LinkedIn indeed is the most influential business network. About 600 million professionals use it daily to make personal connections, discuss their brand, share knowledge, and scale their careers to new heights. There are umpteen LinkedIn marketing strategies that can help your brand soar high. More businesses today are extensively using LinkedIn marketing tactics to establish marketing connections, to generate leads, establish brand awareness, and to make new business alliances. It is high time for brands to understand that LinkedIn brand strategy is a powerful digital marketing tool for businesses to establish their prominence in the digital world.
LinkedIn is a strong professional network, and its audience is different from the other social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter. Hence, direct selling is not encouraged in LinkedIn, and brands must employ intelligent LinkedIn marketing tactics.
There are 87 million Millennials on LinkedIn. 11 million in decision-making positions. 24% of 18-24 years old Millennials use Linkedin. After the US (167 million+), India (64 million+), China (49 million+), Brazil (41 million+), and Great Britain (28 million+) has the highest number of users.
LinkedIn marketing strategies must be robust if you want to leverage the maximum benefits out of it. In this blog, let us discuss the seven most powerful LinkedIn B2B marketing strategies that can help you scale newer heights.
1) Identify your goals: Just like any other marketing initiative, it is essential to identify your target customers. Targeting the right set of prospects in LinkedIn is an art. In case you are selling services for small businesses, you should ensure that your ad shows up only to the relevant audience. When your product or service shows up in general, it may get lost amidst the crowd.
Some of the significant steps that you ought to follow are:
- Identify your brand profile and authority
- Attracting the right traffic to your website
- To generate, capture, and nurture leads
- Promoting the various kind of events that you are presenting
Once you know your target audience, it is easy to formulate the perfect LinkedIn brand strategy. LinkedIn has the Advanced Search option that helps you find you the exact kind of people you are targeting. The best part is this option is available even if you do not have a LinkedIn upgraded account. You need to go to the header menu, click on the search people option and then choose the advanced option.
2) Ensure that you complete your company profile: Did you know that your company profile tells a lot about your brand? It’s the heart and soul of your business. Hence, it would help if you put in every effort to make your company profile stand out.
Along with the company page comes the showcase pages as well. Highlight all aspects of your brand well. These showcase pages are extensions of your company page and are designed to highlight your brand along with the different units and initiatives. They will be listed under ‘affiliated pages’ on your main page.
Some of the tips to come up with an excellent company profile are the following:
- The profile should be 100% complete, and there shouldn’t be any gaps.
- Your profile should prove that you are a grammar ninja.
- When you write your company profile, ensure that you study the profile of your competitors so that you can have a competitive edge.
- List down all your awards, certifications, and all your distinguished clients.
- Include the link to your company website
- Make fair use of the banner space provided. Keep in mind that the banner space is the storefront of your online store.
Completing a LinkedIn profile not only helps you to appear in searches but also gives you the credibility for which your prospects are looking for.
3) Optimize your page for search engine optimization: One of the effective LinkedIn B2B marketing strategies is to optimize your page for search engines to feature it on the top. When you write your company profile, it is crucial to include keywords that are relevant to your business and describe your business. It will make your profile accessible to search, and only when prospects find your page on Google, there will be further business opportunities.
When you are unsure of the keywords that you should insert, you can ask yourself what the buzzwords people will be looking for in case they want to get the kind of services or products that you offer are.
Among these keywords are your skills. It is one of the quickest ways to bring a prospect to your page. Substantiate the description of your skills in the headline and summary. It also provides a platform for your friends and colleagues to endorse you. Don’t forget to do the same to those you are connected with on this platform. Take a skills assessment and display the verified skills badge on your profile.
4) Share content: Content marketing is an excellent Linkedin marketing strategy for business. Once you have built your profile, you should start sharing content. An effective way to share your content is through sponsored InMail. It enables you to send customized messages to your target audiences through the private messaging system. But for being able to send InMail you must have a Premium account.
When you share content on LinkedIn, always focus on quality. You can reach out to industry leaders for inputs. Also, it is a good idea to share your content often, and soon you will build up an audience that will come back to your page often for quality content. Sharing unique content with targeted audiences in dedicated groups helps you meet your growth goals and position your brand as the industry expert in the field.
Publish long-form content and monitor the responses. Ensure constant engagement with your audience to bring greater visibility to your profile. Evolve your thought-leadership and stay plugged into the issues that your target audience is talking about.
5) Grow the reach of your network: If you are looking at effective LinkedIn marketing strategies, then it is great to grow the number of followers. You must ensure that all the employees of your organization follow your company’s page and like your posts. They can be fantastic brand ambassadors; you can also ask them to share your content periodically. Similarly, you can again ask your customers and partners to follow your company’s page. Similarly, it is recommended to promote your LinkedIn page through blogs, newsletters, or press releases. You can also ask your customers to write recommendations and testimonials for you. It can be ample social proof.
Another way to grow your network is to create a highly specific search and save it. Saved searches allow you to stay active in finding your prospects. However, keep in mind that only with a premium account you can save multiple searches but without a premium account, you can save only three searches. So if you want to promote a B2B brand, go for a premium account delay.
6) Do not deter from experimentation: Once you have mastered the art of Linkedin marketing strategy for a business, you can experiment with your posts. You can post a particular type of content on a specific day of the week or at a specific time of the day. It will help you understand the levels of engagement. Similarly, you can look at your competitor’s side and find out if they are adopting an effective strategy that you are not using.
7) Measure and re-measure your results: It may so happen that you are putting in extensive efforts towards your LinkedIn marketing strategies, but what is the point in working hard unless you get the desired results. Therefore, the only option is to measure and analyze the efforts that you are putting in. You can have a social media analytics dashboard report to get detailed insights, or you can use LinkedIn’s analytics page. The analytics page is divided into three sections, namely, Visitor Analytics, Update Analytics, and Follower Analytics.
Such analysis will help you gauge whether your efforts are going in the right direction or what more you need to do to make your business soar heights.
To Sum Up
Undoubtedly LinkedIn is a robust platform to promote your business. The reason is that most people are on LinkedIn due to professional reasons. Hence, when they find relevant information from a brand, they will undoubtedly engage with the brand. It calls for a rock-solid LinkedIn B2B marketing strategy so that you can knock the right people at the right time with the correct information. Whether you are devising a strategy for LinkedIn marketing or any other social media platform, it is best to have a long-term plan in mind. It gives you a better vision, and you can take things from scratch while you go slow but steady. Give your business a new mileage with stellar LinkedIn marketing strategies. Invest in this platform and reap the benefits.