For a long time, LinkedIn as a marketing tool was undervalued and underestimated. But today, LinkedIn has over 774 million users and over 58 million listed companies. Most importantly, 4 out of 5 LinkedIn members are executives or leaders that drive business decisions. So if you’re in a B2B market, you definitely need a LinkedIn marketing strategy.
If you’re a non marketer, you might be asking yourself, does LinkedIn marketing really work for B2B? The short answer is yes – a well thought out LinkedIn marketing strategy can successfully generate quality B2B leads and grow your business. Brands have seen a 33% increase in purchase intent resulting from ad exposure on LinkedIn and over 90% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn for organic social marketing – it’s a powerful platform to connect with potential customers.
But LinkedIn can be tricky to use effectively. After trialling and testing ourselves, the KOA Digital team has compiled a list of the best LinkedIn marketing strategies for B2B.
1. Optimise your Business Page for leads
First things first! Before delving into any LinkedIn marketing strategy, optimise your Business Page to make it as effective as possible for generating leads. Check out our other blog for a comprehensive optimisation checklist. Or, read on for a shorter breakdown:
- Add your logo as your profile image
- Add a strong, eye-catching banner image that clearly represents your brand
- Indicate your industry
- Write a short but impactful tagline that clearly conveys what your business does in a few words
- Write a concise LinkedIn Page Bio and optimise it for the keywords you’re targeting. Conclude it with a compelling call to action.
- Specify your community hashtags
- And most importantly, add a custom button to link your Page back to your website. (This is crucial!)
2. Use a Lead Gen Form Or Try Lead Gen Ads
LinkedIn campaign management with various Lead Gen Forms is one of the best ways to get your business in front of your target audience. Lead Gen Forms are a fairly new feature to LinkedIn. They allow you to collect quality leads from members who visit your LinkedIn Page. To set one up, firstly think of its objective and what leads you’re looking to gain.
Think of a title that will hook people in, and follow that with a description that explains what members will get if they sign up via the form.
Members can then open and submit a pre-filled form with their information, which is displayed at the top of your business page, and their details become accessible to download via the Analytics tab.
Once you have their details, that’s where the real opportunity presents itself! Follow up via email or send a lead nurture sequence to encourage prospects to book a consultation.
In addition to Lead Gen Forms, LinkedIn recently introduced Lead Ads to the platform. Similar to Facebook and Instagram, these are ads created by businesses that users can submit their details into without leaving LinkedIn.
Firstly, create an Ad via LinkedIn Campaign Manager (a platform that makes LinkedIn campaign management so easy!) The great thing about LinkedIn Lead Ads are that it looks like organic content and feels native to the viewers.
From there, members who click on your Ad will be led to a pre-filled form and with a single click, can instantly send you their information, creating leads for your business.
3. Create valuable organic content
While the above tips will help you get a head start on your LinkedIn marketing strategy, for long-term success you must focus on building an engaged community around your business.
One of the best ways to do this is by consistently creating high quality content. Whether it’s articles, infographics, videos or slideshows, make sure that every piece of content provides value for members and is engaging enough to encourage them to share with their network. LinkedIn Articles have been around for some time now, and provide a great opportunity to share thought-leadership content and start intelligent conversations.
Another new feature to LinkedIn is LinkedIn Newsletters. Businesses can now create a newsletter and invite members to subscribe. The main difference between standard articles and the Newsletter, is when you publish an article, it goes into your timeline. Your connections only discover it by scrolling through their feed, and many might miss it. When you publish a newsletter, your subscribers get notified via both email and LinkedIn notifications, which increases the chances of people seeing and consuming your content.
4. Leverage employee profiles & networks!
Ever since LinkedIn launched in 2003, the community and networks that formed have remained the most valuable resource the platform offers. Whether you’re looking to generate leads, build brand awareness, or develop relationships with influential decision makers in your industry, tapping into the power of LinkedIn’s employee profiles and networks is a must.
One great way to do this is by encouraging your employees to create and share blog posts, articles, and other content on their personal LinkedIn page that promote your brand. They also should be liking, commenting and sharing on all your organic business posts. This is a great brand awareness tactic, because as soon as they like a post, their whole network is then also exposed to the same content!
Overall, there are many effective strategies you can use on LinkedIn to generate high-quality leads and grow your business effectively. With the right approach and a commitment to creating great content consistently, you can make LinkedIn Marketing an important part of your B2B strategy.
If you don’t know where to start, send us a message. We’ve helped many B2B businesses succeed in their LinkedIn marketing strategy and campaign management or to see how we optimise on LinkedIn check out some of our work.
