5 reasons to use LinkedIn for B2B marketing
With more than 750 million members worldwide, LinkedIn has become the number one website for companies.
That alone should convince you to focus on marketing via LinkedIn.
Curious about 5 other reasons to get started with LinkedIn for B2B marketing? Then read on!
On LinkedIn, as a B2B marketer, you can find a new business partner, introduce a company to potential customers and attract new talent to join your company as an employee.
But you can also get valuable benefits from it with the right use of marketing.
Reason 1: Content!
Where social media channels are often used as a pastime, which is different from LinkedIn.
LinkedIn is mainly used for professional networking and for development. A time investment!
LinkedIn users are often engaged in self-development and gaining knowledge about their field.
When you use LinkedIn for B2B marketing, you have the advantage of context. Users are open to content that is really relevant to them.
As a company, you can perfectly respond to this with your content!
Example: A LinkedIn user is looking for a time management solution for his/her company or training software for their employees, and look – there you are.
When you advertise on LinkedIn, your ads appear in a news feed filled with industry news, expert advice, and insights and recommendations from colleagues.
An advertisement on LinkedIn will therefore be better received in this context than an advertisement on Facebook.
When a lead generation ad is shown on LinkedIn, it is shown to people who want to improve their industry. When it is shown on Facebook, it is visible to someone between different private photos.
This may be the same person, but think about it: When are you most likely to fill out a form to read a work-related white paper or case study? When you’re in relax mode? Or when you’re in work mode?
Much of the data LinkedIn uses for ad targeting comes directly from its users.
If used in the right way, this data brings your company to the attention of the most valuable target groups.
Reason 2: Business targeting capabilities
For each campaign, you need to carefully consider which target group you want to reach and how you can reach them.
This way you can reach users who are actually looking for your product or service. This way you can respond to their questions and needs.
But what possibilities are there in terms of targeting?
Target at the company level
Often you already have an idea of which or what kind of companies you want to focus on.
Based on a company level, you have several options.
On the one hand, you can choose a specific industry and, for example, companies with a certain number of employees with LinkedIn for B2B marketing.
Do you already know specific company names? Then you can also reach the employees of a specific company by targeting company names.
Depending on your target group, you can already target very specifically with this option.
Target at the job level
Do you not want to focus on specific companies, but on functions?
Then you can target based on job titles.
Because everyone on LinkedIn has entered a job title, you can target very specifically in this way.
In addition, you can also select based on seniority. For example, don’t want to reach interns with your ads? Then you exclude it.
Targeting on a personal level
Don’t know someone’s exact job title? Or do you want to reach beyond industry or function?
Then you can also use targeting based on skills, groups, education level, etc.
For example, when you use multiple IT job titles, you might reach people with those job titles, but not someone in IT with an unclear job title.
One way to address this is to also target skills. This way you also reach people who have IT skill on their LinkedIn profile.
What works best? That’s a matter of testing!
Set up different audiences with the same ads and compare the results.
Reason 3: Use your own data effectively
Do you already know who exactly you want to reach?
Upload a list of emails and LinkedIn will match those emails with user profiles.
When your list successfully matches 300 or more profiles, the end result is a matched audience that you can use in any campaign on LinkedIn.
Do you want to reach people who are similar to your current customers?
Then create a look-a-like audience based on your customer list.
In this way, LinkedIn looks at which profiles match and match your current customers.
This way you reach a completely new target group.
Reason 4: The right tool at the right time
Of course, it has been known for a long time that it is becoming increasingly difficult to reach people organically on social platforms.
Social advertising is one of the ways to reach prospects.
LinkedIn’s advertising platform provides everything a marketer needs to ensure that the ads reach the right people with an effective ad spend.
In addition to the countless targeting options that LinkedIn offers, there are also multiple advertising products available.
Re Objectives
LinkedIn offers different advertising goals so that there is always a suitable objective for your campaign! Below they are listed:
Knowledge
Brand awareness: Tell people about your product, service, or organization.
Consideration
Website visits: Drive traffic to your website or marketing landing pages.
Interactions: Increase engagement with your content, such as likes, comments, shares, landing page clicks, or clicks or tracks from your LinkedIn page.
Video views: Share videos with more people.
Conversion
Lead generation: Find leads on LinkedIn using a lead generation form pre-populated with LinkedIn profile information.
Website conversions: Capture leads on your website or drives leads that are valuable to your business.
Applicants: Tell more people about relevant vacancies at your company or send applicants to your vacancies.
Talent leads: The talent leads objective is only available to companies with an active LinkedIn Recruiter contract. Generate leads from candidates who are interested in career opportunities within your company.
Reason 5: Make use of your employees
As with everything in business, your employees are the most important thing.
Give them the resources they need to thrive.
Employees can be a good source for distributing content on LinkedIn.
With well-optimized profiles, employees can become important assets and spokespersons for your company.
Optimized profiles — both your company’s and employees’ — boost visibility in search results.
Google doesn’t leave LinkedIn out of the page-crawling fun. Google will crawl both employee and company profiles. So use your profiles and update them regularly to highlight what’s important.
Another way to get more out of LinkedIn is through employee reinforcement.
When an employee shares one of your LinkedIn posts, the organic reach will be strengthened.
As with Facebook, organic posts on business pages rarely appear in the average user’s newsfeed.
But once someone shares the post, it will appear in many more feeds. Take advantage of that!
Time to get started and get the most out of your LinkedIn page! Do you want to know more about LinkedIn for B2B marketing or do you need help? Please contact us!
Read More: Create perfect lead magnets that customers can’t ignore
Create perfect lead magnets that customers can’t ignore
You scroll for hours and hours on social media along different pages. Ask yourself: “What really catches my attention?”. When do you stop scrolling and take the time to read something?
While scrolling, you are distracting your brain, overstimulating it, and taking your focus away. As an organization, you want your content to stand out. You want to stimulate the customer and ensure that you come to the attention.
In this blog, we tell you how to create lead magnets that do not pass your customer by.
A good example: how do you tell a detailed story to a good friend during a big and busy concert? Pretty tricky huh? It can also be difficult to make your ads stand out on platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.
Productive Mindset for lead generation
Advertisements on social media are often aimed at getting people off the platform. So basically you use a platform to advertise and then you want the customer to go off that platform and visit your website. Quite a difficult task.
If you want to succeed in that, you have to ensure a productive mindset among users. A productive mindset consists of:
- Focus
- Attention
- Interest
Focus, attention, and interest can be retained by sending the perfect message at the right time and in the right place. What helps you with that are lead magnets.
The secret ingredients for epic lead magnets
When you start using lead magnets, you have to focus on a target group that is problem-aware. After all, they are looking for a solution. The image below shows you where they are located.
A lead magnet ensures that you make this group solution-aware. With your lead magnet, you offer a solution to their problem.
Ingredient #1: the target group that benefits from the lead magnet
Ask yourself: is the target group defined without being too niche?
Below you can see examples of lead magnets that have worked and have not worked. The bottom lead magnets did not achieve the right result because the focus was too much on a niche target group.
| Lead magnet | | Target audience |
| 9 Health Benefits of Beans | Healthy foodies ✅ |
| A legal checklist for starting a business in Rotterdam | Entrepreneurs in Rotterdam ✅ |
| 5 must-haves for reaching retirement age | Parents reaching ❌ retirement age |
| 7 Tax Saving Strategies for Pharmacy Owners | Pharmacy owners ❌ |
Don’t make the target audience too specific. It becomes all the more difficult to get hold of them.
Ingredient #2: The applicability of the content
Ask yourself: Can the reader use this now or is there more work to be done?
We’ve been talking about attention retention. You can only hold a user’s attention for a short time. After all, they want to scroll further quickly to see holiday photos or cool videos.
In this short time frame, you have to make sure that the reader does not have to do too much work to take action. Otherwise, you’ll lose them. Below you can see two examples of lead magnets that have or have not worked. Are you watching?
| Lead magnet | | Kind |
| Spaghetti with scallops | Recipe ✅ |
| 5 easy exercises to learn the English language | Exercises ✅ |
| 7 financial strategies for brokers | Strategies ❌ |
| How to: buying investment properties | Buyers guide ❌ |
Recipes always do well. You read the lead magnet in the afternoon and can get started the same evening. Users can put themselves to work right away.
The same goes for 5 easy exercises to learn English. This lead magnet is successful because an important ‘keyword’ is used. The word ‘easy’ tells the reader that there is not much work behind this lead magnet. Other words you can use are for example: simple, simple, or small.
For example, a word that you should avoid in a lead magnet strategy. That word makes the reader think that there is still a lot of work to be done. At that point, readers drop out.
Ingredient #3: The relevance of the lead magnet
Ask yourself: is the content on time or is it poorly timed?
The title of your lead magnet is important. With this, you finally trigger the reader. A successful lead magnet often contains a year or time in the title. It makes the reader aware that it is or may be relevant at the moment.
Take a look at the examples below:
| Lead magnet | | Timing |
| Why you should buy real estate in East Groningen right now | Good content: right time ✅ |
| Why You Should Consider Building a Modular Home in 2022 | Good content: right time ✅ |
| How to buy a house as a starter | Good content: wrong time ❌ |
| How to sell your dental practice | Good content: niche time ❌ |
Two lead magnets have had no success. Why is that? The timing of both lead magnets was wrong. For many people, it is currently hardly possible to buy a house because of the scarcity of the housing market. Starters continue to rent and cannot yet buy a house. A good example of timing is key.
Ingredient #4: The emotion the lead magnet evokes
Ask yourself: Could this topic work in small talk or is it too focused on productivity and work?
When the latter is the case, you won’t get many downloads. Topics that appeal to the reader are often topics that you also discuss in the bar, for example. It should be a topic that people like to talk about.
| Lead magnet | | Emotion |
| How we can positively influence our daily lives with compassion | Compassionate and caring ✅ |
| 10 lessons to find happiness in life | Happy and fulfilled ✅ |
| Is it cheaper to buy or rent a water heater? | Productive and informative ❌ |
| Three essential checklists for a safe working environment | Practical and work-related ❌ |
When you scroll through your social media feed, you don’t think of a water heater. That is exactly the reason that this lead magnet was not a success. It’s a topic that doesn’t appeal to readers easily.
To respond to the emotions of readers, you can use a number of smart words. Words like positivity, impact, and happiness release dopamine in our brains. We make a connection between these words and our feelings. A successful lead magnet responds to these emotions.
Convert readers to buyers
A successful lead magnet contains the above 4 ingredients. The last step is that users actually read the lead magnet. The infographic below gives you insight into how you can ensure that a lead magnet is read.
It doesn’t stop at sending one e-mail. Many emails end up somewhere between the dozens of emails you receive in a day. Therefore, send users a reminder to open the lead magnet.
Follow the further step-by-step plan to actually turn readers into buyers. Step by step you create the perfect lead magnet and if you need help from any marketing agency then we are always ready with our market-tested lead generation strategies.
If you are looking for a good Website Design Company in Kolkata that makes SEO-friendly websites, then you may check our reviews on Google.
Good luck!
