It sounds like a terrible bit of business jargon, but ‘thought leadership’ is basically just expert-based content that educates or informs potential clients, rather than selling at them. Where a company has a complicated or very technical service to offer and/or the purchasing process involves lots of decision-makers, this kind of content helps audiences to clarify their thinking and understand the issues.

For example:
–    A packaging management software writes articles about new legislation that consumer goods business needs to know about (which the software can help with)
–    A law firm writes blog posts explaining issues around intellectual property aimed at creative businesses worried about idea theft but without much legal knowledge
–    A digital marketing agency writes an ebook about trends in AI-led SEO
–    A bank writes a guide for landlords looking to buy a first commercial property

Thought leadership content gives marketers authority, visibility and lead generation. It’s good for SEO and social profile and can generate enquiries from interested consumers. Bigger pieces are sometimes gated, meaning that prospects have to supply some basic info such as an email address to access the full content.

What does the work look like?

Businesses have employees with know-how, but it’s often locked up in the heads of their internal experts (the thought leaders) whose time is much too valuable to spend writing marketing content. (Often they know far too much about a topic, too, and they struggle to condense or simplify the information for non-experts.)

Companies use writers, often freelance, to unlock that knowledge and package it into user-friendly formats. So the work is scribing and ghosting, quite journalistic in flavour. Often it involves interviewing experts and/or reworking large technical docs into smaller more manageable ones. For example, I’m often given a full webinar talk and asked to turn it into a series of blog posts or an ebook.

Along with ebooks, white papers, and articles (all quite vague labels), you may be asked to produce LinkedIn posts, social messages and newsletter snippets. You may write the same story several different ways, say as a playbook for CEOs and then as an opinion piece for an industry magazine. More on formats here.

What skills do you need?

The topics can sound daunting – in my time I’ve written on everything from international tax to HR software to robotics – but your job isn’t to be an expert. People with experience in marketing agencies or trade journalism – where you learn to write about anything – are very well suited.

You need to listen hard, edit and clarify, hit deadlines and be flexible with amends and changing interview times. (Many experts are hard to get hold of and often postpone at the last minute, sometimes including different time zones.) Even if AI is used as a tool, the final product needs to sound human and match the company’s brand voice, and that’s where you come in.

If a business likes what you do, they will often come back for more, as thought leadership content is an ongoing need for most b2b businesses. And experts may ask for you specifically if you may them look good. They typically get the byline so it helps them boost their own profile.

Breaking in

The usual tactics can help you break into this area. Make use of any relevant background experience. Put together a portfolio (you may not be able to post this publicly because content authorship can be commercially sensitive, but you can often point people to things in a phone chat or email).

LinkedIn is a very valuable source of connections; here’s their guide. My main client currently came from a LinkedIn chat with an old contact from my agency days. Tap up connections and approach agencies as well as individual companies. Look out for companies that post a lot of expert-attributed content.

Thought leadership writing is one of the less sexy corners of the freelance world, but for steady, well-paid work that rewards curiosity and editorial skill, it’s well worth looking at.

BIO – Dan Brotzel’s latest novels are Thank You For The Days and The Wolf in the Woods. He also writes widely on Medium