How To Market To Your Audience Using LinkedIn?
The marketing process has changed significantly since the shift to digital. Now, consumers tend to make contact with a sales team when they are already 90 percent through the purchase process. To bring these potential customers your way, you need to attract them early in the decision process. You can do that by providing them with content that positions your brand as a prime option — and LinkedIn is a great tool for achieving just that.
The Three Stages of Engagement
To convert users into customers, you should harness the power of LinkedIn at three stages of the sales funnel. First, create awareness of your brand and products. Next, show your audience that you are an expert in your field who they can trust to deliver relevant information. Finally, encourage users to take action, not necessarily in the form of a sale, but in some way to gain a qualified lead.
Organic Tactics to Reach Your Audience
Create Pages
To start out, you need to focus on your Company Page, an essential feature for any business on LinkedIn. Unlike most of your content, this is a space for you to talk about your company as much as you please — its history, the reason it was formed, what you offer that your competitors cannot, and anything else you want to include.
If your business consists of several brands or initiatives, consider using Showcase Pages to go into more detail. On every page, tell a story your prospects can relate to, such as by focusing on how you solve customers’ problems or how you meet their wants and needs. Whether you choose a story about why the brand was developed, or how the initiative has evolved over time, show that the reason behind your actions was to better serve your customers.
Post Content
LinkedIn is an ideal place for blogging because you can post content in its entirety, instead of a link to another site, while maintaining formatting. Publish new pieces as you create them, or re-purpose older content you want to bring back up to the surface. As LinkedIn owns SlideShare, the platform is particularly suited for sharing slide presentations.
Paid Tactics
LinkedIn also offers several paid opportunities to use in conjunction with your organic tactics. These will help you reach more of your target audience.
Sponsored Content
Sponsored content allows you to pay for a position in your followers’ LinkedIn feeds, and of targeted users not following your page. This enables you to grab the attention of your audience when they are actively seeking out content.
Sponsored InMail
Sponsored InMail is an ad sent to users when they are active on LinkedIn. It works much like sponsored content with a couple added advantages. First, you can be sure the recipient received the message and did not just scroll on past in the news feed. Second, as the mail is directed at the individual rather than a group, you can personalize the message, thereby ensuring it never seems like spam.
Ads
LinkedIn offers two types of ads: display ads and dynamic ads. In both cases, you can choose between multiple targeting options and measure the impact of your campaigns. Dynamic ads go one step further than display ads by being customizable to each individual user.
One of the best things about LinkedIn is its singular purpose. Unlike many other social media platforms that may encompass everything from social life to entertainment, LinkedIn is only concerned with business. As users are in a business frame of mind when they access the site, you can take advantage by seeking out those who have an interest in brands like your own and nurturing them to a sale.
