Do you know the difference between thought leadership and content marketing? For both, defining a target audience and creating relevant content is key. However, there are some significant differences.

The aim of content marketing is to guide potential clients through a sales funnel (or content marketing funnel) by providing different kinds of information in the top, middle, and bottom of the funnel or the different stages of their awareness.

People who know you and your consulting or coaching offers already, will benefit from different content than people who visit your website or blog for the very very first time.

Keeping that in mind, thought leadership is commonly used to build a first level of awareness. To get people’s attention.

With thought leadership, you will be the go-to person regarding a certain topic, problem solution or task.

The idea behind thought leadership is to build trust and expand reach by educating future clients.

Therefore, thought leadership is always at the top of the content marketing funnel.

Ideally, it works in conjunction with other content marketing campaigns.