It might not be one of the biggest networks in Australia, but that doesn’t mean LinkedIn still can’t pack a punch.
In addition to the recent algorithm changes from Facebook and Twitter, organic reach has been limited for businesses, making it harder than ever for them to get their messages out there without paying for promotions.
Don’t worry, however. If you’ve been affected by these algorithm changes, LinkedIn could be your saving grace. Read on to find out everything you need to know about B2B marketing for LinkedIn.
Why Should You Care About LinkedIn?
It might seem like a small fish in a big pond, but LinkedIn now drives over 50% of all social traffic to B2B blogs and websites. And for those willing to put in the groundwork, the benefits you can reap from LinkedIn are huge:
- LinkedIn makes up 64% of all visits to corporate websites from social sites
- 93% of B2B marketers consider LinkedIn to be the most effective platform for lead generation
LinkedIn isn’t getting too comfortable, however. It’s still putting in the effort, recently announcing a 60% spike in their engagement rates.
What Best Practices Should You Use for LinkedIn marketing?
There are a number of best practices that should be followed when marketing on LinkedIn. The first rule is this – think before you act.
Set up a LinkedIn company page, then produce a strategy to keep your marketing efforts focused and to prevent you from getting distracted by new initiatives.
Remain Focused
After the initial spike in interest after joining LinkedIn disappears (don’t worry, it happens), it’s not uncommon for real estate agencies to lose momentum.
However, like any marketing activity, it’s important to understand that B2B marketing on LinkedIn takes time to develop, so it might be a while before you see a return on your investment.
Pick Your Audience Well
Iron out exactly who it is that you want to build relationships with on LinkedIn. Whilst connecting with an executive in London might be alright if your niche is overseas property investors, if you’re looking to sell a 3-bedroom home to local buyers it might not be the best use of your time.
Stay Tactical
You need to create a clear strategy for each element of your LinkedIn B2B marketing, covering what you’re going to post and when.
How to Maximise the Results You See from LinkedIn
Here is a quick list of the tactics you can employ to maximise the benefits you get from your LinkedIn B2B marketing efforts:
1) Focus on content – make it clear in your content how your service can help buyers and sellers in your area.
2) Don’t oversell – your content should help your readers, not directly sell to them.
3) Be relatable – make 25% of your content about the issues you care about in your community.
4) Post regularly – once a day is your best bet, but if you can’t make that, post as often as you can.
5) Engage with your team – get your team and other brand advocates to share your content to boost your reach.
6) Focus on keywords – use keywords within your business page to help it appear in search results.
7) Go on the hunt – use the search functions of LinkedIn to identify potential new clients.
8) Analyse and improve – use the analytics function on your company page to discover what content works best.
How to Design and Launch Effective B2B Marketing Campaigns
From video ads to Sponsored InMail, there are a number of opportunities for advertising your real estate brand on LinkedIn. With these, you’ll also be able to effectively target specific segments of your target audience.
However, which one is right for your goals? Let’s take a look at each option to help you work it out:
LinkedIn Text Ads
These show up in the top and right sides of your audience’s feeds, featuring short ad copy and an optional brand image.
This is an affordable and basic yet effective option that’s a great choice if you’re looking to target specific audiences, find new talent and boost website traffic.
LinkedIn Sponsored Content
This is a standard post, boosted with an ad budget. This is a chance for you to get a company update using 150 characters or less, along with introduction copy using less than 70 characters and an image into the news feeds of your audience.
LinkedIn Sponsored Content is ideal for promoting your thought leadership, boosting brand awareness and increasing your follower count.
LinkedIn Sponsored Mail
Got a specific message you want to communicate to a number of people? Sponsored Mail lets you send private messages to LinkedIn users, featuring their name, a subject line, body copy and a CTA button.
If you’re looking to send out personalised event invitations, boost downloads of your content such as whitepapers and guides and engage with your prospects, this is a great option.
LinkedIn Dynamic Ads
Dynamic ads adapt to each user to give them a more personalised experience.
Depending on who you’re targeting, the profile image within the ad will change, making it a top option for attracting new followers or acquiring applications to jobs you’ve posted.
LinkedIn Video Ads
These appear within your audience’s feeds, with sound disabled by default. As a result, it’s best practice to include subtitles.
Video Ads are a great way to sell your brand through creative storytelling and boost clicks to listings you might have. They can also help you to preview events you might be running and position you as a thought leader in the market.
Segmentation and Targeting on LinkedIn
With LinkedIn, you can drill into the details of your userbase and target people based on a large number of features and traits.
With such a wide variety of advertising options available, targeting and segmentation allows you to ensure that your ads are getting seen by the right people at the right time.
LinkedIn recommends that you choose two targeting options for each campaign, as well as setting a location radius where the ad will be shown.
Although typical targeting options such as age and gender are included, there are also a number of other more detailed attributes you can use to home-in on those leads:
- Company name
- Company industry
- Company size
- Company connections
- Followers
- Job seniority
- Job title
- Job function
- Level of experience
These can help you to attract relevant buyers to your properties based on how much they earn, as well as get the right people looking at your content.
You can also use the LinkedIn Audience Network to get your ads shown on other platforms, showing your content on the sites of a large network of publishers. On top of that, you’re also able to retarget users who’ve visited your website to further increase your lead generation conversion rates.
Testing Your Ads to Boost Performance
Sadly, launching your B2B marketing strategy and LinkedIn ads is only half of the battle. From here, you’ll need to continually test your campaigns to continually improve their performance. Here are a few tips you can use:
- Find the right balance between being too broad and too niche – use targeting, but not to the extend where your audience is too specific. Use A/B testing to find the right balance.
- For each ad you launch, create 2-3 variants to see which performs best. Change one variable in each and you’ll have a clear insight into not only what performs the highest, but why.
- Stop your lowest-performing ad once a week and replace it with a new one – this will help you to increase your relevance score, reducing your ad spend.
What to Take Away from this Guide
Everything we’ve mentioned in this short guide is important, but here are a few of the takeaways that you can action right now:
- Create a detailed plan for your content to give your LinkedIn marketing strategy direction. This will help to maximise its impact.
- Work out which ad formats work best for your brand and the goals you’re looking to achieve.
- Ensure that your content is being seen at the right time by the right people with LinkedIn’s extensive audience targeting options.
- Use analytics features to work out which ads are performing well and which aren’t.