"You can turn a reader into new business. You can also turn readership into business insights."

My colleague Adrian Lurssen recently made the above observation in conversation with David Ackert, during an episode of David's Market Leaders Podcast focused on reader data, thought leadership, and business development strategies. (I've embedded the full program below for your convenience; Adrian's quote occurs around the 9:40 mark.)

With those two sentences, Adrian made a deceptively simple but important point about how and where to find business value in your readership data. (I think some fellow marketers agree; I saw the lines quoted and noted in social shares of the podcast when it first arrived.)

In this post, I'd like to unpack what Adrian means in his distinction between one reader versus many readers, and how we find business development opportunities in each.

David and Adrian talked about reader data within the framework of the sales/BD funnel and, more specifically, within the context of understanding what readers are doing at each stage of the funnel/pipeline. Reduced and paraphrased for the purposes of this post:

• At the top of the funnel, readers are consuming information around matters and issues that interest or concern them. They may not yet need the service you provide, or want to talk to you, but they need your insights.
• As a reader (or prospective client) makes their way down the funnel, their behavior shifts from general consumption of information to more specific engagement. Here, their attention moves from need-to-know interest ("This attorney and firm helps me to understand issues of the day and how they impact me...") to something more pressing ("Can this firm help me to solve my particular problem?"). As the reader travels this route – as their attention goes from awareness of your firm's expertise and service to actual engagement and interest – so the value of their readership shifts from marketing/branding to business development opportunity.

[I appreciate David's in-depth explanation of the pipeline/funnel and prospect behaviors within it; you can hear it in full at the start of the podcast.]

The Business Value of One Reader

While Adrian frequently points out that there are myriad ways thought leadership can support marketing and business development, in general terms a single reader is valuable when, among other actions:

• they follow you to become an ongoing, habitual reader of your thought leadership ("This firm and writer help my thinking, I read them for insights and guidance..."). With this action by the reader, a thought leader becomes a strategic advisor, front of mind, with someone who might need their service at a future time.
• they reach out and ask to talk ("This is exactly my issue, I hope you can help me...") With this action, readership shifts from marketing to BD conversation: "Here is my problem, are you able to assist me in solving it?"
• they refer clients and connections to you ("I can't help you with this but know someone who can..."). Here, readers become powerful referral sources based on the weight and usefulness of your insights.
• they share your work with colleagues, connections, and their own followers ("This is important, you should read it..."). And of course, here they endorse and magnify your expertise among their own networks, growing your audience even further.

That's just the tip of the iceberg. Additionally, when you know the name, position/role, and company of a reader, such important data helps to guide your next marketing/BD steps. ("This chief compliance officer just read our series on Risk Management, are we working with her company currently? Does anyone at the firm have a connection with her or someone else at the company? Should we reach out to discuss....")

... there is also great marketing and business development value in your aggregated reader data

[As an aside, I was pleased to read in this recap of another conversation between JD Supra's Paul Ryplewski and compliance attorney Mike Volkov that Mike researches all of his notable JD Supra readers and reaches out to thank them for engaging with his work. That's the smart, proactive follow-up that leads to new work!]

The Business Value of Multiple Readers

I share this abbreviated look at one reader's value with the belief that this is where most marketers' interest and activity around reader data begins and ends.

In this framing, success is contingent upon whether a particular reader reaches out (or shares, or refers, or follows) or whether anyone at the firm follows up with readers as they are identified in your analytics.

All good, and a source of great content wins at many firms, but I want to underscore: there is also great marketing and BD value in your aggregated reader data, analytics that allow you to see a path forward based on the behaviors of multiple readers.

To explain, I return to one of Adrian's favorite examples as shared in the Market Leaders Podcast and elsewhere, in which marketer extraordinaire Kathryn Whitaker built an effective, multi-pronged campaign that ultimately lead to new business. In short:

• an attorney at her firm at the time suggested that they explore whether or not to start an Opportunity Zones practice group. Kathryn's first step: determine if there was, in fact, any interest around the subject. We helped with this, and a broad look at all aggregated reader data across the entire JD Supra network showed that many, many readers were actively interested in any content to do with the topic, and the interest was only going up. One cannot overstate the value of this broad data at the top of the funnel. It asks and answers important questions: are people actually interested in this matter? Does it deserve our investment of time and energy? [Give people what you know they want, not what you hope they want!]
• a good follow-up question: who, exactly, might be interested in the topic? In Kathryn's case, her attorneys began producing related content and thereby answered the question! In the aggregate, she found that a number of Opportunity Zone readers came from the regional telcom space. This is one of the sweet spots of aggregated reader data: deriving next steps from what you learn of readers in specific industries, market segments, and even companies.
• Kathryn used what she learned to educate existing telcom clients about the firm's Opportunity Zones expertise. This sharp targeting lead, of course, to new work (with existing clients)!

As compelling and clever as it is, Kathryn's is just one story of how marketers can use aggregated reader data to derive insights within specific companies and industries. And here lies terrific opportunity.

Deepen Relationships with Existing Clients

Among other examples, I think of the senior BD manager who once told us of her habit of looking for readership (or, more to the point, evidence of what interests readers) within specific high-value companies. If, for example, she sees lots of readers from a bank (that happens to be a client) focusing on cybersecurity, she tell the relationship partner of this interest and suggests that the firm offer the client team a webinar on the subject. In other words, she uses aggregated reader data to deepen the relationship with an existing, high-value client, all the while prospecting for additional work.

Guide Meaty, Productive Conversations with Clients and Prospects

I think of Clinton Gary's notion of Meaningful Facetime, in which his team of marketers and BD professionals distilled their complete monthly analytics into a short, actionable report for the entire firm, looking at reader interest within industries and companies. Armed with whatever insights they could find, the team would then share data points with practice group leaders and relationship partners, allowing them to have informed conversations (aka meaningful facetime) with clients and prospects in relevant industries and companies. ("We are seeing growing interest in blockchain in your space...")

Focus Your Content Strategy AND Inform Your Business Decisions

Aggregated reader data, offering insights into the interests and concerns of an industry or company, can inform your content strategy ("HR managers are interested in the vaccine mandate, we should be writing our thought leadership framed with their needs in mind" – or, as above: "Regional telcoms are interest in Opportunity Zones; let's focus a campaign on our existing clients in that space.") But such data can also inform your business decisions, period.

Given the volume of readers, this data is a broad measure of the actual interests and concerns at play within a specific industry or a company. I think of the BD manager who looked at the actual reading habits of a particular hospital group and, without skipping beat, said: "We are using the wrong practice group to pitch this organization. They are actually interested in..." Or, I think of the client firms who have launched their new practice groups with a focus on a niche industry based on what the data says.

The Takeaway: Passive versus Active

Implied in all of this is the difference between Marketing's passive versus active approach to thought leadership and its business impact. That is to say: don't produce content and then just wait for people come find it, decide what it means to them, and reach out to you. Or not. That's passive. Don't wait for the phone to ring (It does! But that's not a strategy.)

Instead, the most successful firms deploy their thought leadership and actively look for opportunities that reveal themselves in the engagement with that content. They don't wait for chance, they create opportunities.

This might mean – as with Mike Volkov's example above – reaching out to individual readers and beginning a conversation with them. But it also most definitely means – as with Kathryn Whitaker's example – looking at aggregated reader data and deriving business insights that guide next steps within industries and individual companies.

Marketers who don't plumb this data as part of their thought leadership program are leaving much value on the table. Today, in 2024, your reader analytics should without doubt include industry and company insights. You're missing out if they don't. And, if they don't, we should talk.

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Robin Howorka is JD Supra's VP of Business Development. Connect with her on LinkedIn.