Executive editorial: how to get buy-in from your leadership team

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Can you, as a B2B marketer, tap into the immense value locked up in your executive and leadership teams? Yes. Can you use all this knowledge, experience and expertise to support your wider business objectives? Yes. But are you expecting some resistance from your higher-ups to putting your grand executive editorial plans into action? Quite possibly.

But take some solace in the fact that you’re not alone. Often, this resistance isn’t because your Exec team don’t believe in the power of high-quality thought leadership (they probably read a fair bit of it themselves). It’s often because, like most busy executives, they don’t want to overstretch themselves or commit to something they perceive as a lot of “extra” work.

High-calibre ammo

So next time you suggest your higher-ups play the executive editorial game, it’s worth having some high-calibre ammo to shoot down their objections, or at least make them think twice. And (depending on the size of your organisation and where you sit in the marketing chain of command) by ‘higher-ups’, we mean anyone from your Marketing Manager to your Head of Marketing or Comms to your Marketing Director to your fellow Board members (though technically, they’re your equals).

Below, you’ll find the four most common objections we hear from marketers trying to get leadership buy-in to create executive content – along with a script of sorts you can draw on to help counter them or at least make them think twice before turning you down:

1: Why do you need me? Isn’t this a job for Marketing or Comms?

Yes, it is. But thought leadership can’t come from the Marketing or Comms department – it has to start at the top of the organisation. As our [insert their job title], you’re uniquely placed to help build our brand in the minds of everyone we come into contact with – customers, colleagues, prospects, partners, and suppliers. And any self-respecting B2B marketer will use every tool they have at their disposal (including executive thought leadership editorial) to promote a brand. Tapping into the knowledge, expertise, and influence inherent in our executive and leadership teams is key to building our visibility, authority, and credibility. B2B marketing is an increasingly sophisticated machine that’s constantly evolving in response to how people discover, research, choose, and interact with brands. Executive editorial is an important and influential cog in that machine.

For marketers: thought leadership, specifically, and executive editorial, generally, are probably the No.1 B2B marketing tactic right now, because it’s quick to produce, cost-effective, and relatively easy to track and measure its impact over time.

2: I don’t have the time to write this stuff or review it

Don’t worry, we’re not asking you to write anything yourself. We’ll take care of production. We just need you to spare us one hour (usually less) a month to share your opinions, reflections, perspectives or stories on any topics you think important or relevant. You don’t need to do any prep (unless you want to), as we’ll have an experienced interviewer and writer with us to guide the conversation and clarify the key points you want to make. They’ll then craft these into a compelling story and create a draft you can review, which shouldn’t take more than 10 or 15 minutes. We’ll then publish it on various channels like LinkedIn, the company blog, or trade publications, as well as amplify it through our monthly newsletter and other industry and networking groups we’re part of.

For marketers: high-quality executive editorial doesn’t happen by accident if you have the right people, plan, and briefing process in place. You can find out more about that here.

3: Aren’t we just adding to all the crap on LinkedIn?

Yes we are… [pregnant pause] if the executive editorial we produce is low-quality, done-to-death, me-too stuff. Like all communications, executive editorial has to be able to justify its raison d'être and our investment in it. To make an impact, it has to be interesting, insightful, useful, or valuable. And it has to be editorial customers and prospects can’t find elsewhere. The good news is that we can track and measure the impact of anything we produce over time and optimise it accordingly. Ultimately though, the truth is that customers, colleagues, prospects, partners, potential recruits, and even our competitors are keen to hear what leading voices in our company and the wider industry have to say on all sorts of business-related issues.

For marketers: you can track and measure the impact of everything you publish on LinkedIn and see exactly who’s engaging with it. You can then feed this back into your executive editorial strategy to increase engagement further. You can also develop content to target specific individuals and groups. It’s how we helped one of our clients directly capture a £2m opportunity, which has now led to a £20m one. Not a bad return on an investment of £12k over six months.

4. I have no idea where to start or what I want to say

We can help there. Often, a good starting point is to think about any strong opinions you have about what we do, our industry, or the challenges we, or our customers, face. These could pet hates or counter-narrative opinions that defy the status quo. Don’t be afraid to upset the apple cart a little, but best avoid turning it upside down altogether. Or you could share a personal story or experience that shaped your thinking or view of the world. Another source of ideas could be your personal perspective on an industry trend and its implications. Or how about a valuable insight based on proprietary data or research and what it might mean for our business, our customers, or the wider industry? Could you draw on your network to present a broader range of views and opinions on a particular subject? Alternatively, just send me a few bullet points about a specific topic or angle you think might be relevant, interesting, or a little provocative and we can use them to shape our research or develop some questions before we next chat.

For marketers: to be honest, if you’ve got this far, you’ve most likely done the hard work of selling in the idea of thought leadership, so coming up with ideas should be a doddle.

Good luck

The above should help you counter some of the most common objections we hear and get your executive content engine started. Because, as we said in point 1, we think executive content really is the most effective form of B2B marketing you can do right now.

For more articles, information, and opinions on the power and influence executive editorial can have inside and outside your business, and how to do it, sign up to Boardroom Talk.