Thought leadership update: insights and tools

June 10, 2026|Accountants, Kim's Blog, Lawyers, Marketing, Statistics and trends, Web Sites|

With an imminent workshop on thought leadership for professional services marketers, I’ve pulled together some highlights of recent research, insights and tools. Thought leadership update: insights and tools.

Meridian West thought leadership research – ATLAS (Advanced Thought Leadership Assessment)

Meridian West’s report “Atlas: Six steps to navigate the future of thought leadership” is based on interviews with 54 firms across legal, accounting, consultancy and financial services. It found over 57% of firms creating thought leadership struggle to demonstrate any meaningful ROI.

They advocate six critical steps for transforming thought leadership into a commercial engine:

Begin with clarity: Define your destination
Find the perfect topic: X marks the “sweet spot”
Engage key stakeholders – equipping your expert explorers
Navigate with technology: Using AI as a compass, not captain
Personalise your approach: Tailoring the journey
Building for tomorrow: The long-term horizon

ATLAS – Thought Leadership Assessment | Meridian West

Thought leader ‘vital’ in selecting professional services advisers March 2026 (PM Forum)

Man Bites Dog – Thought leadership research

“Thought leadership is storytelling that motivates action”. It is a strategic tool that can help organisations navigate moments of change, ambition and complexity.

Its Thought Makers research found that:

94% of business leaders consume thought leadership content from business brands weekly – more than half do so daily. They trust business brands more than mainstream media, government or public institutions
77% of C-suite leaders actively expect their strategic suppliers to challenge them with thought leadership on emerging trends
74% of C-suite leaders always consider a strategic supplier’s thought leadership when making buying decisions.

The four waves of thought leadership content:

Thought Makers are in the vanguard, applying their energy to start a new wave of thinking. They develop content that is both highly differentiated and effectively amplified for maximum impact
Thought Shapers surf the second wave by curating and advancing existing debates. They can derive significant value from providing new perspectives and points of view, often on the application and implementation of the transformative idea.
Thought Followers create ripple content, which lacks the power and energy to cut through. This low-value content can have a negative impact, undermining trust and alienating already hard-to-reach C-Suite decision-makers.
Thought Whisperers might develop original ideas, but are invisible beneath the first wave, so ultimately fail to derive value by sharing their thinking.

A Spotlight on Thought Leadership: From Thought Follower to Thought Maker – Man Bites Dog March 2026

Beaton 2025 Marketing, BD & CRM Effectiveness Report

Based on extensive research with first hand insights from over 700 clients of professional services firms (accounting and advisory firms, built and natural environment consulting services and legal service) across Australia and New Zealand this report shares client feedback data on what works.

Key findings included:

Clients advise that Zoom fatigue is real – they want more in person meetings
Paid ads are out (78% clients in law said they had little or no sway), more than half said thought leadership had a significant or strong influence on their choice of firm
Social media – particularly LinkedIn – appears to be an untapped goldmine but most firms use it badly. 65% of CEOs and business owners said they were happy to engage via social platforms
81% use search engines to find work-related information – so invest in your web site and prioritise SEO and design content with the user experience in mind
A key finding across all industries was the relevance of marketing content has an outsized influence on clients’ perception of a firm’s value – but it needs to be tailored for specific clients

Marketing, BD and CRM Effectiveness | Beaton

Face time, thought leadership and the decline of paid ads: What clients really want from your market September 2025 (PM Magazine)

Managing Partners’ Forum Credible Voices Marketplace

Being indistinguishable has serious consequences

Despite heavy investment in ‘thought leadership’, organisations with deep expertise are frequently indistinguishable from those producing high‑volume generic output. Consequences of importance to Boards include: lost work, as an optimal expert was overlooked; invisible services, as market positioning was poor; missed media or policy opportunities, as credible voices were unheard; and poor return on investment (ROI).

Expert identification is currently driven by flawed surrogates

Clients readily recognise but struggle to find authoritative expertise. In theory, authority emerges from sustained, high‑quality contribution over time. In reality, expert identification is driven by price, self-assertion, internal hierarchy, brand visibility, client feedback or social media performance – none of which correlate cleanly with depth of expertise.

The Credible Voices Marketplace®️ allows subscribers to find authoritative experts with evidence that can be defended

An academically validated framework has therefore been developed that objectively measures depth of expertise. The framework comprises 16 criteria, grouped into four sub-scores: depth & accuracy; structural integrity & readability; engagement & attractiveness; and presentation & visuals. It is being used to score and evaluate millions of articles found on thousands of websites at zero cost to content providers. Scores are used for:

Open rankings of firms and authors by sector.
Credible Voices Marketplace®️: This allows subscribers to find authoritative experts at low/no cost, with evidence that they can defend. Essential for buyers who are not subject matter experts; thought leadership comparisons; and even cross-selling. Simply enter a topic and specify the type of expert required and the role for which they are required. Search is deterministic so can be narrowed to authors from specific firms, sectors, etc.

Related commercial services allow subscribers to enhance their thought leadership, websites and awareness of competitor priorities

Audit own website: This low cost service allows firms to locate and view articles on their website through drill down; view quality scores, AI summaries and improvement tips of individual articles; track comparative in-out ratios; benchmark key content attributes; and track the performance of their authors. An equivalent manual exercise would take years.
Marketplace management toolkit: This service for members of the PM Forum allows authors to be edited, low quality or out-of-date articles to be hidden, and updated articles to be instantly re-scored. Subscribers can also view client needs based on Credible Voices Marketplace®️ searches.
Strategic planning toolkit:This service for team members of the Managing Partners’ Forum uses the Credible Voices Marketplace®️ dataset to allow firms to compare the most popular topics, locations, specialisms, content categories and target audiences of their competitors with their own priorities.
Manage an expert: This service allows firms to outsource the due diligence and ongoing management of experts selected through the Credible Voices Marketplace®️.

Smart firms use the Credible Voices Marketplace®️ as both buyers and providers of expertise

The largest client base for most professional services firms is other professional services firms. Full engagement on the Credible Voices Marketplace®️ is a strategic choice to ensure that your most credible voices and thought leadership are discovered, and that your procurement of expertise is effective. The attached handout explores the significant benefits for buyers of expertise.

There’s also information about thought leadership tools here:

A novel solution that boosts cross-selling September 2025 (PM Magazine)

An alternative channel to discover authoritative expertise March 2026 (PM Magazine)