Founded in 2002, LinkedIn is a networking site for working professionals. A social media platform for professionals, it soon grew into one of the largest job boards and marketing platforms for businesses and individuals.
Whatever stage of your career you may be at – business owner, CXO, freelancer, entry-level worker, or student – LinkedIn offers ample opportunities for you. This platform has over 760 million registered members from 150 countries.
We have covered several exciting tips in this blog to help you make the most of LinkedIn for your marketing efforts. The first step in scaling your business through LinkedIn marketing is to introduce what it is.
What is Linkedin Marketing?
According to a study conducted by LinkedIn, 93% of B2B marketers consider LinkedIn the most effective lead generation platform. A report by Inside View goes on to suggest that LinkedIn generates more leads for B2B companies than Facebook, Twitter, and Blogging.
This won’t be possible without LinkedIn marketing.
How does LinkedIn marketing work? Could you please define it correctly?
To put it simply, LinkedIn Marketing is the strategy used by individuals to achieve their conversion goals, whether they are established companies, marketers, freelancers, or job seekers. B2B businesses often associate LinkedIn marketing with their marketing efforts, but it is a far broader term than we give it credit for.
You don’t have to be a business owner to use LinkedIn marketing today. The practice of LinkedIn marketing is widely used by local businesses, individuals, job seekers, bloggers, podcasters, thrift store owners, rookie marketers, etc.
As Accordingly, LinkedIn marketing includes paid advertising, networking strategies, content marketing initiatives, and business InMails aimed at achieving a goal.
This goal can be anything:
- Increasing website traffic
- Enhancing the visibility of brands
- Sale of a product or service
- Establishing business relationships
- Job search
- The process of acquiring customers
What is the importance of a B2B Linkedin Marketing Strategy?
No The purpose of being on LinkedIn is to buy something. Each person is here to further their career and business plan. A direct hard-sell approach generally does not work for the company, despite its glowing reputation as a leading B2B lead generation platform. A constant stream of emails does not work either.
The first thing you need to do is create a sales funnel. Every communication you receive from your target customers will be met with a response and a counter-response. Selling and conversions will require you to think on your feet and come across as a salesperson without looking like one.
The steps you will take to convert your LinkedIn audience would be best if you decided how to approach them. We can loosely describe this approach as a B2B LinkedIn Marketing Strategy. The strategy can vary for each LinkedIn marketer depending on the niche or objective.
A LinkedIn B2B Marketing Strategy is crucial for meeting your LinkedIn goals and business objectives. A plan of action is crucial because it helps you make decisions.
LinkedIn B2B Marketing Best Practices: Top 13 Tips to optimize your Linkedin for Business Marketing
We are here to help you with LinkedIn marketing if you do not know how to do it. Follow these tips to use LinkedIn for business marketing:
Tip 1: Create a company profile page
Making a company page is one of the first things you should do. Company pages are easy to create. The steps are as follows:
- LinkedIn’s home page has a work icon at the top right. Click on it.
- In the ‘create a company page’ drop-down menu, select an option. There are four options you can choose from on LinkedIn:
- The small business sector
- A medium-sized to large company
- This is our showcase page
- A college or university
- The best description of your company can be found by selecting an option.
- Once this is done, fill out basic information about your page, company, and profile.
- Your business email should be authorized and your company should be real. In the absence of this, LinkedIn won’t allow you to create a business profile.
- Verify your information after filling it out correctly. Upon doing this, you will be able to confirm that your business can operate the account.
- Once you have checked the box, click the create button. Your business account or company page will be created as soon as you click on this button. Congratulations, then!
- Then select ‘start building your page’ to customize your company information. It’s similar to creating a LinkedIn profile. The details you provide must be as accurate as possible.
Tip 2: Define your audience and goals
You need to define your target audience and your business goals now that you have created your company page on LinkedIn. Take a moment to ask yourself these questions:
How do you want to use LinkedIn to achieve your goals?
Who will be your target audience?
Having clear answers to these questions is half the battle. It’s now time to turn Linkedin into a money making machine by building a strategy that works!
Tip 3: Write accurate profile information and update it regularly
Take advantage of LinkedIn, just having a presence isn’t enough. It’s time for you to take action.
The most common mistake people make is updating inaccurate profile information. If you’re serious about leveraging this platform for business marketing and using it to further your business goals, then you cannot afford to make this mistake.
Here are some things you can do to optimize your personal and business profile for LinkedIn:
- Make sure you fill out all of your information correctly.
- You should enter accurate and complete information about yourself in both your personal profile and your business account.
- Whenever necessary, update information. Keeping your profile updated with your latest jobs and professional engagements is crucial.
- Make sure your business profile is strictly professional. You should make sure that everything is perfect, from the logo to the company’s name, description, and banner photo.
Tip 4: Personalize the URL of your LinkedIn Page
On LinkedIn, every profile and company page has a standard URL like this:
www.linkedin.com/firstname-lastname/276372634/
Here, you must create a distinct identity for your pages. Personalize your personal and company profile URLs to achieve this. For your first steps, here are a few tips:
- CTOs can rebrand their URL by incorporating their current job title as follows: www.linkedin.com/firstname-lastname-chief-technology-officer/.
- If you want to personalize your URL for local searches, you can include your city of residence in the URL. When startups and established businesses are looking for experienced CTOs, LinkedIn makes it easy for them to find you: www.linkedin.com/firstname-lastname-chief-technology-officer/new-delhi/.
Now that you know what your URL should roughly look like, here are some steps to make this happen:
- Your LinkedIn homepage will show a Me icon.
- Viewing your profile is the second step.
- The third step is to edit your public profile and URL using the right rail.
- In the right rail, click on Edit your custom URL
- The next step is to type your new custom URL into the text box and click on Save
Tip 5: Update LinkedIn Images
There is no doubt that images have a greater impact than words. A video captures audience sentiment and communicates information faster than any text.
For this reason, images are a vital part of your LinkedIn profile.
Here are some steps that you should follow to optimize your image:
A light-colored mugshot is best for your Personal Profile. A smiling picture makes you look approachable and encourages others to get in touch with you. Make sure your banner image conveys a message about what you do. List your top skills and logos of companies with which you have collaborated if you are a business owner.
You can update your company profile images pretty easily when it comes to updating your company profile. You can use your company’s logo as the profile image. A banner should sell your brand and describe your company succinctly.
Tip 6: Optimize your company page for humans and search engines
Images and text that are compelling to humans perform better than keywords that are relevant to search engines. A combination of the two should be used for your company page’s content strategy.
Here are some tips that can help you optimize your company page for humans and search engines:
- The best way to optimize your company page for humans is to write a compelling title and description. A brief, descriptive, and to-the-point statement is best. You shouldn’t write long descriptions that don’t seem to lead anywhere. In a few sentences, communicate the main message. If they like what they see on your company page, they’ll seek you out and make a business inquiry. By optimizing your company page for human visitors, you’ll encourage them to make a business inquiry.
- Your company page can be found on LinkedIn and search engines if you optimize it for LinkedIn and search engines. The terms ‘best marketing agency’ or ‘top marketing agencies in XYZ location’ are often used by people looking for marketing agencies. You will appear first or last in both search results based on the keyword effectiveness of your company page. In order to optimize your pages for your business niche, you need to identify the top-grossing keywords.
Tip 7: Create showcase pages to endorse your products/services
It is wonderful to be able to make small subpages within a company page.
Create a showcase page(s) to highlight your company’s values, culture, the latest product launches, service offerings, accomplishments, and press releases.
Using this page, you can also create a community for your employees to share updates. Despite appearing trivial in hindsight, it is valuable on a platform like LinkedIn. A 3rd connection’s posts can be seen on LinkedIn when a 1st connection likes or comments on them. This can result in more exposure for your company.
By doing so, you will gain more visibility for your company without having to invest any money right away. Your showcase pages can help you accomplish this.
Tip 8: Post Actionable & High-Quality Content
Activity and engagement are also important factors for a platform like LinkedIn.
Your LinkedIn company page receives more engagement the more active it is. You will be able to increase your company’s visibility on LinkedIn as your engagement increases. At all times, you should have an up-to-date LinkedIn content strategy.
You tend to get more traction by posting actionable content that combines texts, images, and videos. In addition to infographics, you can also explore other options.
Whenever you direct your audience to a page outside of LinkedIn – such as a company homepage, product or service page, or a blog – make sure you put the link in the comments, not in the post. How come? Keeping its audience on LinkedIn is a priority for LinkedIn.
Hence, it is highly recommended to include links in comments. The meritorious reasons for this practice have attracted people who have found success on LinkedIn.
Tip 9: Use the Matched Audiences feature for Advertising
Want to retarget existing visitors and customers?
LinkedIn’s matched audiences feature is the right marketing tool for you if the answer is yes.
Your ads can be targeted at highly niche audiences with this feature. By adding email contacts and uploading existing accounts, you can create your own ad. Upon configuration, LinkedIn will display your ads only to people interested in your product or service.
Retargeting is a powerful feature of this feature. This tool is essential to your B2B LinkedIn strategy. Why? Here’s why:
With this tool, you can increase your chances of converting people you have already engaged with in the past, since most leads do not convert in the first interaction. This tool makes it easier for you to meet your conversion goals.
Tip 10: Use the paid LinkedIn Sales Navigator tool
LinkedIn Sales Solution, formerly LinkedIn Sales Navigator, is one of LinkedIn’s best marketing tools for B2B and B2C professionals. LinkedIn is a powerful tool that you need to discover for yourself.
Here are some features of the LinkedIn Sales Navigator tool:
- A regular LinkedIn account comes with search limitations. When you purchase LinkedIn’s Sales Solutions, this problem is eliminated.
- With its advanced targeting options, Sales Navigator Tool cuts through the monotony of a standard LinkedIn profile. There is a way to connect with niche professionals in a particular city who earn within a certain income range. Explore everything from income-based targeting to location-based targeting to designation-based targeting!
- If you are not connected to someone on LinkedIn, you can’t send an InMail message to them. However, LinkedIn marketing solutions let you send unlimited InMails to prospects without adding them to your connection list. This is remarkable, isn’t it?
- You can see up to three of the people who have visited your LinkedIn profile when you have an extended network access. However, there is no cap when it comes to LinkedIn sales solutions. Those who have visited your profile in the last 90 days can be viewed on your profile page.
Visitors to your profile generally found you through advertisements, discovered your content, or discovered you through discovery. This is a potential source of leads, so LinkedIn’s extended network access is helpful.
- You can easily integrate your sales apps with LinkedIn once you have a premium LinkedIn Sales Solution account, whether it’s for email marketing or any other tool.
- Integration with CRM: Saving leads and accounts is automatic, with just one click. In addition to Sales Navigator activity, you can also log it in your CRM.
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions accounts include a number of features. Getting a hold of it allows you to unleash many more remarkable features that can revolutionize your LinkedIn marketing strategy and show you how to do it professionally.
Tip 11: Grow Your Network & Promote your Company
When it comes to marketing your business on LinkedIn, paid advertising is not the only way.
If you haven’t tried LinkedIn’s business networking features yet, it makes sense to do so if it is a key player in the networking industry.
The purpose of LinkedIn is to connect with your professional match and build lasting friendships. People with similar interests connect all the time on LinkedIn. People with similar interests connect all the time on LinkedIn.
So In order to make your company more visible, you should grow your LinkedIn network and add strategic connections.
However, clogging up your LinkedIn network with trivial contacts who may not even respond to your messages does not make sense. Don’t add people at random. Connect and target people based on your objectives. The following are some examples:
- To find business partners in the retail space, reach out to CXOs and founders of companies that do retail. On the third or fourth correspondence, bring up your company in conversation.
- When looking for an audience for your tech podcast, add tech professionals and repeat the drill. It is not recommended to start by selling because people might not be receptive to your messages, let alone open your message notification.
Tip 12: Join new groups & create your own
What are the best ways to network?
Would you be interested in forming a business partnership with me?
If I want to sell your products to target groups, how do I find them?
The fact that you are plagued by these questions indicates that your business is serious. Networking requires time and time costs money for organizations that take their business seriously.
Communication is a time-consuming process. Therefore, you need to find the right people. The best way to find relevant like-minded people is through LinkedIn groups.
In targeted LinkedIn groups, you can find people looking for the product or service you offer. The following are some examples:
- Those who sell feminine hygiene products can join LinkedIn support groups for women who actively share their stories.
- Companies that sell sports shoes can join sports club fan groups on LinkedIn and engage with people and post ads.
- If you are a company looking for business partners, you can join a LinkedIn group or community of CXOs and introduce your brand. There’s no charge for this!
In addition, you can create a LinkedIn group of your own.
It takes time and effort to start a LinkedIn group. You can explore it if you have the time if you have the interest. To grow this community, you will need to create a LinkedIn group from scratch and invest the time and resources necessary.
Our recommendation is to not build a community if you are not a company that can gain directly from it. If you run a blog or an online publication that needs a large audience, it might be a practical solution. Consider your business needs before starting a group.
Tip 13: Track and Monitor your Activities with Analytics
There are several ways to drill down into your audiences’ preferences and behaviours on LinkedIn. You can use various LinkedIn features, such as:
You can monitor and optimize the performance of your LinkedIn company page using LinkedIn’s analytics tool. Your followers’ demographics will be displayed in detail. Using it, you can determine what types of posts receive the most engagement and prioritize them accordingly.
LinkedIn Campaign Manager: This tool allows you to track the performance of your paid advertising campaigns. As soon as you know which of your posts are gaining the most traction, you can redact those practices that are not working. Measure campaign results and manage ad spend.
Conclusion
We have highlighted actionable tips in this blog to help you use LinkedIn effectively for business marketing.
Making a complete company page, drafting an effective LinkedIn content strategy, networking, and using paid tools on LinkedIn are all important for your LinkedIn B2B Marketing to succeed. We hope that this post has made it easier for you to convert. We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!
