When you’re out on the web checking out blog posts, articles, white papers, podcasts, and webinars, do you get bored? I know I do. Save for a few of my favorite writers, presenters, and sources, I find so many people say the same things—provide the same advice—and don’t offer original viewpoints.

Maybe I read more than the typical person and so I notice it more. But if I were searching online for a provider, weighing their expertise in certain areas, most of the time I’d have a hard time choosing one based on their content marketing or thought leadership marketing strategies. Search results offer up a wall of noise with most people parroting one another.

If you can separate yourself from that and offer interesting and innovative ideas—and in an exciting way—then I and many other buyers will take notice.

RainToday contributing editor Michael W. McLaughlin has also noticed how service professionals and their firms are failing to stand out. Many are failing miserably with their thought leadership marketing strategies, he says in his article, Is Your Thought Leadership Strategy a Waste of Time?

“Thought leadership marketing is shaping up like an arms race, with no apparent goal except keeping up with the competition by churning out more of the same,” McLaughlin says. “In spite of the volume and intensity, a lot of the material that firms tout as ‘thought leadership’ just isn’t.”

Their thought leadership isn’t original and lacks hard data to support the arguments in it. Their thought leadership lacks leadership.

That doesn’t mean thought leadership is a lost cause, however. It means you have to ask the right questions when developing your strategy, such as these: Are these leading ideas? Why should anyone care about this? Do you have facts to back up your statements?

Developing Trust

A strong thought leadership marketing campaign can go a long way toward developing trust with potential buyers. You don’t want to destroy that trust by following unethical marketing practices, says Janet Kyle Altman in her article, Wrestling with the Ethics of Marketing? 7 Rules to Consider.

You can start by always telling the truth, she says.

“Don’t write or say anything—anywhere—that isn’t true. True is not a relative term—it’s black and white. If it looks a little grayish, don’t say it,” Altman says.

And if you use research to support your statements, make sure you credit the source.

“We all do research before we write. It’s so easy to get information these days, and much of it is free. But that doesn’t mean you can take credit for someone else’s work,” Altman says.

Get Your Message Through to Buyers

With a strong thought leadership strategy in place, more buyers will start to notice you. That notice, however, won’t win their business. You must still persuade them of the benefits of working with you, and that takes careful communication skills.

Those potential buyers may have approached you, but they are still on the defensive. In initial conversations they think with their crocodile brains, which are instinctive and care about their own survival, says Oren Klaff, author of Pitch Anything, in his podcast interview, Getting Through to Your Buyers’ Crocodile Brains.

“When you make a pitch to someone, you develop that pitch and you communicate it or send it from your neocortex—from the smart part of your brain,” says Klaff. “The problem is it isn’t received first in the other person’s neocortex. You’re not communicating from the smart brain to the smart brain. You’re communicating from smart brain to the crocodile brain. It has to get through that defensive, keep me alive part of the brain first before it gets up to the other person’s neocortex. ”

That means you have to tune your message to the crocodile brain’s inputs, not how you want to pitch it but how that part of the brain receives messages, he says.

How do you get through to the crocodile brain? Your presentation has to be safe, visual, fast, novel, and concrete, Klaff says.

How Much Does It Cost?

Equally important in attracting and retaining clients is your pricing strategy. Often firms turn to pricing methods based on calculations that allow competitors to one-up them and make them look less appealing, says Eric Rudolf in his article, 3 Pricing Strategies that Hurt Your Business.

One such strategy is penetration pricing in which you “set a low initial entry price with the intent of raising the price once market acceptance has taken place,” Rudolf says. The downside to this is the Internet makes it easier and faster for buyers to find another provider willing to provide services for less. Not only that, but what do you do when a competitor reduces prices to match yours?

“Determining an optimal price for the things your company sells has little to do with math, formulas, and complex calculations,” Rudolf says. “It is based more on perception, convenience, and competitive positioning.”

What perception do buyers have of you and your services? Do they see you as providing high value? Do you offer something that can’t be found elsewhere? And are you communicating that through your content and thought leadership marketing?

This article originally appeared on RainToday.com’s RainMaker Blog.