Marketers have undervalued LinkedIn for a long time, but now it is getting a lot of traction, especially in B2B marketing. It is evident because since Microsoft acquired LinkedIn, it has grown massively in terms of users and business-friendly features that empower marketers to generate better ROI on marketing investments.
So, are you also trying to figure out the best LinkedIn Marketing Strategies for your business?
If so, you are in the right place. In this article, I will show you some of the best B2B LinkedIn Marketing Strategies that can help you generate quality leads for your business.
Is LinkedIn effective for B2B marketing?
Whenever I talk about including LinkedIn in marketing strategies with my clients, I have been asked one of the common questions: Is LinkedIn really effective for B2B brands?
Well, the answer is YES, it is worthwhile!
In fact, according to Statista, LinkedIn is the second most popular social media platform used by B2B marketers, ranking only behind Facebook.
Here are a few more statistics that can show you how effective LinkedIn is for B2B Marketing-
- 80% of B2B social media leads come from LinkedIn. (Source)
- 94% of B2B Marketers use LinkedIn to distribute their content. (source)
- Nearly half (44%) of all B2B relevant leads come from LinkedIn. (source)
If you still have doubts regarding the platform, the best way to see how effective LinkedIn can be for your business is by implementing these strategies that I’m going to share and see by yourself if the platform works for you or not.
That said, let’s dive into the strategies now.
8 Powerful B2B LinkedIn Marketing Strategies
When it comes to LinkedIn marketing, always remember that, unlike Facebook, the audience on LinkedIn is very mature and is not reactive to unnecessary and irrelevant content.
In other words, don’t try to implement the marketing strategies that worked for you on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. LinkedIn is a professional networking platform, and you need to treat it like that for better marketing results.
1. Create a compelling company page.
Having a fantastic business page where people can visit to learn more about your company and culture is essential on any social platform, including LinkedIn.
LinkedIn Company Pages are like Facebook business pages dedicated to individual companies, organizations, and institutions. These pages are discoverable by LinkedIn users, and they can follow them to stay updated with company posts, job vacancies, and significant announcements.
If you haven’t created a company page for your business on LinkedIn, you’re leaving many followers, potential customers, and great talents on the table. Log on to your LinkedIn profile and create a company page for your business right now.
If you already have created a company page, ensure that your target audience finds it valuable and informative (because in B2B, information is the key to winning your customers).
2. Host In-Person Events with Industry Leaders.
LinkedIn Live is now available to every LinkedIn user and company page, and you should leverage it to organize live sessions to engage with your target audience on the platform.
You can host live events and interviews with industry leaders from your space on topics that resemble the type of clients you want to acquire.
3. Share Rich Media Content
LinkedIn allows you to share a variety of content both on your profile and company page. You can share images, videos, PDFs, and text posts.
I have been creating various content on LinkedIn for the past couple of years, and I observed that text posts are the most consumed content on the platform.
However, videos and documents are arguably the best forms of content for B2B lead generation. This might be because videos and documents (PDF, worksheets, docs) allow you to showcase your company expertise in an interactive manner which builds brand credibility and helps you win the trust of your prospective customers.
4. Turn employees into Influencers.
In the B2B industry, you need influencers who can back their claims with their experience and expertise, not just by the number of followers on their social profiles.
Usually, B2B influencers are the decision-makers in the industry like CEOs, CMOs, and others sitting on the higher management level of successful companies.
Now, getting them to speak for your brand can be a tough call. This is why influencers need to rise from their organization to talk about the company’s accomplishments, technology, services, and customer success stories.
Moreover, according to LinkedIn, content shared by employees has 2x higher engagement than when shared by a company. Salespeople who regularly share content on LinkedIn are 45% more likely to exceed their sales target. This shows that engaging employees on LinkedIn is not just beneficial for marketing and branding but for overall business growth as well.
Keeping everything aside, I firmly believe that in B2B, you cannot have a better influencer than someone from your team who believes in the product and its impact on other businesses. So, instead of looking for influencers outside, encourage your founders, executives, and other interested employees to be active on LinkedIn.
5. Encourage employees to engage on LinkedIn posts
To ensure that your post reaches your target audience on LinkedIn, you first need to beat the LinkedIn algorithm so that it pushes your content to a broader range of audiences.
If your post receives good engagement within the next 30-60 minutes of sharing it, LinkedIn labels it as quality content and pushes it aggressively to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd-degree connections of those who engaged on the post.
On the other hand, if the engagement is deficient in the first 1 hour of sharing the post, the reach of your post gets limited to 1st-degree connections only.
The best part is that LinkedIn recently rolled out a feature to notify employees about new posts on the company page. This is a handy feature to ensure that your employees get notified about the latest post on the page, and they can engage in due time.
To encourage your employees to be involved in social media initiatives actively, you can also introduce an Employee Advocacy Program, according to which employees are rewarded for their valuable contributions to marketing.
6. Publish LinkedIn Articles
If you place an external link in a LinkedIn post, your post probably won’t be seen by most of your connections and followers. I have observed that the reach of a LinkedIn post with links decreases by 10x more than those without any external links.
That’s why a standard LinkedIn post cannot be an effective way to share customer success stories, research data, or other informative blog posts from your site. But there’s always a way around it!
You can use LinkedIn Articles to publish your case studies, market research data, or anything that brings value to your target audience. Additionally, you can add links to drive readers to your company website for conversion.
The best part of LinkedIn Articles is that it is not just limited to LinkedIn users. These articles are search engine friendly, which means your LinkedIn articles can also rank on Google search results. So, while publishing articles on LinkedIn, make sure you have done your keyword research beforehand.
7. Leverage LinkedIn Ads
I have listed LinkedIn Ads here because unless you have built an organic reach for your brand, LinkedIn Ads won’t make much difference to your marketing goals.
You have to understand that your audience on LinkedIn are the decision-makers of your target companies and to win their trust, you need first to build your credibility.
And to build credibility, you must ensure that all the above strategies are implemented effectively.
Once you have quality content and engagement on your company page, then only you should start reaching out to your target audience via LinkedIn Ads.
Here’s a video by HubSpot on how to run successful LinkedIn Ads –
The best part of LinkedIn Ads that makes it unique among other advertising platforms is that it enables you to target your audience based on their professional attributes like job function, job role, skills, company name, industry, etc.
Although LinkedIn Ads is expensive compared to other social media advertising platforms, it is worth the cost as it allows you to reach your high-value audiences – the decision-makers directly. What do you think?
8. Retarget your website visitors on LinkedIn
Do you know that 98% of website visitors leave the site without sharing their email? Yes, that’s the fact that you shouldn’t ignore. You should take a hard look at your website analytics to verify this yourself.
If you agree with this, you need to step up and leverage LinkedIn website retargeting ads to reach those visitors again on LinkedIn with relevant communication based on their past interactions on your site.
For instance, if a visitor visits a specific service page or product page on your site and then leaves without converting, then LinkedIn allows you to retarget them with paid campaigns to bring them back to your site.
By implementing this classic strategy, you will be able to convert 50% of your website traffic. You just need to make sure that your remarketing content is related to your site’s visitors’ past interactions.
To get started with LinkedIn website retargeting, you will need to set up LinkedIn Insight Tag on your site. LinkedIn Insight Tag is like Facebook Pixel, which tracks visitors and their interactions on your website.
Once the tag is added, you need to go to the audience creation page in the LinkedIn Campaign Manager and create an audience to retarget.
For advanced retargeting, you can use the Leadfeeder Retargeting Tool, which enables you to retarget your website visitors and other potential decision-makers from the same company in a personalized manner based on their job roles. Also, it alerts you when the retargeted visitor returns to your site, allowing you to send follow-up emails instantly.
Wrapping Up
Unlike Facebook, Instagram, and other social channels, LinkedIn is a platform where your brand is not defined by the number of followers you gain but by the quality of content and information, you share.
So, when you are creating your LinkedIn Marketing strategy, ensure that your prospective customers are getting quality information about your product, services, and the industry at every stage of the B2B marketing funnel.
Now you know some of the most effective LinkedIn strategies that you can include in your marketing strategy to grow your business. Here are a few hand-picked articles for you to improve lead generation for your business –
- How to generate B2B leads on LinkedIn
- Best ways to use Twitter for B2B lead generation
- How to use Quora for B2B lead generation