Author: Sivan Michaeli -Roimi

I genuinely consider LinkedIn the most viable marketing platform. Businesses seeking to grow their reach need to leverage this tool’s potential. Research shows that ad exposure on LinkedIn leads to a 33% increase in purchase intent. Moreover, directing traffic from LinkedIn to your B2B website can boost conversions. But how do you get the best bang for your buck? Keep reading, and you will find out!

I find LinkedIn to be among the most expensive marketing platforms. At the same time, it gives you access to almost 1 billion users, a significant percentage of whom are key decision-makers in B2B businesses. A well-crafted, tailored LinkedIn marketing strategy can enable you to reach your desired audience. Before I tell you all about creating your marketing plan for LinkedIn, let’s start with some fundamentals.

Building a Solid Foundation: The Fundamentals of Your LinkedIn Marketing Strategy

Identifying Your Target Audience on LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a goldmine for marketing data. You can find your target audience through job titles, interests, skills, and active communities. Regardless of the industry you operate in, you can reach its pulse. Here, I will guide you step by step to identifying your target audience on LinkedIn:

• Define Client Persona: List the attributes of your ideal client. Identify their pain points and how your brand can solve their problems.

• Use LinkedIn’s Search Features: I recommend creating the client persona first, as this step helps you narrow down your persona parameters. LinkedIn allows you to search by job title, company name, industry, and location. You can reach your desired audience by applying filters relevant to the client persona you created.

Acquainting yourself with the search features allows you to mine relevant data. This step is crucial to creating a successful LinkedIn marketing strategy.

Defining Your Marketing Objectives

A good strategy always starts with setting goals and objectives. Especially when there’s so much spend on the table… The cost of using LinkedIn for marketing is on the higher side, so be prudent with your spending to generate maximum traction.

You need to set specific goals, define metrics for measuring performance, and calculate your ROI accordingly. The most important aspect of this process is determining your end goal. Why are you building this LinkedIn marketing strategy?

• Create Brand Awareness: LinkedIn can help you market your brand and generate awareness about what you offer. For instance, you can use sponsored content and company updates to boost the visibility of your brand page.
• Generate Leads: I implore brands seeking B2B leads to define what they consider a lead. LinkedIn allows you to run incredible lead-generation forms for inbound and InMail campaigns for outbound. That said, you have to determine what constitutes a quality lead and, more importantly, a marketing-qualified lead.

• Drive Traffic: As I stated, LinkedIn is a powerful tool for driving qualified leads to your website. You can set relevant benchmarks for CTR to track performance.

The key to making this work for your business is aligning your LinkedIn marketing strategy with your business goals – write down your ARR goals and build your Linkedin strategy to match the KPIs leading to those goals – how many leads, MQLs and SQLs are needed to reach these goals?

With Linkedin you can explore new markets, connect with key influencers in your industry, or reach more people. But you should start only when you have clear, measurable goals in mind.

Differentiate between Paid LinkedIn and Organic LinkedIn

A key component of making LinkedIn work for your brand is understanding the difference between paid LinkedIn and organic LinkedIn. I recommend that you view the two as separate and distinct from each other. I see too many people do the dreadful mistake of copy-pasting their paid to organic and organic to paid.

The strategy you use for your paid marketing will not work when you go organic. This is why I maintain that you need to define different goals and expectations for your paid and organic LinkedIn marketing efforts. Here is a cheat sheet you can follow:

Organic LinkedIn vs. Paid LinkedIn Linkedin Marketing Strategies

Let’s say you plant a garden. You need to put in some effort and tend to it initially. Over time, the garden will start blossoming. Organic LinkedIn works in the same way. Paid LinkedIn is akin to adding fertlizer to your garden to accelerate growth and get results quicker. Your LinkedIn marketing strategy should involve both organic and paid marketing so you can get the best ROI. Here, I will elaborate on the steps you need to take to create each type of LinkedIn marketing strategy:

Organic Marketing on LinkedIn

• Expand With Your Network: The most straightforward step is reaching out to your personal network. Send them invitations to your company page and request that they follow you. Continuously build your network with the desired audience to keep the message going, i.e. share company posts, share your thoughts on your personal page, etc. 
• Post Jobs: Did you know that job applicants automatically like your page? I just shared a LinkedIn secret that many people are not aware of. Try posting a job and you will see an increase in the number of followers on your page. 
• Make Your Content Your Own: Your content should reflect your brand. You have to build a unique voice. Use a unique tone and visuals that enable people to recognize your brand amid the clutter. 
• Bolster Engagement: The key to building a community on LinkedIn is engaging your followers. You can use polls and share opinions to initiate discussions and generate traction. This process helps you foster a community around your brand.
• Showcase Your Culture: Showcasing your company culture helps to humanize your brand and shape your corporate persona. You can do this by highlighting company events and sharing updates about your employees. 

Investing in Paid LinkedIn

• Creating a Campaign Strategy & Optimize: Start by analyzing an audience or multiple audiences you want to test. I recommend tailoring your strategy to your target audience for the best results. This step also enables you to spend wisely, as you can allocate your budget to campaigns that have the best chance of conversion. Quick tips:
  • Test Various Audience Strategies: Functions vs titles, groups etc, play with company sizes.
  • Separate Campaigns Based on Regions and Time Zones: If you’re targeting regions with significantly different time zones, split your budget smartly between regions to maximize your spending. 
  • Pay Attention to the Days: For some audiences, some days convert better than others. I like to maximize my budget by turning my ads only on the best converting days. Why should I compromise on getting fewer leads if I can get more?

• Continuous Testing: Create at least 8 different types of ads for each campaign and keep moving content, messages, and visuals around. Keep testing the waters to ascertain the best tactics for your brand. It’s not just about testing different messages but also refreshing your ads to fight their diminishing effect.

• Conversion funnels: Integrate your CRM into your LinkedIn marketing strategy to measure performance and results. Associate the performance with the sales objectives you are looking for. Regardless of the number of marketing-qualified leads you generate, you need to be able to track your leads for conversions.

In a recent blog post, I delved into LinkedIn’s latest marketing solutions. You can check out the post to learn about the features you can leverage. I also shared some key insights and tactics that will enable you to optimize your LinkedIn marketing strategy.

The Bottom Line: Focus on the Bottom Line

In this post, I attempted to condense the dynamic world of LinkedIn marketing in 2024. Perseverance is important, but constantly improving and optimizing your LinkedIn marketing strategy is crucial. Start by identifying your target audience and setting clear goals and objectives for your marketing campaign. LinkedIn offers results via both organic and paid marketing. The bottom line is that LinkedIn is a goldmine for B2B marketers. You just need to know how to use it effectively. 

As executives, we always try to gain more leads while maximizing limited resources. I’ve realized that while manual prospecting reaches few, automated messages alone seem impersonal. However, recent data shows the potential if done thoughtfully. Studies found that personalized automated messages saw a 78% increase in connection acceptances compared to generic templates. Furthermore, according to research, conversion rates for customized follow-ups grew by nearly 50%.

However, bots that automate LinkedIn messages may be all right. In fact, when done correctly with personalization, it can supercharge sales development. Hear my thoughts on this topic before dismissing the idea outright. I’ll share how crafting automated messages as a relationship builder, not just a System, revolutionized our pipeline.

Incorporating the right automation could provide benefits we’ve been underestimating in this new era of engagement.

Should You Automate Linkedin Messages?

As marketers, automating outreach expands our reach. Yet, it risks seeming impersonal and irritating recipients. So, should we automate LinkedIn messages or not? There is certainly an appeal to automating. Research shows we can contact 5x more prospects this way. 

However, spammy automation understandably frustrates prospects. With prospects receveing hundreds of sales outreaches, how do you stand out? Fortunately, the proper personalization techniques maintain relevance even in automation.

According to Forrester surveys, approximately 90% of buyers prefer human-generated outreach. Therefore, focus automation on personalizing each message. To build rapport, incorporate data like job titles, companies, and shared connections. Tailor message timing using behavior scores. But please, make sure your data is right, since getting funny canned messages could ruin the personal experience. 

Segment recipients and tailor your messages accordingly. Then, automate your follow-ups with recent content your contacts may find valuable, depending on their segment. If your audience interacts with content on a certain topic, make sure your outreach touches the pains that asset raises and ask relevant questions. It would also help qualify the lead and track the right pains for the next steps of the sales lifecycle.  

And of course, don’t stop testing. Test different personalization combinations. Hubspot reported campaigns including 3+ data points see response rates rise over 35%. With testing, find the right balance of scale and personalization for your prospects.

The Tango Between Personalization to Automating LinkedIn Messages

Reaching prospects multiple times is crucial to success. Research shows the average lead requires seven tailored messages before engaging in a sales conversation. Likewise, studies have found it can take over six weeks of continuous contact until someone is ready to meet.

With these timelines in mind, how do modern companies connect with so many potential buyers simultaneously while respecting the personal touchpoints needed? The answer lies in thoughtfully blending automation with data-rich personalization.

We know from Oracle that automated campaigns see a 451% boost in qualified lead interactions when utilizing seven or more personalized details per contact. According to LinkedIn’s reports, tools make this possible at scale by analyzing over ten profile data points the average LinkedIn user shares:

• Armed with deep profiles, automation solutions can craft customized messages mentioning a recipient’s past employers, professional interests, shared connections, or recent page views at rates up to five times faster than sales reps.
• Segmentation further enhances relevance, with prospects receiving introductory automated messages featuring five to seven individualized points. As engagement signals occur, follow-ups increase personalized inclusion to an average of eight to ten tailored details.
• Testing refines this approach, as Hubspot has reported campaigns incorporating three or more personalized elements see response lifts over 50% on average.
• Strategic automation handles high-volume personalized outreach at scale. By harnessing profiling capabilities and optimizing relevance layers over weeks of contact, tools drive response rates that override typical time constraints of repetitive manual messaging.

Finding the Right Mix:

Finding the right mix in LinkedIn messaging involves a combination of critical factors. Let’s explore them further:

• Step 1 – Know Your Lead 

Researching and profiling new leads properly sets the foundation for strategic outreach and nurturing. Thoroughly investigating details on a prospect’s current role, challenges, industry interests, and how they were initially sourced will provide key insights to craft the ideal personalized approach. It is even more important when building a old outreach strategy.

When it comes to outreach to inbound leads, however, it is crucial to personalize messages based on the lead source or channel, and their specific pain points, particularly for content leads from webinars, events, or asset downloads. The content they interacted with reveals potential pains. Touching those pains smartly will generate higher win rates. 

Understanding and addressing their needs will greatly enhance the effectiveness of your outreach efforts.

• Step 2 – Craft Your Sequence According to That Knowledge

The next step in your outreach strategy is to craft the appropriate sequence for each lead source, challenge, asset, or Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). You can effectively reach out with the right message at scale by tailoring your messages to specific segments. 

Additionally, it’s crucial to include 1 or 2 genuine personal messages outside the main sequence and add a few dials to that effort. A call is the most personal touch you can have. Those personalized touches add authenticity and help build stronger connections with your leads.

• Step 3 – Make Sure Always to Provide Value

The final step in your email outreach strategy is to ensure that every message you send provides value. This can be achieved by offering relevant resources, assets, webinars, or other helpful content that aligns with the recipient’s needs. Not every message has to end with “Let’s jump into a quick call”. Some messages can end with value creation. In general, companies that share value will turn into brands that people want to be associated with.    

Suggested Touchpoint Sequence

Here is a suggested sequence of touchpoints for prospecting and nurturing a lead through emails, LinkedIn messages, and phone calls. Don’t set up your message too far apart, 3 business days buffer is enough. 

LinkedIn connection request 

Some prefer to leave it blank, some prefer to make it personal. Test what’s write for your audience! 

First LinkedIn message right after connection

Answer the following questions – why are you reaching out?  What pains can you solve? Don’t provide a full blown description, leave some room for imagination and curiosity. 

Second LinkedIn message – after 3 days

Refer to your previous note and ask if they received it. No more than one sentence! 

Third Linkedin message – share value:

Do share a guide, whitepaper, webinar you hosted, or research report relevant to their segment’s pain points.

Do not share: case studies, one pagers, or decks. Remember – it’s not about you (yet) it’s about them and getting their attention first!

Forth Linkedin message – direct request

When all the efforts to warm them up are done, it’s time to try the straight-to-the-point approach. Describe your problem and solution in less than 100 words, and ask for a meeting or a intro to the right person. 

There’s No Dilemma: Yay for Automating your Linkedin Messages

Automating your Linkedin messages allows you to connect with prospects at scale and optimize for meeting conversion faster. However, it’s essential to maintain the personal touch when using automation. I suggest utilizing tools that integrate profile data to personalize each automated message. 

The secret to optimizing your outreach efforts is finding the right balance of automation and personalization. 

In the fast-paced world of digital marketing, there is a crucial channel that often gets overlooked, but is incredibly vital to your brand success: your social media and social performance. I know, it might be hard to get everyone around it, but optimizing and improving your social performance is not just a “nice to have.” It’s a strategic move that can help build your brand, keep your customers engaged, and, believe it or not, sometimes, it can be done at zero cost.

But where should you start? Well, it begins with everyone in the company, from leadership down to the interns, actively participating in the social effort. After all, it’s the leadership that sets the example for the rest of the team.

Why Executive Management Needs to Care About Social Performance

To understand why social performance is crucial, we need to acknowledge that our social presence on platforms like LinkedIn can be divided into two categories: organic and paid. 

While paid LinkedIn ads are fantastic for driving immediate awareness and leads, your organic LinkedIn performance is more akin to the difference between SEO-driven organic website traffic and paid search ads. 

It’s a long-term strategy, and it can turn your LinkedIn profile into a brand-building powerhouse, fostering awareness, community, engagement, and an ongoing lead-generation machine.

The problem, however, lies in the fact that social results are often challenging to track and even harder to communicate to executive stakeholders. It’s easy to see the tangible results of a paid ad campaign, but the organic side of things can be a bit elusive. This is where keeping your KPIs tight and tracking comes into play.

The Main KPIs That Impact Your Social Performance

To truly grasp the impact of your social performance, I want you to go deep into its Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). These metrics will give you a clear picture of how your organic efforts are contributing to your brand’s success. Let’s break it down:

Posts Engagement

This includes likes, comments, reactions, clicks, and reposts. It’s all about how engaging and shareable your content is. The more interactions, the more people are spreading your message. Your post engagement is dependent on two things: how good your content is and how much engagement it gets. 

Create high-quality content for Linkedin: Creating quality content is not a cliche, and while it is hard there are some ground rules:

• Stop talking about yourself – Not every post needs to be about booking a demo with your company. And not every post needs to end with “talk to our experts”. Instead, use this organic stage to emphasize with your readers through their pains, so they will feel attached to your brand.  

• Re-syndicate content in different forms – Each one of your assets – blogs, guides, or webinars, can turn into a bunch of social materials. Highlight key values from those assets, and share your thought leadership points. In addition, make sure to put a link to those resources when it comes to asset highlights, but keep links off on thought leadership ones. When building trust, it’s key to keep commercials off.  

• Use social proof tactics, or better to be more exact, faces – Being social means being human. Posts with faces can potentially be more engaging. Why? Tagging people in posts increases impressions, and the people who know those faces will like it. How can you do that?  (1) Quoting customers from case studies or reviews (2) Employee highlights – new employees, employee spotlights, employees who wrote blogs or participated in a webinar, etc. (3)Joint webinars or quotes of industry leaders and experts. But the most important thing – put their face on the image and tag them! 

Help others engage with your content: If they can’t see it, how will they like it? Boosting engagement starts with putting the content in front of the right eyes. But it’s a chicken and egg problem – if the audience can’t see it how will they like it? Posts on LinkedIn live longer when they receive engagement. But how can we get the ball rolling? 

• Invite your best customers to follow your page – You can use customer intelligence tools like Staircase AI to create advocate lists and let your team invite them to like your social pages.   

• Leverage your employee power – Get all your employees to like every post you release, report, and comment. You can use auto-like tools like Heyou.io to remove the burden on employees and automate your corporate post likes.

• Tag away – Use both hashtags to increase visibility around your post’s topic, and tag the people or companies mentioned in your post. 

Website Engagement

Now, let’s move beyond LinkedIn and focus on your website. Analyze metrics like Click-Through Rate (CTR), traffic from LinkedIn, and leads generated from LinkedIn referrals. This data helps you assess the quality of your content in driving relevant traffic and leads. 

In the B2B space, it’s usually hard to make a connection between social traffic and web conversions. The reason is that most people engage on social media through their mobile phones while converting later on via their browser. However, measuring the traffic is a good indicator of your ability to create inbound traffic and brand awareness. 

How to Analyze Your Social Performance and Report It Right

So, now that you know which KPIs to focus on, the next step is understanding how to analyze your social performance effectively and report it to the decision-makers. When you’re discussing your corporate page’s organic performance, here are the insights you want to pull:

Followers Growth

Keep an eye on how your follower base is expanding. A steady growth rate indicates a healthy brand presence. For example, according to a study by HubSpot, companies that published 16 or more blog posts per month got almost 3.5 times more traffic than those that published 0-4 monthly posts. This demonstrates the importance of consistent growth in your follower base. 

Posts Trends

Analyze which topics are driving the most engagement and responses. Is it thought leadership content, behind-the-scenes glimpses, or company news? Identify what resonates with your audience. Research by BuzzSumo shows that “how-to” articles and long-form content often perform exceptionally well on social media platforms. This suggests that informative and educational content tends to drive higher engagement.

Type of Graphics

Are image posts more successful, or do videos perform better? Knowing what type of content gains the most traction can help shape your content strategy. According to a report by Buffer, video content on LinkedIn receives about five times the engagement of image or text posts. This indicates that incorporating more video content can significantly boost your engagement rates.

Impressions

Impressions show how many times your content is displayed on a user’s screen. It’s a critical indicator of your content’s visibility. To put this in perspective, the LinkedIn algorithm prioritizes posts with higher engagement, and these posts often receive more impressions. So, improving engagement can lead to increased visibility.

Lead Generation

Measure how many leads your LinkedIn activity generates. This will provide a clear picture of the platform’s contribution to your business. According to a study by HubSpot, LinkedIn is 277% more effective at lead generation than other social media platforms. It’s crucial to track and optimize your LinkedIn lead generation efforts to maximize the platform’s potential.

LinkedIn is a Standalone Channel – Treat It as Such

Here’s an essential point to remember: LinkedIn is not just another social platform; it’s a standalone marketing channel. It’s a place where you can build brand awareness, drive traffic to your website, and generate leads. 

“Your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room.” — Jeff Bezos

To make the most of LinkedIn, you need to treat it as such and adapt your strategy accordingly. Quality content, play with graphics, use tactics to boost engagement and measure impact, not necessarily leads.

When presenting your results to the board, make sure you have a dedicated section for social performance. Show them the growth in followers, the engagement metrics, and most importantly, the engagement and awareness it generates. This will make it clear that LinkedIn is a channel worth investing in.

So, there you have it. Social performance on LinkedIn is not just about posting now and then; it’s about building a strong presence, engaging with your audience, and driving leads. Make it a priority in your marketing strategy, and remember, it starts from the top. Leadership setting the example will encourage the rest of the team to follow suit.

Now, it’s your turn to enhance your social performance on LinkedIn. Happy Socializing!