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( votes)Business-to-Business (B2B) marketing relies on you tailoring your efforts depending on your client. While generalized approaches are a norm in Business-to-Consumer (B2C) marketing, it can be disastrous in the B2B arena. However, constantly tailoring your marketing efforts and materials to fit each client’s needs can be time-consuming, and expensive. Thankfully, there’s an easy solution that more marketers need to focus on: LinkedIn B2B marketing.
While LinkedIn has been around for quite some time, most B2B marketers have only recently started taking it seriously as a marketing tool. You might still be wondering: why you should use LinkedIn for B2B marketing at all when regular methods work fine? Well, as far as targeting specific businesses and clients goes, there can be no better platform. It allows you to mass market and tailor content simultaneously.
But it takes more than just a good marketing pitch to succeed in LinkedIn B2B marketing. So, here are some tips, tactics, and advice on how to maximize your chances of acquiring new clients on LinkedIn.
Create the Perfect Profile
It’s easy to create a profile. But how to create the perfect profile? As it turns out, not that difficult. With attention to some small details, you can create a profile that helps you stand out and catch the eye of your potential clients.
A Professional Picture
It may seem like common sense, but we all know someone that’s had a less than appropriate picture on all their social platforms — including LinkedIn. As a study has shown, a proper picture can give your potential leads an early insight into what kind of a person you are.
So, don’t be afraid to spend a little extra on getting a good photographer that can create the best picture that would help your LinkedIn B2B prospects.
A Short but On-Point Profile Summary
LinkedIn for B2B marketing prospects is the perfect place. It narrows down the serious contenders that are willing to communicate directly with potential leads. These leads are usually generated via a funnel. This funnel displays the highlights, or “a profile summary” from your account.
If they find this profile summary interesting enough, they’ll likely examine your whole profile. So, as you can see, this is a whole process. And the only way to start this process is by having a profile summary that’s both interesting and compelling enough to pique the interest of your potential clients.
There are a few simple (but important) rules to keep in mind when writing your summary:
- Use a friendly tone and be approachable.
- Tailor the summary according to your desired client pool.
- Emphasize your past achievements
- Don’t overdo it; keep it simple.
Headlines Matter
LinkedIn has a featured called headline that is placed directly alongside your name and your profile picture. The conventional wisdom is to include your current job title and company in that space.
However, if you’re fishing for LinkedIn B2B leads, you can use this feature for so much more. For instance, if you’re hoping to catch the eye of a product manager from other B2B companies, be creative with this headline.
How? Well, instead of writing your role, go for something like “Guy That Increased XYZ company’s sales 140% in 2019”. You need to remember that you’re not the only prowling LinkedIn for B2B marketing. The best way to distinguish yourself from your competition is to illustrate what makes you a better option than others.
Join the Right Groups
One of the best avenues to maximize your leads from your LinkedIn B2B efforts is by joining the right groups. If you’re someone that has been using LinkedIn for some time, you’ll likely have seen a plethora of these groups that focus on specific interests, as well as needs.
There are several benefits to joining a LinkedIn B2B group. The first one is that every other user on there is a potential client. Even if you don’t manage to find clients, you’ll likely develop crucial contacts and connections that’ll help you in the long run.
This “network” can also help you find other potential parties that might be interested in what you have to offer. So even if you don’t find a direct client through these groups, you’ll likely find contacts that can point you in the right direction.
Furthermore, these groups are heavily moderated by professionals. While using LinkedIn for B2B marketing is nothing new, blatant promotion of products and services is discouraged. Instead of simply presenting your product or service, you’ll have to build a narrative for your product. This helps you interact with potential clients and establish a rapport with them.
Lastly, when all is said and done, how do you know which groups would be the best one to join? This is where you don’t want to think as someone that has a product/service to offer. Instead, put yourself in your client’s shoes. What questions would you potential clients be asking? And where would they likely go to have their questions answered?
A handy tip: focus on the keywords. Search for these keywords and the resulting groups are your best bets to start. Additionally, ask other members which other relevant groups would they recommend?
Utilize Company Profiles
Your LinkedIn B2B lead generation efforts could use optimization on both your personal and company pages. A common LinkedIn B2B marketing mistake made by users is focusing too much on their personal pages and ignoring the company page.
You need to keep in mind that after all is said and done, your potential clients will still likely tend up browsing your company profile. If they are left unimpressed or not as impressed as they were with your personal profile, they might start having doubts about a deal.
Your company profile should reflect all its achievements and why it can be trusted. Furthermore, you’re likely to generate more leads if your personal profile has links to your company profile and vice versa. They must complement each other. Doing so can consolidate your LinkedIn B2B lead generation efforts.
Optimize Your Profile
Your profile (both personal and professional) needs to stand out from the rest of the competition.
Your Profile Should Tell a Story
Achievements are important; listing them is even more important. In the end, they won’t matter much if you don’t present them in the proper context.
If you were able to achieve a significant increase in your company’s sales, you need to paint a complete picture and tell them what challenges you faced, how you dealt with them, and what you wish you could’ve done differently.
This goes the same for your personal profile, as well. It needs to tell a story. All your personal accomplishments need to present a narrative of how you were able to build on one successful venture after another.
Use LinkedIn’s Matrices
Like I said earlier, once you get serious in your LinkedIn B2B marketing efforts, the possibilities are nearly endless. The platform offers a tremendous number of tools that, if used properly, can yield promising results.
Make sure that all your employees have your company name in their profile descriptions. It may allow potential clients to see the dedication of your team as well as the talent they’ll be dealing with. Other ways to maximize the use of LinkedIn for B2B is by uploading all your promotional content on your LinkedIn, getting testimonials from previous clients, and marketing these testimonials properly.
Keep Growing
At the end of all this, the prospects you’ll achieve via LinkedIn are only as good as the efforts you put into. LinkedIn, like other platforms, constantly changes its platforms and the way its users interact with one another. This means, what works today may not work tomorrow.
Hence, you must keep growing and updating your practices. Whatever changes LinkedIn mat bring in the future, there will never be any compromise on the quality of your content. So, make sure whatever content you put online is original and adds something unique.
All the ways, tactics, and tips discussed in this LinkedIn B2B marketing guide are free and easy to use. This should be enough for you to take LinkedIn seriously and make it a highlight of your inbound and outbound marketing efforts.
