In January 2022, our team began working with the global and innovative hospitality tech brand TASK Group. The company, following their strategic merger between TASK and Plexure in October 2021, was kicking off a digital marketing overhaul, and brought in Intelligent Ink to help with the production of blogs, social media posts, a white paper, and other pieces of website and case study copy. 

Mark Hayes, Head of Growth Marketing, has been spearheading TASK Group’s approach to building thought leadership through content with intention, energy, and a whole lot of conscious experimentation.

At the start of their journey, TASK Group was focusing heavily on writing for SEO and building a wide, thorough content base. Now, their approach looks a little broader. Drawing on extensive industry and market audience research for every blog topic, the team prioritises cutting-edge content told from a unique and authoritative perspective. 

Start with your audience

As one of the core principles of your thought leadership positioning, your audience is central to every piece of content you produce. When the TASK team starts to consider their next blog topic, it starts with in-depth research about what conversations are happening among their target audience.

“When we research our audience, we start by looking at current topics happening at industry conferences and by talking to our sales team about the pain points our clients are feeling right now. We also use the audience research tool SparkToro, and constantly have an eye on leading industry publications, social media outlets, and what our competitors are talking about,” says Mark.

Being constantly involved and engaged with your industry will give you the best and most accurate picture of what your audience is thinking about, worrying about, or getting excited about – and those are the topics that should inspire your content.

Leveraging internal perspectives

One of TASK Group’s key learnings over the past year has been the importance of drawing out different and unique voices throughout their content. 

Mark explains, “We started with a strong focus on SEO, but now we are experimenting more with new insights that suggest publishing exclusive content is effective in driving engagement. We’re currently tracking that approach and leaning into our thought leadership driven strategy.”

This piece of the puzzle is all about tapping into your company’s expertise – another core tenant of building a strategic thought leadership position. 

Intelligent Ink conducts regular interviews with key leaders across TASK Group, including those from the Plexure Division of the company. These individual expert perspectives then form a layered and dynamic approach to the industry and educational topics that inspire TASK Group’s blogs and Linkedin newsletters. Beyond just increasing readership, these pieces of content aim to solidify TASK Group as the go-to for strong, refreshing and insightful leadership in the global software and hospitality technology space.

This isn’t to say, of course, that SEO is becoming irrelevant when it comes to marketing material. Mark still uses tools such as Ahrefs to conduct primary keyword research. These terms are woven into exceptionally detailed copy briefs, ensuring that everything from structure to keywords to subtopics support a balanced and relevant piece of content. This provides a foundation for our team at Intelligent Ink to bring to life the voices and perspectives that together form TASK Group.

Don’t be afraid to go back and rewrite

It’s a mantra at TASK Group – audits and improvements should be part of your continuous process. 

In the last eighteen months, there have been countless learnings for TASK Group and Intelligent Ink around SEO, engagement and building cohesion for the newly-merged company. Those changes are inspiring an effort to rework older blogs and actually remove some of the SEO-heavy language that dominated earlier pieces – and instead replacing it with meaningful expertise from voices across the brand.

More and more, businesses at the corporate level are starting to employ thought leadership tools to drive their growth. We have been thrilled to be a part of TASK Group’s journey. Going deeper into audience needs and leveraging a diverse range of industry expertise – this is thought leadership put to action at a corporate scale. 

To learn more about how we could support your thought leadership journey, get in touch with our team by booking a discovery call.