B2B Marketers and LinkedIn: The Unbreakable Bond
LinkedIn has become the favorite networking platform for B2B marketers. LinkedIn and B2B professionals go hand in hand whether it be marketing or recruitment, LinkedIn has proved to be a best friend for the professionals when it comes to social platforms. So yes, there is an unbreakable bond between B2B professionals and LinkedIn.
LinkedIn is the most popular international social network for professionals. Even more, the platform assists Business-to-Business (B2B) marketers to connect and establish strategic bonds. According to research from Market.us, LinkedIn drives 80% of B2B leads, whereas Twitter accounts for 13%, and Facebook brings 7%.
Apart from this, the social network offers an opportunity to develop unique content that attracts audiences with greater relevance. Notably, 94% of B2B marketers prefer LinkedIn for content distribution. Besides, the network contributes more than 46% of all social traffic to B2B blogs and websites. As everyone knows in the B2B community knows, clients find out about the marketers/brand on social media, before leading with any decision. Thus, LinkedIn has an important place in a company’s social media marketing strategy.
These days, some B2B marketers have concerns regarding their potential to yield leads on social media. But LinkedIn is a treasure trove that assists marketers in lead generation and promoting pioneering content along with dragging traffic to their websites.
Benefits of LinkedIn for B2B Professionals
79% of B2B marketers see LinkedIn as an effective source of lead generation. The platform itself is not satisfied with its achievements. Despite gaining success, it is busy adding new features to its so-far powerful marketing and ad offerings. It is creating more opportunities for B2B marketers to communicate with prospects.
One of the notable aspects of lead generation is the audience. Note that only a quality audience can bring a quality lead. If a business uses proficient demographic data to target the correct audience, it will definitely, assist in getting leads.
Before moving forward towards the benefits of LinkedIn for B2B marketers, let us see a crucial component of the process. A business needs to have a LinkedIn Company Page, which will offer the potential to attract a professional community worldwide. Even more, making an engaging one could provide the best results.
Apart from this, an attempt to become more human assists the most in B2B marketing. Optimising a company page with imagery revealing behind-the-stage stories and team adds a character to your brand. This also makes a marketer stand out from others.
- LinkedIn Showcase Page: The feature offers a new way to focus on your brands. In those pages, a company can draw attention to all of its products by sharing appropriate content with target audiences. It also assists in developing strategic bonds with LinkedIn members. All in all, LinkedIn showcase pages are the best method to divide your inbound LinkedIn traffic.
- Content: LinkedIn acts as a powerful platform for publishing content. It is a blessing for B2B marketers. By developing top-notch content, one can transform the strategy from outbound marketing by drawing attention via ads. Secondly, making use of sponsored content for promoting company updates works is the cherry on top of the ice-cream.
- Lead Generation Forms: Sometimes, it is a boring job for people to fill-up online forms. But the lead generation form on LinkedIn removes the main barrier by filling the form automatically. As soon as a user clicks on an ad, their profile data automatically gets filled in a form. It makes the chore easy, and now the user can hit the button to submit the form. It is also a time-saving feature. Thus the lead generation form offers precise and complete information about leads to a business. As mentioned above, 80% of B2B leads come via LinkedIn.
- Estimate ROI for Campaigns: LinkedIn’s Campaign Manager tool enables a business to develop LinkedIn Ads accounts along with campaigns. The functionality eases the management of campaigns, collects reporting on campaign performance, etc. It can also be referred to as a real-time reporting tool that reveals the value of your lead gen marketing on the social network.
- Advanced Search: It is one of the best features of the social-professional network. The functionality offers an incredible way of recognising the right kind of people you are seeking for and targeting. The most influential element of LinkedIn Advanced People Search is it enables searching by filters like location, profile language, school, current company, etc. It offers results along with an opportunity to connect with the people found in the search. Thus, advanced search is a powerful weapon that can find the best.
B2B Marketing Strategies That Work Best with LinkedIn
As of June 2019, there are 645 million Professionals on LinkedIn. There are around 303 million monthly active users over the platform. LinkedIn states 120 new professionals’ signup every minute on LinkedIn. With such a robust base of businesses and professionals, a company needs to grow and improve brand awareness through LinkedIn.
What LinkedIn offers in B2B Marketing
B2B marketing is very different from B2C. Here the target is business instead of a customer. Marketing a business via LinkedIn has many benefits like creating targeted connections, raising brand awareness, getting high-quality leads, strengthening relationships with prospects, etc. Many strategies assist a B2B marketer in growing their business on LinkedIn.
Some of the best practices on LinkedIn for B2B marketers include:
- Moving beyond lead generation so that the business can express its value in the market
- Joining more groups
- Building emotional bonds by storytelling
- Keep pace with ongoing industry trends
- Publishing informative and educational content rather than targeting directly
- Sharing content regularly
What should a B2B Marketer include in LinkedIn Strategy?
A B2B marketer’s strategy for LinkedIn can have the following aspects:
- Keeping existing customers well-informed
- Raising brand awareness and branding
- Increase visibility and join more groups
- Positioning the company ready for hiring potential employees
- Driving traffic
- Become more human
The aspects mentioned above offer great value for the businesses as well as their shareholders. The inclusion of these points in a LinkedIn marketing strategy provides new channels for content deployment, along with new opportunities to make and maintain customer relationships.
In conclusion, I would like to note that 92% of B2B marketers include LinkedIn in their digital marketing mix. LinkedIn provides several opportunities and is a complete resource for B2B marketers.