Why thought leadership will grow your Greentech business

Can you be all about the mission and still be commercial? It’s not just that you can be — it’s that you have to be.

If you’re not selling, your mission is failing. So, how do you harness the passion of a purpose-driven startup into tangible business growth? Thought leadership.

61% of decision-makers say thought leadership demonstrates value better than traditional marketing, and Greentech is one place where thought leadership is especially powerful. Why?

• Your passion means you have endless information and expertise to share, and the drive to share it.
• A lot of your prospects are looking for answers, but don’t know what questions to ask.
• Greentech is unfamiliar for a lot of people, and that can make them wary. Thought leadership is reassuring.
• There are also plenty of people who are well-informed in the Greentech space, and have an appetite to learn more and find experts to answer their questions.

Here’s why thought leadership will grow your Greentech brand.

Building trust

Someone who is in the very early stages of green transformation will have very little to orient themselves in the sector. Even if they know what they need, they most likely won’t know anything about the businesses that offer it. They don’t have familiar brands to gravitate towards, and they’re not aware of anyone’s track record in the sector.

Putting yourself in their shoes, would you be more likely to trust a brand that has a website full of articles, guides, and reports, or one that has none of that?

Thought leadership not only demonstrates the expertise that your prospects need from you, but it also signals legitimacy. People wouldn’t and couldn’t invest time producing content like that if they were ‘imposters’ in the sector.

Building understanding

Your target audience may or may not know what problems they have, how to solve them, or what solving them would achieve. It’s one thing to start a sales process with a prospect who knows they need help, but there’s a large extra step when they aren’t aware of their issues.

On top of that, you may have a technically complex solution, and most people won’t have the background to understand what it does and how it works. There’s a real art to communicating details like that in a way that’s accessible, but not over-simplified or condescending. The ability to do that will set you apart from your competitors and make the product or solution far easier to buy.

Being able to serve that content is especially important when you remember that a prospect spends 83% of their buying journey without talking to suppliers. They will form most of their understanding of the market without having a conversation with you, so you need to be sure that they find information that’s useful to them and to you.

Building authority

There will also be prospects who have a software, engineering, or scientific background, or have simply done their research and are well-read on Greentech. You need to cater to those people as well, and what will impress them is expertise that challenges their assumptions and offers a new perspective. In fact, 81% of B2B buyers want a supplier to do that.

Getting that right will give your thought leadership greater longevity and impact, too. It means prospects are more likely to engage on social media, commenting on articles to ask questions, seek further understanding, or simply thank you for the insight. They will also share articles that interest them, so you reach a wider network.

Five tips for Greentech thought leadership

1. Keep focus on the prospect

Your expertise is only as relevant as the outcomes it delivers. Always clearly relate the topic to the problems a prospect faces.

2. Find out what your targets like to read

(e.g. articles, infographics, reports) Focus on the audience’s preference, but don’t be afraid to vary what you produce.

3. Be clear and reasonable about what you want the reader to do next

Capitalise on the excitement that you’ve created with a strong call-to-action, but bear in mind ‘buy now’ might be a bit premature.

4. Avoid jargon

People use industry-speak when they’re insecure. Be confident in your expertise to express things in terms that everyone understands.

Jargon undermines the trust and understanding that thought leadership is there to build. Since the reader can’t understand it, they can’t learn from it or be reassured by it.

5. Outsource it

Just because you’re an expert, that doesn’t mean you have the time to craft a thought leadership strategy, or to write the volume of articles, guide, and reports that it could require.

A marketing partner like Nutcracker are experts in taking complex offerings and translating them into content that starts conversations, inspires action, generates leads, and grows businesses.

Find out more about what we do here.