If you still think LinkedIn is just a networking site for jobs and not for marketing, you are wrong. In fact, B2B businesses have been marketing on LinkedIn for generating leads, building relationships with customers and delivering value. So, if you are thinking of a new way to market your brand in 2023, LinkedIn is your solution.
Start your LinkedIn Marketing for your B2B business using this guide. You will get to know why marketing in LinkedIn is effective, strategies you can use here, and tools and features of LinkedIn you can utilize for branding your business.
Why is LinkedIn B2B Marketing important?
According to LinkedIn’s About Us section, it currently has more than 675 million members. This is a huge audience for any B2B business. But what makes LinkedIn unique is that most of those who have signed up in LinkedIn are professionals. These are people who really want to know about the brand.
This feature of LinkedIn’s users makes it easier for B2B businesses to market their brands. Since most of the users are really interested in knowing about the business, marketers do not need to initiate any aggressive marketing strategies to gain leads as they do in other social media networks. In fact, one study by Econsultancy found that 64% of corporate website visits coming from social media links come from LinkedIn alone.
But it’s not only about the number of dedicated users available in LinkedIn. LinkedIn has features- both paid and free, that can be used by business to generate leads, build relationships and deliver value. LinkedIn Analytics gives business free detailed data analysis of user visits to the business’s official page. LinkedIn Pulse gives business the opportunity to post content- both text and videos. And InMail feature helps businesses build relationships with potential customers.
LinkedIn Analytics, Pulse and InMail are few of the many features of LinkedIn that marketers can use for their business. This blog post will provide you with information on a bunch of more tools and features.
Considering the user base and the features available, LinkedIn is undoubtedly important and useful for any marketer to brand their business. So if you are convinced about the importance of LinkedIn marketing for your business, read more below on how to develop a LinkedIn marketing strategy.
How to start LinkedIn Marketing for your B2B business?
Having understood the effectiveness, let’s start making a LinkedIn marketing plan for your business. Before planning, make sure you have a LinkedIn account yourself. Then follow these steps to market your business through LinkedIn.
First, define your company goals
The age-old maxim “Know Thyself” of Socrates applies even in 2023 when you create a marketing plan for LinkedIn. You need to define your company goals and objectives first. Defining your company goals and objectives is what will guide you in marketing your business.
As you will see in the next sections, you need to provide details, post content and build connections as part of your marketing. For this, your goals and objectives will be your reference. So begin your plan by first defining your company goals and objectives.
Second, create your company profile through LinkedIn Pages
After setting out your company goals and objectives, your task will be to create a company profile for your business. To do this, go to the LinkedIn Pages section available at LinkedIn Marketing Solutions. You will find a button for creating a LinkedIn profile for your company.
Fill out the next page by entering the name of your business as well as providing a LinkedIn Public URL. The URL will help users to find out your company’s profile easily. Make sure the LinkedIn URL is simple yet unique.
Third, fill out the details of your profile
Having created a profile of your business, it is now time for you to fill out the details of the profile. Head out to the Overview section of your company profile. Then fill out the details. A complete Company Profile must have the following details filled out-
- Logo
- Company Description
- Company website
- Industry
- Company Size
- Headquarters
- Company Type
- Founded
- Specialties
A properly filled out profile will add credibility to your business and help LinkedIn users search it easily. So make sure your company profile is complete.
Best LinkedIn Marketing Strategies
Even if LinkedIn doesn’t need the aggressive marketing strategies that other social media networks require, you still need to be active on this network. This is because you will still need to engage with the users here. So, you cannot claim your LinkedIn Marketing is done after creating your B2B business profile.
Fortunately, LinkedIn’s features help you and your business to engage with customers in every possible way. To engage with your customers, here are a few strategies that you might apply for marketing your business.
Optimize your search
There are plenty of companies out there having their profile on LinkedIn. Some might be in the same industry as yours. So it is necessary for you to optimize your search so that users can search your business easily. To optimize your search, use the following steps:
- Step-1: Use SEO keywords tools to find out keywords users use in searching for related businesses.
- Step-2: Use those keywords in the Company Description section of the company profile. This way, Google can show your business’s LinkedIn Profile at the top of searches.
- Step-3: Link your LinkedIn profile to your company website. This way, users will engage with your company website as well.
Regularly creating engaging content
The best way to engage users in LinkedIn is to create content regularly. By creating content, users will be able to view, comment and share them. This will drive awareness of your B2B business. Moreover, Google often ranks profiles based on their activities- a company that does not regularly maintain activities are often ranked down.
LinkedIn has features that give you the opportunity to post content. When you want to post, you will see there are options to post articles, videos and images. This is much like Facebook except LinkedIn has the option to post articles.
However, unlike Facebook, you should not use LinkedIn to post articles about your products or services. According to LinkedIn Marketing Solutions, LinkedIn users find articles on new ideas engaging. These ideas are mainly based on thought leadership- how does your company solve problems. So, if you wish to create engaging content, create content on thought leadership and engagement will follow.
You can also post content published by other companies as well. This is often a good strategy as it showcases your brand’s humility. If you can’t find new content, you can share your old ones again to drive further engagement.
Add and maintain connections
The more followers you have, the more you will appear on the user’s searches and on their suggestions. So try to add more followers to your LinkedIn profile.
The easiest way to add followers is through your employees. Encourage your employees to follow your company profile. And if they engage with your content, their connections will also be aware of your profile. In this way, you can increase your number of followers.
Another way to add followers is to promote your profile. You can promote your company profile on your website with a follow button.
You can highlight your company’s LinkedIn profile on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other networks. You can also encourage your customers to follow through your newsletters and emails.
Tools to enhance your LinkedIn B2B business marketing
Fortunately, LinkedIn provides marketing tools for businesses that can help them generate insights and develop strategies. Some of them like LinkedIn Analytics are free whereas others such as InMail are paid. Here are three LinkedIn Marketing Tools that you can use for your business’s marketing.
Message Ads for personalized connections
Message Ads (formerly Sponsored InMail) is a paid marketing tool of LinkedIn that you can use to send personalized messages to people outside your connections. This tool can be useful to reach prospective customers and to generate leads.
Utah State University used LinkedIn’s Sponsored InMail in order to attract better candidates. It delivered messages to regional professionals about its MBA and MSc programs through the tool. The initiative led to an ROI of 20:1 and conversion rates of 70%.
Advertising to increase reach
LinkedIn provides a wide array of advertising solutions for your business. This ranges from Sponsored Content to Text Ads and from Dynamic Ads to Message Ads. All these options give you the chance to optimize your advertisement on this professional network.
Moreover, there are various options plans available. Moreover, you can also control your costs. To advertise, you just need a credit card and bid for space.
LinkedIn Analytics for data-driven results
LinkedIn Analytics is a free tool that enables you to look at your company’s post, campaigns and advertisements performances over time. Using metrics like leads, click rates, views etc, you can measure the ROI of your marketing efforts on LinkedIn. Moreover, LinkedIn campaign demographics help you to understand the audience of your advertisements.
Additional features your business can use for LinkedIn Marketing
If you are not satisfied with the wide range of marketing tools LinkedIn offers, there are more. There are some features of LinkedIn that you can use for further marketing your business. Here are two important of those features- Groups and the Marketing Solutions Blog.
LinkedIn Groups for more connections
LinkedIn Groups help people with interests in similar topics to meet and communicate. This is an excellent way for your company to meet your target users and build connections with them.
Post content on such LinkedIn Groups which your business deals with. This way, you develop connections as well as develop a reputation for expertise.
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions Blog for staying up-to-date
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions Blog contains information on the latest trends on marketing on LinkedIn. If you subscribe to their newsletter, you will receive updates every day.
The blog is written by LinkedIn Editors- so you will know that what they post is credible and based on insights on their huge user base.
LinkedIn Marketing provides lucrative opportunities for your business to market your brand. Its tools and features are undoubtedly very helpful. So if you want to improve your business’s marketing in 2023, LinkedIn is your solution.
