Thought leadership content focused on your predictions for the New Year can be highly effective at positioning you favorably in the eyes of your target audience — if you avoid making these four mistakes when you create it.
Ho, ho, ho — ‘tis the season!
As of the date I’m publishing this post, we’re at the beginning of the end of 2024.
December is a great time to think about thought leadership that is focused on your predictions for 2025 regarding the areas of law you practice or the industries you serve.
But as you sit down to start creating a piece of thought leadership focused on your 2025 predictions—whether it’s an article, blog post, video, or podcast episode—avoid making these four mistakes.
Mistake #1: Not being audience-focused with your predictions
It’s easy when you’re making your 2025 predictions to focus on areas/issues you find interesting within your legal practice. Or, the areas/issues you *think* might be relevant to your clients and your referral sources.
But just because it’s easy doesn’t make it right.
What you should focus on instead is making predictions concerning the areas/issues you *know* members of your target audience are interested in. If you create predictions around what they’re focused on and thinking about, your thought leadership is going to resonate better with them than if you talked about predictions they couldn’t care less about.
So how do you figure out what they’re thinking about for 2025?
You simply ask them.
You could also look at the media outlets, the newsletters, and the influencers they follow and that cover their industry to get a sense of what areas/issues industry players think are of interest in 2025.
If your predictions stay in the neighborhood of those areas/issues, there’s a good chance your target audience will find them relevant.
Mistake #2: Not being specific with your predictions
You may be tempted to make broad, sweeping predictions. Please don’t.
Yes, of course, Republican presidential administrations tend to take a hands-off approach to administrative agencies’ enforcement of laws and regulations, if not a “let’s dial it back a whole bunch” approach.
Yes, of course, interest rates dictate how companies of all sizes spend their revenues and decide which investments to make.
Yes, of course, geopolitical unrest will impact supply chains, international transportation, and oil prices.
These predictions are so broad and sweeping that they’re not going to resonate with your audience because your audience will not get value from them.
Instead, be specific with your predictions so that they position you as someone who’s authoritative regarding the areas of law you practice and the industries you serve. Specific predictions show you have deep knowledge and expertise regarding legal and business issues that arise within those areas and industries. They’re how you establish yourself as a go-to lawyer.
For example, if you’re an M&A attorney serving healthcare companies, your predictions should be specific regarding healthcare companies’ deal flow. Avoid the temptation to talk broadly about the connection between interest rates and the number of deals that will get done, unless you can provide more nuanced analysis than simply, “Lower interest rates = lower borrowing costs = lower-cost debt with which to do deals with.”
Or, if you’re a white-collar criminal defense attorney who assists clients with internal investigations and insider trading prosecutions, your predictions should be specific regarding internal investigations and insider trading prosecutions. For example, they should be focused on which unlawful activities prosecutors might focus their efforts on and how aggressive they might be with their prosecutions.
You should avoid talking broadly, such as about how U.S. Attorneys appointed by a Republican president will take a different approach to these investigations and prosecutions compared to U.S. Attorneys appointed by a Democratic president.
Mistake #3: Not limiting your predictions to between 3 and 5
When you get going with a few predictions, you might want to create a laundry list of them. After you give it some thought, you might be able to come up with 10, 15, or even 20 predictions.
Please don’t include that many. When you produce that many predictions, you’re going to dilute the impact of them while overwhelming your readers.
But perhaps more importantly, you’re going to lose the opportunity to speak in depth about the predictions if you want to keep your article, blog post, video, or podcast episode to a reasonable length/duration. Otherwise, it could be 5,000 words or hours long.
By keeping your number of predictions to three, four, or five, you’ll allow your audience to digest what you’re saying while also giving yourself enough space or time to provide meaningful insights regarding your predictions.
Plus, the more detail you go into regarding each prediction, the more you can show off your knowledge and wisdom to your audience regarding the areas of law you practice and the industries you serve.
In theory, a massive list of predictions might seem like a good idea. But it’s unlikely you’ll be able to go into much depth about any of them.
Without doing so, you’re unlikely to provide much value to your target audience, which defeats the purpose of crafting a piece of thought leadership content in the first place.
Mistake #4: Not being bold with your predictions
The majority of thought leadership prediction pieces are boring. They don’t push the envelope. As a result, they’re not memorable.
Help your predictions piece avoid that same fate.
Connect dots that other attorneys and other industry experts cannot or will not connect.
Go out on a limb with your predictions.
Be creative with them.
You might be worried that if you’re creative with your predictions, you’re bound to get a few (or all?!) wrong.
If you do get any wrong, I assure you, you have nothing to worry about.
Despite what you think, or what your colleagues, spouse, or kids might suggest, there is no one out there keeping score of your predictions.
No one’s going to come back to you next July, August, or December and say, “Hey, you know what? You were totally off with your predictions. What were you smoking when you published that predictions piece?”
The purpose of making predictions isn’t necessarily to get them right—it’s to show your audience that, as reflected by what your predictions discuss, you’re knowledgeable and wise about the work you do for clients.
Thus, you have the liberty with predictions to be creative, to stand out, and to be memorable. If you do, your thought leadership will resonate better among your target audience than a bland, plain vanilla piece of thought leadership containing predictions for the New Year that a high school freshman with a C- GPA could have come up with.
(Just keep in mind that you’ll need to be reasonable with your creative predictions because you’ll want them to be credible.)
Avoid these mistakes to create a compelling predictions piece
Producing thought leadership regarding your 2025 predictions is a fun and effective way to produce thought leadership that will resonate with your target audience and position you favorably in their eyes.
Your predictions article, blog post, video, or podcast will be even more effective on these two fronts if you avoid making the above four mistakes when creating it.
Thinking about bringing on an outside writer to help your law firm strategize and create compelling thought-leadership marketing and business development content? Click here to schedule a 30-minute Content Strategy Audit to learn if collaborating with an outside writer is the right move for you and your firm.