No matter how much you use LinkedIn for personal connections, there’s no denying it is the go-to social media platform to engage professionals from every industry, both here in the U.S. and internationally.
Boasting itself as the, “…world’s largest audience of active, influential professionals,” LinkedIn has been focused on upping its marketing offerings this year. Back in February, the site launched its “Lead Accelerator” tool, and has since added post analytics for publishers, and upgraded its Sponsored InMail ad product.
“LinkedIn has been a very practical choice for Xerox. It is increasingly becoming a core part of B2B marketing programs.” –John Kennedy, Xerox CMO
Just recently, LinkedIn completely overhauled its mobile app to create a more streamlined experience for users. The newly updated app now puts more attention on visuals within a user’s feed – a definite bonus for marketers taking advantage of LinkedIn’s sponsored posts.
With an increased focus on ad solutions and targeting tools, many brands are using LinkedIn to extend their digital reach.
Today, CMOs from Xerox, Wiley, XOJET, G2 Crowd and Lithium share how their brands are taking advantage of LinkedIn’s marketing tools, and what they have gained from the professional networking platform.
5 CMOs Share Their Brand’s LinkedIn Marketing Tactics
Xerox CMO John Kennedy
All companies are now confronting the fact that we live in the age of the self-directed buyer – regardless of the business category or industry. Within B2B, around two-thirds of the purchase cycle is complete before the first seller is engaged, which has taken on the character of the rallying cry for B2B marketing teams.
At Xerox, we are using this reality every day as a lens to examine our marketing and communications programs. We know that we can’t expect our buyers and influencers to come to us – we need to create interesting content that is consumable where our audiences are “hanging out.”
For that reason, LinkedIn has been a very practical choice for Xerox. It is increasingly becoming a core part of B2B marketing programs – not unlike how search has become core and central to any marketing and communications strategy.
Our goal is to supply our LinkedIn followers with rich content such as e-books, SlideShares and blogs that offer advice on how to work better. Hopefully, we’ll provide useful resources that can help those who follow us perform better; and as a result, engender interest in the Xerox brand along the way.
Wiley CMO Clay Stobaugh
LinkedIn is a great resource to bring Wiley’s message to a variety of our customers, specifically on the B2B side.
We utilize a variety of marketing features on LinkedIn, both organic and paid. We have seen success with Sponsored Posts and Sponsored InMails. For our CrossKnowledge business, we ran a successful campaign of sponsored posts over the course of a quarter, which saw an average 70% click-through rate, compared to our 40% benchmark.
Additionally, we saw increased engagement on these posts and followers of our brand. We’ve also experimented with sponsored InMails and found that open rates topped some of other efforts.
The key here is to ensure we get in front of the right people at the right time with the right message. LinkedIn has the unique opportunity to target people specifically by their job titles, industries and even companies so we can ensure we modify our message accordingly.
Lithium CMO Katy Keim
With Lithium’s B2B account-based focus, the fact that LinkedIn can provide first-party data such as job functions, management levels and specific companies is great.
The click-through rates may seem low, and cost per click/cost per lead seem high compared to other channels. But it’s not about lead volume, it’s about quality. So there’s a mindset shift required around what constitutes success.
A program that yields only a few very strong leads might be considered a big success, if even a few of those result in a sale. Yes, they might cost more, but fewer, higher quality leads? We’ll take that any day.
On the unpaid marketing side it’s much the same. The impressions may be high if the content is good but only generate a few clicks. However, those clicks are usually quality leads. On Facebook and Twitter, you can’t control the noise as much so you may see a higher click through rate, but not the quality leads that you need.
In general, marketers should spend less time on volume at the top of the funnel and more on what is driving through to a qualified sales opportunity. That applies to all channels, not just LinkedIn.
XOJET CMO Shari Jones
XOJET has a maturing presence on LinkedIn. As a luxury brand, we view it as an important frontier in social marketing, specifically for connecting with clients who are primarily business executives and industry leaders. Their social and professional circles tend to be tighter, so engaging influencers and the community that supports them is a key part of our strategy.
XOJET is currently utilizing LinkedIn for two core functions: brand building and recruitment. We’re tapping our own business executives to help us provide relevant content and we’re also advertising our recruitment needs.
Interestingly, the two feed into each other. Anyone who visits our LinkedIn page can see our commitment to recruiting and retaining the industry’s best pilots; and that reflects our brand’s emphasis on delivering a world-class experience that puts our passengers first.
We recently launched an advertising campaign that takes a fresh approach to private aviation by allowing the viewer to experience it from the flyer’s point of view. As we continue to talk about luxury in a more approachable way, evolving our LinkedIn presence will be a key focus in the year ahead.
G2 Crowd CMO Adrienne Weissman
LinkedIn is the obvious choice for G2 Crowd – we can have extremely targeted and relevant conversations with professionals through both organic distribution and paid media.
We use our LinkedIn company page as an extension to our website to share relevant content to our followers as well as target very specific audiences.
Specifically, we use LinkedIn’s Sponsored Updates very similarly to the way many B2C brands use Google Adwords. LinkedIn’s Sponsored Updates allow us to be very targeted with our message by engaging with very specific audiences as they consume content relevant to their career.
Professionals leverage their networks to help educate and share information and in our case, to help inform software purchasing decisions. LinkedIn’s Sponsored Updates reporting helps us tweak our message in real-time to be most relevant to the different audiences that consume our content.
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