership archetypes.
Chapter 9
Figure 9.1 Thought leadership operating model.
Chapter 10
Figure 10.1 Three distinct thought leadership engagement approaches.
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Foreword
Introduction
Begin Reading
Appendix: Survey Methodology
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Index
End User License Agreement
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CINDY ANDERSON
ANTHONY MARSHALL
FROM THE LEADERS OF IBM’S INSTITUTE FOR BUSINESS VALUE
The ROI of Thought Leadership
CALCULATING THE VALUE THAT SETS ORGANIZATIONS APART
FOREWORD BY BOB SAFIANHOST AND EDITOR-AT-LARGE, RAPID RESPONSE
Copyright © 2025 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved, including rights for text and data mining and training of artificial technologies or similar technologies.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.Published simultaneously in Canada.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 750-4470, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permission.
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Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Further, readers should be aware that websites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read. Neither the publisher nor authors shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Names: Anderson, Cindy, author. | Marshall, Anthony (Director), author.
Title: The roi of thought leadership : Calculating the Value that Sets Organizations Apart / Cindy Anderson, Anthony Marshall.
Description: Hoboken, New Jersey : Wiley, [2025] | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2024038146 (print) | LCCN 2024038147 (ebook) | ISBN 9781394308910 (hardback) | ISBN 9781394308934 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781394308927 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Leadership.
Classification: LCC HD57.7 .A5255 2025 (print) | LCC HD57.7 (ebook) | DDC 658.4/092—dc23/eng/20240925
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024038146
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024038147
COVER DESIGN: PAUL MCCARTHYCOVER IMAGERY: © GETTY IMAGES / MARBLE: SEAN GLADWELL | GREEN PATH: ANDRIY ONUFRIYENKO
Foreword
As a journalist, I've always believed in the power of ideas. Truth matters. Facts matter. Insights matter. This is as true in business as in any arena. Understanding the world around us is the essential first step in any marketplace advance.
The irony is that proving this axiom – through facts and data – has been challenging. Unlike areas like technology and human resources and R&D, quantifying the return-on-investment of thought leadership has often been elusive.
That hasn't dampened the ardor of those of us committed to creating articles, analysis, reports, and graphics that illuminate misunderstood, underappreciated, and emerging topics. But it has made it more difficult to obtain resources, funding, and support for thought leadership. The positive impact of these efforts has been felt more than counted.
I've experienced this firsthand, throughout my career, as editor in chief of Fast Company, as an executive editor at Time and at Fortune, as the host of the Rapid Response podcast, and as a strategic advisor and managing director of The Flux Group. At each step of the way, compelling content has been rewarded with impact, with attention, often with prestige – but only rarely with commensurate dollars. Securing consistent budgetary support has been blunted by an inability to quantify return on investment (ROI) with business-like clarity.
When I heard that Cindy Anderson and Anthony Marshall, colleagues working together at IBM's Institute for Business Value, had decided to try bridging this divide and develop a system for quantifying the value of thought leadership, I thought, “Good luck!” Some things – often the most important things – just can't be measured.
But they were undaunted, and together they dedicated countless hours and brainpower to solving this conundrum. They conducted a series of anonymous double-blind surveys. They dug deep into numbers, avoiding leaps of fancy in favor of only the most prudent, conservative course. And to my great surprise – and great delight – they cracked it wide open.
This book presents research about thought leadership that is unique, eye-opening and entirely credible. Using both real-world data and clear, logical analysis, Marshall and Anderson demonstrate the value of thought leadership quantitatively. In essence, this book about thought leadership is itself thought leadership.
The book goes beyond generalities. It provides a formula for calculating any organization's specific thought leadership ROI. The book also provides rich lessons about what defines next-level thought leadership, how organizations can best improve their thought leadership impact, and how to build a balanced thought leadership portfolio. Anderson and Marshall dig into the importance of storytelling and how best to leverage communications channels in amplifying thought leadership. They unlock eight archetypes of thought leadership, and they explain how to target content and outreach for optimizing impact.
Our world today is awash in information. But the vast majority of that content is noise, distraction, misinformation. True thought leadership is differentiated – it is credible and trusted; it is insightful and accurate; it builds reputation and prompts action that leads to results. For all of those reasons, true thought leadership is valuable, and it must be valued. In that way, this tool for measuring and managing the value of thought leadership is a universal gift. What Anderson and Marshall have done is give us all tools to support and safeguard work that improves our businesses and improves our world.
Robert Safian
Former Fast Company editor in chief
Host, Rapid Response podcast
Managing director, The Flux Group
Introduction
Many have long believed that thought leadership delivers business value, but no one has been able to prove it – until now.
Between 2021 and 2023, we interviewed more than 4,000 C-level executives across four separate surveys. We asked them about their consumption of thought leadership content and the influence it has on their business purchase decisions and investments. Perhaps most important, we asked: Does thought leadership deliver quantifiable business impact? For whom? And how much?
Half of the executives we surveyed were CEOs, who lead organizations with annual revenues of $29 billion or more. The remaining 50% comprised CFOs, CSCOs, CTOs, CIOs, and when it came to questions specifically about generative AI, CMOs. All-in-all, a representative sample of the world's most influential C-suite decision makers.
Whenever you see data represented in this book, unless otherwise indicated, it will be from one or more of these surveys. A detailed methodology can be found in the Appendix.
Results from the surveys and our analysis around them were astounding. Across industries and geographies, nearly all executives reported that the thought leadership they consume not only helps them make better business decisions, it also directly influences their buying decisions.
Beyond ROI, our research also found that thought leadership that includes original research, rigorous analysis, and subject matter expertise drives hundreds of billions in corporate spending annually. When it is viewed as independent of the producing organization's sales activity, there is a positive spillover effect: organizations that produce it are perceived as more trustworthy and are rewarded more of the overall spend than their more overtly commercial peers.
Even though thought leadership is often perceived as a cost center, our data shows thought leadership is, in fact, a revenue driver that is underappreciated, underutilized, and little understood in most organizations.
Why Thought Leadership – And Why Now?
Thought leadership is a critical tool for executives operating in uncharted territory. It lets business leaders explore problems without the bias inherent in internal brainstorms. It provides provocative, evidence-based insights. Building on primary research, external expertise, and practical examples, it delivers intelligence that helps leaders make smarter, faster business decisions.
Even so, until now, the real value of thought leadership has been elusive. Return on investment (ROI) calculations have been based on assumptions and leaps of faith rather than real-world data. That's partly because the world's largest thought leadership–producing organizations have traditionally been the world's largest strategy consultancies. Many have used thought leadership content to drive business growth for a century or more.
Partners in those firms are measured and rewarded on how much thought leadership they publish, so the consultancies produce thousands of reports each year, distributed to millions of readers. Consulting partners will tell you they don't care about calculating the ROI because thought leadership IS their business model.
They just know it works. The rest of us have to prove it. That's what this book aims to do.
The Wizardry of Evidence-Based Intelligence
The first written reference to thought leadership appeared in the 1876 Theistic Annual, which described Ralph Waldo Emerson as demonstrating the “wizard power of a thought-leader.” Fast forward a century or so to 1994, and economist Joel Kurtzman, the founding editor of Strategy+Business magazine, is credited with resurfacing “thought leadership” and placing it in a modern context. He wrote, thought leaders “have distinctively original ideas, unique points of view, and new insights.”1
Wizardry aside, we define thought leadership as distinctive, evidence-based intelligence that gives leaders the insights they need to make better business decisions. It builds trust and credibility – which may be why so many executives regularly spend time with thought leadership. Almost 9 in 10 (88%) executives say they spend about two hours each week consuming thought leadership.
Why are they so invested? Almost all (96%) business leaders who consume thought leadership say they make better decisions as a result. And those results inspire them to take action: 87% of executives say they made a specific purchase decision in the previous 90 days as a direct result of consuming thought leadership.
By our estimates, the cumulative value of purchases made directly as a result of executives consuming thought leadership is $265 billion each year globally, more than $100 billion in the United States.
Those are big numbers. We'll unpack them later. But first, we need to understand what thought leadership is and isn't, and its rightful role in an organization's marketing mix.
Why This Book?
Our groundbreaking research calculates the data-informed ROI of a thought leadership practice for the first time. Calculations are based on real data – survey-reported business results – not expectations or estimates. And the results are eye-opening.
Thought leadership delivers an ROI of 156%, which is 16 times more effective than typical marketing approaches.2 We calculate that organizations around the globe purchase $265 billion in products and services annually as a result of executives consuming thought leadership. In the United States alone, the opportunity for thought leadership–producing organizations is upwards of $100 billion.
In this book, we will explore the specific calculations behind these figures, discuss how executives use thought leadership, and quantify the exponential value that comes from producing thought leadership that is trustworthy and independent of the organization's commercial activity. We will also share a ROI calculator that organizations can use to justify the value of thought leadership in budget negotiations.
Marketers take note: While the debate about thought leadership's role in marketing will rage on, the returns it produces – both long and short term – can't be ignored. Thought leadership is so crucial that you might think of it as the new 8th P of Marketing – the platform on which every other promotion should be built.
Why Us?
Who better to investigate the value of thought leadership than those who produce it for a living – those who do research every day and turn it into the insights that are used by executives to make business decisions impacting organizations and industries on a global scale … those who have spent a career using thought leadership to generate interest, engender loyalty, and build brands.
In this book, we turn the research lens on our own thought leadership discipline, to investigate and quantify the value of our chosen practice.
To do that, we conducted a series of anonymous, double-blind surveys. This means the respondents had no idea who was sponsoring the survey and we did not know who the individual respondents were or what organizations they were from. The 4,000 executives we surveyed spanned 16 countries and 20 industries (see study methodology in the Appendix). Answer options were randomized, meaning if two people sitting side-by-side were responding to the survey, the way their answer options were presented would be different. As such, bias was mitigated. To supplement that research, we conducted a targeted examination of the impact of generative AI, surveying an additional 300 US-based executives about thought leadership that is produced using generative AI.
This book proves the value of thought leadership for producing organizations and serves as a “how-to” for those who want to claim their share of the global $265 billion opportunity ($100 billion in the United States) by creating and sustaining a world-class thought leadership program that delivers proven, quantifiable business value.
Thought Leadership as the 8th P of the Marketing Mix
Modern marketers routinely think of their work in seven categories:
Product: The physical offering or service.
Price: How much customers are willing to pay for the product or service.
Place: Distribution channels, retail locations, online platforms, and logistics.
Promotion: Advertising, sales promotions, public relations, social media marketing, and any other methods used to create awareness and generate interest in the offering.
People: Human factors at play in marketing, typically around services.
Process: Procedures, mechanisms, and flow of activities by which service is delivered.
Physical evidence: The environment where service occurs.
For a comprehensive overview of the marketing mix, see the Wikipedia entry.3
Because of its immense and distinct value in anchoring the brand funnel, we are proposing that thought leadership as a platform (quite separate from the “promotions” listed above, which by its definition attracts interest in a particular product or service), becomes established as the 8th P of the marketing mix.
What Thought Leadership Isn't
Fake thought leadership is everywhere – especially now when any fledgling prompt engineer can use generative AI to create some content. So how can executives know what content they can trust? Identifying the genuine article starts with understanding what thought leadership is not:
If the content has a commercial agenda, it's sales.
If the content is created solely to generate leads, it's a different P of marketing.
If it is content that reports what's happening in the world, it's news.
If it's based on individual perspectives with no supporting data, it's opinion.
If it concludes only that more research is needed, it's academic.
If the content repeats others' ideas, often in the guise of offering new insights, it's just plain laziness – or at its worst: it is plagiarism.
Getting the definition right matters because – as our research has revealed – the best thought leadership has a measurable and material impact on those who consume it. To influence decisions and drive sales, it must be bias-free, trusted, supported by data, and clearly actionable. When it is, it's one of the best relationship-building investments any business can make.
Once the baseline rules have been met, thought leadership can take the form of an in-depth report, a slide deck, a data visualization, or a video clip. It can be delivered via earbuds or email. It can be created by an in-house team or through partnerships.
The key is understanding what role thought leadership should play. It's meant to be a sturdy platform – a store of trusted data and insights – that can launch businesses in the right direction. For marketing leaders who see thought leadership as a foundational tool for audience engagement, the revenue is there for the taking.
Notes
1
Hall, John, “Is Thought Leadership Everything It's Cracked Up to Be?,”
Forbes
, November 3, 2019,
https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnhall/2019/11/03/is-thought-leadership-everything-its-cracked-up-to-be/?sh=53560ade9341
. Accessed 3 July 2024.
2
Park, Chang, “Maximize the Return on Your Advertising Spend,”
Nielsen
, December 2009,
https://www.nielsen.com/insights/2009/maximize-the-return-on-your-advertising-spend/
. Accessed 3 July 2024.
3
“Marketing Mix,”
Wikipedia
,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing_mix
. Accessed 2 July 2024.
Part IBy the Numbers: How Thought Leadership Creates Value
Chapter 1Thought Leadership Boosts Business Performance and Drives Spending
In the race to become smarter, faster, and more effective, thought leadership gives executives the inside track. In fact, senior executives in every industry we surveyed see thought leadership as a strategic lever they can pull to improve business performance.
Across the board, four out of five (80%) say that consuming thought leadership created quantitative value for their business. That value comes in many shapes and sizes. Here are five ways executives say thought leadership benefits their business:
Greater revenue growth and profitability:
Our analysis reveals that 46% of C-suite executives globally – and 39% in the United States – strongly believe that consuming thought leadership helps drive higher levels of revenue growth than would otherwise be possible. And more than half (57%) say the application of thought leadership insights significantly impacts the financial performance of their organization. We also found that businesses with the fastest rates of revenue growth were the most active in engaging with thought leadership. Looking to the bottom line, the benefits of thought leadership are even more noteworthy. Roughly three out of five (59%) global business leaders strongly believe that thought leadership helps drive higher levels of profitability for their business.
Sharper competitive edge:
