LinkedIn is a platform for professionals.
Its core purpose is for businesses to create meaningful networks, build credibility, and get insider insights from established brands.
In fact, the platform is a powerhouse social platform for B2B lead generation, thought leadership establishment, and business reputation improvement.
However, one question brings everything into perspective:
How Important is LinkedIn Marketing for a B2B Business?
To answer that question correctly, let’s quickly explore some important LinkedIn statistics:
- LinkedIn has over 706 million users, 61 million senior-level influencers, and 40 million decision-makers (LinkedIn)
- LinkedIn is almost 3X more effective at generating leads than Facebook and Twitter (HubSpot)
- 19 in every 20 B2B marketers use LinkedIn for organic content marketing, making it the best in social network for B2B marketing (Content Marketing Institute)
- LinkedIn is the third-most-popular video marketing channel behind YouTube and Facebook (Wyzowl)
- LinkedIn drives nearly 50% of all social traffic to B2B websites and blogs and is considered the most credible source of content (Kinsta)
In other words, LinkedIn presents a platform where B2B marketers can introduce their businesses to potential clients, find their next business partners, and generate more leads.
However, how exactly do you do B2B marketing for your business to increase revenue?
#1. Convert You Company’s LinkedIn Page into a Lead Generation Page
To generate b2b leads, you need to be intentional on the LinkedIn platform.
Your first step is to create a business page on LinkedIn. Here’s a step-by-step guide to creating a business page on LinkedIn if you don’t have one. Then, turn the page into a pipeline for LinkedIn leads.
Instead of creating a business page that only talks about your company, restructure it in a way that triggers conversion action and makes users want to visit the actual company website.
The action should click through your business website — either in the company description or your recent updates.
Here is a step-by-step procedure to restructure LinkedIn Page:
Step 1: Use a Cover Image That Grabs Attention or Triggers Action
Your business page cover image is your first opportunity to create an impression on LinkedIn users. More than just creating an impression, the cover image is your first shot to target users who need your product or services.
Here’s a screenshot of how HubSpot does it.
The HubSpot image grabs attention and makes companies want to check how the CRM platform will benefit them.
However, an image alone won’t work great, which calls for the second step:
Step 2: Create a Compelling Pitch in Your Business Description
Most businesses falter in the description section — they make it a dry explanation of how much their businesses grew. The only problem?
Explanation about company rarely generates leads, unless when explaining huge milestones.
Instead, speak directly to your prospects, inviting them for conversion in the company description area.
Consider the LinkedIn Page description below that Business Insider uses to target businesses to follow them on several social media platforms.
Since Business Insider only talks about business, the hook they use on the above description is more likely to trigger any person running a business to follow them on the social platform they have listed.
More importantly, the first two lines of your business description are the most important because that’s all LinkedIn displays.
For users to hit the “See more” function, you must grab your target user with the first two lines. Otherwise, they won’t read the entire description you created.
After creating an attention-grabbing company description, your remaining task is to make your website or the destination you’re directing your leads conversion-ready as possible.
Step 3: Ensure Your Recent Update Section is Clickable and Conversion-Focused
In case your target user doesn’t click through your business’s website in the company information section, you still have the opportunity to retarget them on the Recently Updates part.
As long as you regularly post updates, you’ll have an active and engaging feed. Your best shot at getting leads is posting updates directly aimed at your target audience.
You can post:
- Blog post updates
- Link to your infographics
- Share general information
Your end goal is to look for click-throughs from information seekers.
Clear, as mud.
That’s how you can optimize your LinkedIn business page for conversion. If you’re in an industry with broad appeal, you might see quite a few leads from just converting your business page into a lead generation page.
However, if you’re in a small niche, proceed to strategy number two:
#2. Run Linked in Ads
According to Content Marketing Institute, LinkedIn is the most popular social network for paid content among B2B businesses. In fact, 76% of B2B marketers ran LinkedIn ads in 2019 more than Facebook ads, which was 66%.
Advertising on LinkedIn appears to provide better ROI for B2B ventures. However, here’s is a follow-up question.
What are the best advertising tools on LinkedIn?
You can use two common advertising tools:
- LinkedIn Ads
- LinkedIn Matches
How to Use LinkedIn Ads
LinkedIn has several ads type, including:
- Sponsored content (shows up on your user’s feeds)
- Sponsored messaging (lets you advertise directly on users’ inboxes)
- Text Ads (shows up along the top and right-hand side of LinkedIn desktop feeds. They are excellent for B2B marketing)
- Dynamic Ads (pops up in the member feed)
LinkedIn ads work best on reaching small to medium size businesses. You need to rely on LinkedIn filters to boost conversion rates.
For instance, since advertising on LinkedIn works on small businesses, you should leverage the “Company Size” filter to target businesses that will react to your ad.
The only problem, though?
Many companies with 50 or fewer people have not set up a company page on LinkedIn, and those with a business page on LinkedIn don’t allow individual employees to associate with the company’s page.
As a result, you might have a problem establishing the real size of a company.
However, LinkedIn advertising offers you other marketing opportunities like:
- Customer retargeting — you can retarget users who have already visited your site with ads. LinkedIn lets you go after users who have previously shown interest in what you’re offering.
- Connecting with qualified leads through lead generation forms — the forms collect information through your ads. For instance, when a user clicks your ad’s CTA, the form will open with the fields already filled using their LinkedIn profile information.
- Use video ads — According to Wyzowl, LinkedIn is the 3rd most popular platform for video marketing, behind YouTube and Facebook. You can focus on multimedia marketing on Linked in too.
How to Use LinkedIn Matched Audiences
The LinkedIn Matched Audiences is an advertising feature that lets you create your sponsored content, regular text ad, or send targeted messages with a sponsored InMail.
The feature is powerful because it delivers your copy right into prospects’ inboxes.
Even more, the Matched Audiences Tool lets you retarget visitors already in your sale funnel.
You can retarget:
- Web visitors
- Upload your existing accounts
- Add email contact to target with LinkedIn ads
At its core, 98% of your website visitors will not convert on their first visit. The Matched Audience feature will be useful in retargeting and reaching out to this 98%.
Interestingly, the Match Audiences tool goes beyond retargeting because nearly all LinkedIn’s audiences are professionals with 2X more buying power than a typical online audience. Your audience is more likely to buy.
Set up your LinkedIn Matches Audiences today and start sending impressions to your existing network to optimize your cost per click and conversions.
#3. Publish Actionable Content that Sparks Interest
LinkedIn has a powerful content publishing platform, and if you are serious about LinkedIn marketing for B2B, you need to be using it.
Creating quality content can turn your social media marketing strategy from drawing attention through ads and start drawing in users interested in what you have to offer through your post.
There are two ways you can use on LinkedIn:
- Publishing content as an Individual
- Publishing content as a company
On the personal side, you can share intriguing and interesting posts through LinkedIn to acquire followers and quickly get recognized as an industry leader. After establishing yourself as an industry leader, even your simple post will get dozens of likes, shares, and comments.
On publishing content as a company, the best approach is to be organic, using a voice that draws more attention. Avoid positioning yourself as a stodgy, using a corporate tone, being too pushy, or getting too salesy.
Use the platform to get exposure.
#4. Build Specific and Deliberate Audience
As a business, you should go from random to deliberate with your audience. In the first three strategies, we’ve tackled how to attract specific businesses to you. Now the big question is:
How do you go out on LinkedIn to find specific prospects?
After all, not every prospect will come to find you. However, you can go find them.
The first powerful tool for approaching leads is the “Advanced Search.” The tool allows you to identify the exact type of people you’re targeting.
No business wants a generic and broad audience. A deliberate audience will serve you well.
Here’s a step-by-step procedure to use advance search to build the right network:
- Head over to the “Search” option from the LinkedIn header menu, enter the title of your audience, e.g., “business manager,” and search.
- From the results, click on the “People” filter to present individuals alone.
- Then select the “All fiters” option to narrow down your search to a more specific audience.
- You can narrow your audience search by location, profile language, current company, past company, non-profit interest, and even school.
The advanced search results are focused and get you a chance to connect with people who are more likely to relate to your business or buy from you.
The best part?
The bigger and better your personal network, the greater the chances of finding warm prospects.
#5. Target Decision Markers on LinkedIn
As a B2B business, your success stems from presenting your marketing to the right people — people who make decisions in their company. For that reason, you need to target decision-makers in the industry that your customers reside in so that you have a higher chance of ROI.
The precision in who your target is means the right people see it.
The only problem, though, is that there is no way you can identify one decision-maker. For the most part, decision-making for B2B businesses includes dozens of employees, each specializing in different fields.
It’s easy to end up targeting mythical decision-makers at the top of an organization who man not have time, interest, or responsibility to research for new services or products.
As a result, it makes sense to target the middle of most organizations and work up. You should target those tasked with researching new services or products in your area. These people will make recommendations across an organization.
#6. Start Groups for Your LinkedIn B2B Marketing Campaigns
LinkedIn groups offer a lot of great networking opportunities.
The best way to get more from the power of a group is to create your own.
When joining a group and interacting, you might identify an opportunity to form another group. Becoming a group owner and a moderator gives you the power of leadership and recognition in the industry.
To start a group:
- Head over to the “Group” section.
- In the LinkedIn sidebar, hit the “See all” option. A new page will open.
- Click “Create a new group.”
- Enter the information and detail for the group you’re forming in the pop-up form.
Keep your group focused on the user and not the company. As long as you position yourself authoritatively and not in a sales way, you can create a platform where your target audience can gather and interact.
#7. Leverage Already-Formed Groups
Another powerful way to make connections on LinkedIn is by searching for groups in your niche.
The LinkedIn groups are excellent for connecting and interacting with like-minded professionals in your niche. You can create conversation about what’s happening in your world and. In the process, you’ll build rapport and credibility with people in your industry.
In other words, you can make more connections, showcase your expertise, and offer help to others.
More importantly, you can find ideas, insights, resources or ask questions about the industry. In short, the group offers you an opportunity to create relationships with professionals for free.
Why Should You Consider LinkedIn Marketing for B2B?
LinkedIn is the most important social network to reach out to business buyers and connect with professionals in general. It is the world’s biggest B2B social media platform and increases content marketing.
The network allows you to:
- Build relationship
- Establish thought leadership
- Generate leads
- Gain insights
- Conduct market research
- Improve reputation
- Build online communities
However, you have a task to master the right approach to win maximum traction in this number one website for businesses. For that reason, if you:
- Don’t have enough time to create the right LinkedIn marketing strategy (because most of your time is used up on other business activities)
- Have tried LinkedIn Marketing for b2b before with no success
- Don’t know what exactly to do on LinkedIn
GetKnowticed is here to help you.
We’ll do the market research for you, create LinkedIn copy built on your company’s unique offerings, and apply the most current marketing + Psychology formula to get you results.
GetKnowticed Will Shoulder All the Heavy LinkedIn Marketing for B2B For Your Best Prospect
We’ll transform your LinkedIn business page into a highly persuasive salesperson who:
- Speak straight to your dream client’s deepest pain + desire to boost conversion and generate more lead
- Differentiate your brand from the cliche-infested competition
- Help you penetrate the core of your brand so that you can sell even the most complex offering to your niche audience on LinkedIn.
Book a free consultation right now.