Measuring the ROI of Thought Leadership | Cindy Anderson and Anthony Marshall | 449

It's certain that thought leadership brings great value to an organization, but how do you calculate the actual ROI of your thought leadership investment? To demystify the ROI of thought leadership, I've invited Cindy Anderson and Anthony Marshall to join me for a discussion. Cindy Anderson is the Global Lead for Thought Leadership Engagement and Eminence, and Anthony Marshall is the Senior Research Director for Thought Leadership, both from the IBM Institute for Business Value. In this episode, we talk about the IBM Institute for Business Value's 20 year history delivering thought-provoking insights to business leaders about emerging trends, opportunities, and challenges. Their thought leadership reports offer prescriptive recommendations to address the most pressing challenges and opportunities, and to help determine future organizational success. Since 2004, they have conducted groundbreaking surveys, growing from 300 CEO respondents to more than 3000. Due to the long history of the survey, they have a long horizon of data to track global changes in the CEO role, responsibilities, and best practices. Recently, Cindy and Anthony lead a double blind survey of CEOs, seeking to discover the ROI of thought leadership. The survey included questions on thought leadership consumption, purchasing decisions, and more, all designed to shape insight on the effects of thought leadership, and guide CEO spending. The result was shocking! The data showed that the ROI was 156%, more than 16 times a typical marketing campaign's effectiveness. We wrap up the conversation discussing how Cindy and Anthony intend to tell the story of their research. They are writing a book which will be published in 2023, including survey data, information captured in follow-ups, the calculations used, and even a tool that companies can use to calculate their own thought leadership ROI! If you've ever tried to measure the impact of your org's thought leadership investment, this is a critical episode. Don't miss it! Three Key Takeaways: * Long-term surveys provide essential longitudinal data, showing change over time and tracking trends that underline permanent global shifts. * In order for thought leadership to flourish in an organization there needs to be an immense level of support from the CEOs - the TL team can't do it alone! * CEOs spend an average of 2 hours a week consuming thought leadership. To keep them engaged, you need to produce content that is rigorous, robust, and relevant.