LinkedIn marketing is a way of using LinkedIn’s connections and strengths to generate leads and connect with potential business clients. B2B businesses find generating leads challenging, unlike B2C brands with multiple platforms to reach their customers.
LinkedIn has about 690 million monthly users and has active accounts of 30 million companies. LinkedIn is a perfect place to reach out to these businesses and connect with them one to one.
Why LinkedIn marketing?
Here are a few reasons why you should be considering LinkedIn marketing for your B2B business seriously.
- LinkedIn is popular –This is the second most popular social media platform after Facebook to be used successfully by B2B marketers.
- Position yourself as a leader –It is effortless to position yourself as a leader in your domain by staying active and engaging with other businesses on LinkedIn.
- Networking –You get a fantastic chance to network with other businesses and potential clients on LinkedIn without making it feel like a business proposition or a selling tactic. Personal connections with heads of other businesses are more manageable too.
- Generate organic traffic – Use LinkedIn to post interesting stuff and business-related content. Use the ‘Share’ button to send the content to different LinkedIn groups you are associated with. Add links to your business page to drive organic traffic.
- Gain insights – Know what your business clients want from you. You can post questions, look for answers, and understand the specific needs of your potential clients. These insights build your business and get converted into leads.
How to optimize the company page?
Before you understand and implement the top LinkedIn marketing strategies for B2B businesses, you should start by optimizing your page.
Consider your LinkedIn company page as an entrance to your website where sales happen. The entrance has to be enticing, useful, and interesting for people to enter. Here are ways you can optimize your company page effectively.
- Insert the right keywords and phrases that clients may use for searching for a product or a service.
- Refine the ‘About’ tab and give in short and precise details on who you are and how you can help.
- Add a link to your website on the company page, as this is very important to help clients reach out.
- Publish and share engaging content regularly; this helps you gain more followers and provide much-needed exposure.
Here are eight fascinating LinkedIn marketing strategies for B2B businesses that will help you make the best use of this social media platform.
Understand your Audience
Irrespective of whether you post organically or use paid ads, LinkedIn has useful targeting parameters that help you reach the right audience. Knowing your audience changes everything. What kind of businesses are you targeting (SMEs, multinationals, service companies)? Are you reaching the top management, or do you want to connect with mid-level consultants and business developers? You can hyper-target your content based on this.
Make it a habit to post regularly
Just having a company page on LinkedIn will not do the magic. You will have to be genuinely active there, as this is one of the most vital marketing strategies for B2B businesses that help them in the long term.
Start creating content useful for your business clients. Share valuable information and articles. Make your potential client visit your page for the info you give them. They will turn into value-adding clients with time.
Make sure you don’t keep pushing your products and services directly on these posts. Just add value to your readers, and sales will happen as a result.
Besides creating your content, you can also share insightful content from non-competitive pages and individual profiles; this is also a quick way to increase your followers on this social media page.
Promote your content
You might offer a great product or a service and maybe giving them at the lowest prices in the market. However, reaching a more comprehensive range of audience is essential if you want to start seeing revenues. Promotion helps kickstart your reach. LinkedIn offers different kinds of paid promotions on their page.
- Sponsored content – Paid promotions that appear on the feed of your audience
- Sponsored messaging – Individual messages reaching the right audience
- Text ads – Pay Per Click ads
- Dynamic ads – Ads customized to the chosen audience
Share your content in the relevant group
Groups are closed networks of people and businesses on LinkedIn who share the same ideas, requirements, and interests. Identifying the right group who may need your product or service is like finding a chest full of treasure waiting for you!
You can only be a member of 50 groups on LinkedIn. Hence choose carefully. Look for the below criteria and then join a group.
– Is the group active?
– Do people comment/likes content shared there?
– How big is the group?
– Does the group exactly match your target requirement?
Analyze your competitor pages
A brilliant move that will help you channelize LinkedIn as a B2B business platform is to be aware of what your competitors are doing.
Keep checking your competitors’ pages regularly to find out what kind of content they share, how their company page looks, and what groups they are a part of.
Promote your company page
You might be promoting your content through paid and organic modes on LinkedIn. The next step is to promote your page to make sure more people check it out and find interest in your posts and shares. If you send out emails, make sure your company’s LinkedIn page is included in your signature. Add the link of your LinkedIn page to other social media pages you are a part of.
Promote the page on newsletters, blog posts, and internal official emails. All these activities help over time to improve your positioning as a leader on LinkedIn. It will also bring you unforeseen business opportunities.
Your employees are your strength, and you can easily use them and their professional LinkedIn page to improve your leverage on the platform and reach a more relevant audience. Here are ways you can do so.
- Let your employees know your intention – Talk to your employees about using LinkedIn as a marketing tool and ask for their support. Being honest brings in the best from the employees.
- Create an active employee group on the platform – Create a new group on LinkedIn with the employees and encourage them to share stories, feedback, posts, and ideas. You now have original content you can share on the company’s feed.
- Get your employees to interact with the company page – Regularly send details of the most important posts and shares you have on your page to the employees – This will improve interaction on the platform.
- Consider “Work With Us Ads” – Work With Us Adsis a promotional feature of LinkedIn where your company’s logo shows up along with your employees’ display picture. Suppose someone outside the company interacts with them – this is one of the easiest ways to talk about your brand to people outside your loop.
Turn your company page into a lead generation page
One of the most useful yet challenging LinkedIn marketing strategies for B2B businesses is the ability to convert your business page into a lead generating space. The following strategies help.
– Have attractive images that create interest on the main page.
– Pitch subtly on your description page. Tell business what makes you different and irresistible.
– Create a Showcase Page. A showcase page is designed for a specific set of audience (B2B clients in this case) and can be tailor-made to show some of the best aspects of your page here. This page can be used for promotions and will be listed under your regular company page. You can use the Showcase page to share unique content with the audience of your choice.
– Be active on the page. Readily answer queries, comment, and connect with people.
Conclusion
Building a successful marketing platform on LinkedIn for business leads is a challenging yet advantageous strategy for B2B businesses. If you have not considered this before, it is time you looked into this social media platform that offers you millions of business opportunities.
Are you a B2B business interested in knowing more about LinkedIn marketing? Get in touch with us, and one of our marketing experts will get back to you for a free consultation.