In the realm of professional networking and business growth, LinkedIn shines brightly as a gold standard. With its unique blend of professional networking and content-sharing features, LinkedIn offers a treasure trove of opportunities for businesses to grow and monetize.

Imagine your LinkedIn profile as a storefront in a digital market. How can you attract passersby, catch their interest, and convert them into loyal customers?

This guide will teach you how to use LinkedIn for b2b marketing, uncover LinkedIn marketing tips, and show you how to grow your business on LinkedIn.

Key LinkedIn Marketing Strategy Takeaways

1. Set SMART Goals: Outline your LinkedIn marketing goals using the SMART framework—Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.
2. Identify Your KPIs: Determine the key performance indicators that align with your marketing goals to measure your strategy's success.
3. Conduct User and Competitor Research: Understand your target audience by conducting user research and creating user personas. Gain additional insights by analyzing your competitors' LinkedIn accounts.
4. Optimize Your LinkedIn Page: Write a compelling company description, utilize relevant keywords and phrases, and ensure your profile has attractive visuals to grab attention.
5. Create a Content Strategy: Implement the 80/20 content philosophy, with 80% of your content being top-of-funnel and 20% bottom-of-funnel. Regularly use LinkedIn Analytics to gain insights into your content's performance.
6. Engage with Your Audience: Regularly interact with your audience by responding to comments and messages. Use tools like Aware to enhance this engagement.
7. Explore LinkedIn Advertising: If suitable for your business, learn how to create, manage, and optimize LinkedIn ad campaigns. Understand the targeting options and how to measure ad performance.
8. Analyze and Adjust Your Strategy: Continually monitor your strategy's success, conduct A/B testing, and adjust your approach based on data and competitor analysis.

Defining Your LinkedIn Marketing Goals

Just like embarking on a road trip requires a map, effective LinkedIn marketing requires clear, tangible goals. These goals serve as your compass, guiding your strategies and tactics. It could be anything from increasing brand visibility, boosting audience engagement, or driving lead generation and sales.

Picture this: What do you want your LinkedIn marketing to achieve? Is it to expand your LinkedIn followers by 20% in the coming quarter, or perhaps to enhance organic traffic to your website via LinkedIn? No matter what your goals are, ensure they are SMART—Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

Identifying Marketing KPIs for LinkedIn

With your goals defined, the next step is to identify your LinkedIn Marketing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). KPIs are measurable values that demonstrate the effectiveness of your marketing efforts in achieving your stated objectives. Think of them as the milestones on your road trip to success.

KPIs for LinkedIn Marketing could include engagement metrics like likes, shares, and comments your posts receive. Other important KPIs could be the number of profile or content views or new followers your company page gains.

For those running LinkedIn ads, conversion rates, and click-through rates become essential KPIs to monitor.

Consider this: KPIs are like the vital signs of your marketing strategy. Monitoring them regularly can provide valuable insights into the health and effectiveness of your marketing efforts.

Want to learn more about identifying your key LinkedIn KPIs? Check out this comprehensive guide on LinkedIn Analytics.

Setting SMART Objectives for Your Strategy

SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. It's important to set SMART objectives for your LinkedIn marketing strategy in order to point you in the right direction

Let's explore this concept a little further:

Specific: Make your objectives clear and concise. For instance, instead of saying, "I want to grow my LinkedIn audience," aim for "I want to grow my LinkedIn audience by 15% over the next two months."

Measurable: Ensure you can track and quantify your objectives. If your goal is to boost engagement, specify what "increased engagement" means—is it a 15% increase in comments or a 20% rise in shares?

Achievable: Set realistic and attainable objectives. If you are a start-up, gaining a million followers in a month might not be feasible.

Realistic: Your objectives should align with your overall business goals. If your primary business goal is to increase sales, your LinkedIn objective might be to increase traffic to your product pages.

Time-bound: Set a timeline for achieving your objectives. This helps foster a sense of urgency and keeps you motivated.

Imagine your SMART objectives as your roadmap for your LinkedIn marketing journey. They provide a clear, focused, and personalized path to achieving your business needs.

Finding & Understanding Your Target Audience on LinkedIn

Knowing your audience is the cornerstone of any successful marketing strategy, and LinkedIn is no exception. Your target audience consists of the LinkedIn users who are most likely to engage with your content, follow your company page, or potentially purchase your products or services.

How do you identify this group? And once identified, how do you understand their needs and preferences? Let's break it down.

Finding the Core Message of Your Account

Creating an impactful core message is an integral part of LinkedIn marketing. Your core message should reflect your brand's mission, values, and vision. It serves as the foundation of your communication, helping you to establish a consistent voice that resonates with your target audience.

When finding your core message, start by understanding your unique selling proposition (USP). What sets your business apart from the competition? This could be superior quality, innovative solutions, exceptional service, or any other unique aspect of your business.

Next, consider your brand's values and mission. What is your company's purpose beyond profit? This could involve enhancing people's lives, addressing a social issue, or transforming an industry. Your mission and values should be inspiring and align with your audience's interests.

Your core message should also resonate with your target audience's pain points and aspirations. Understand what problems your audience faces and how your products or services can provide solutions. Also, consider your audience's aspirations and align your message to help them achieve their goals.

How to Conduct User Research

Conducting user research on LinkedIn involves analyzing your audience's demographics, interests, and behaviors to gain insights that will guide your marketing strategy. Some techniques include:

• Surveys/Polls: You can conduct surveys to understand your audience's interests, preferences, and pain points.

• Analytics: Use LinkedIn Analytics to examine who is engaging with your content and visiting your profile.

• Engagement: Look at the comments, shares, and likes on your posts to understand what type of content resonates with your audience.

Each persona should include characteristics such as industry, job role, LinkedIn usage habits, and key business challenges or objectives. For example, a persona might be "Marketing Mike," a marketing manager in the tech sector who uses LinkedIn to keep up-to-date with industry news and best practices.

Consider this: User research is like the reconnaissance mission before the main battle—it's all about gathering intelligence to inform your strategy. You can be the best soldier in the world, but if you get deployed to a battlefield with no equipment, you don't stand a chance

Create User Personas

User personas are fictional representations of your ideal customers based on the data and insights gathered from your user research. They help you understand your audience's needs, experiences, behaviors, and goals.

For example, one of your user personas could be "Marketing Mary," a marketing manager in her mid-30s who is always on the lookout for innovative marketing tools and strategies.

Remember, a detailed user persona should include demographic information, professional background, goals, challenges, and preferences. And just like a photograph would make a story more relatable, you can even include a hypothetical picture of your persona to make them more realistic.

A free resource you can use to create a persona is Hubspot's make my persona tool

This tool gives you an outline of questions to ask in order to fully understand who your buyer's are and what type of characteristics they have so that you can more effectively target them with your strategy.

Analyzing Competitors’ LinkedIn Accounts

Understanding what your competitors are doing on LinkedIn can provide valuable insights. Look at their posts, engagement rates, and audience feedback. What are they doing right? Where are they falling short? What can you learn from them?

Here are some steps to analyze your competitors' LinkedIn accounts:

1. Identify your competitors: Make a list of your main competitors on LinkedIn.
2. Analyze their company pages: Look at their company pages to see how they present themselves. What is their messaging? What kind of visuals do they use? How frequently do they post?
3. Review their content: Look at the kind of content they post and how often they post it. What topics do they cover? What kind of engagement do their posts receive?
4. Check their engagement: Look at their followers' engagement with their content. Check the number of likes, comments, and shares their posts receive. This will help you identify the type of content that resonates with their audience.
5. Look at their employees: Check their employees' LinkedIn profiles. What kind of content do they share? What kind of engagement do they receive? This will help you understand their company culture and how they approach LinkedIn marketing.

By doing so, you can understand what your competitors do right and wrong, & in your strategy, you can take what works and leave what doesn't.

Optimizing Your LinkedIn Company Profile

Your LinkedIn company profile is your brand's digital business card on the platform. It's the first impression potential followers, clients, or partners get of your business. Therefore, it's crucial to ensure your profile is not only informative but also engaging and appealing. Let's dive into how you can optimize it to attract and retain your target audience.

How to Write a Compelling Company Description

A compelling company description tells the story of your brand and its value proposition in a concise yet engaging way. It should clearly articulate who you are, what you do, and how you can help your target audience. Remember to keep it professional, yet personable.

Your company description is like an elevator pitch. It's your chance to spark interest and make a lasting impression. So, think about what you would say if you had only 30 seconds to impress a potential client.

Here's an example of a company description that does all of this perfectly from https://www.linkedin.com/company/awareb2b/about/

In this example, you can see that the value proposition is clearly stated, which lets people who visit the account instantly read this section and know what the company does.

Utilizing The Right Keywords In The Specialties Section

Keywords and phrases are essential in making your LinkedIn company profile more discoverable. These are words or phrases your target audience might use when searching for businesses like yours on LinkedIn. Including these in your company description, posts, and other areas of your profile can improve your visibility on the platform.

For example, if you're a marketing automation company, some relevant keywords might be "marketing automation," "email marketing," and "customer relationship management." Remember, it's not about stuffing your profile with keywords but integrating them naturally and relevantly into your content.

Importance of Having Attractive Visuals

Visuals play a significant role in attracting and retaining your audience's attention. They can enhance the aesthetic appeal of your profile and make your content more engaging.

A profile picture, banner image, and unique visuals in your posts are all areas of your profile that benefit tremendously from having a unique and eye-catching aesthetic to them.

Companies With Well Optimized Pages

Here are examples of companies that effectively use visuals on their LinkedIn profiles:

1. HackerEarth uses visual content in different ways:
   an official announcement of their upcoming webinar

an announcement of their partnership with Zappyhire

a slideshow showing off their newsletter

1. Razer Inc., a gaming lifestyle brand, they have a distinct green and black color scheme that makes them easily identifiable and stand out from the crowd

1. Airbnb uses their page’s about section to showcase their brand’s international reach, and the personality and culture of those who work there.

4. Goodr, a sporting goods brand, embraces a unique, quirky personality on their LinkedIn page, which is conveyed even through their visuals.

Develop a LinkedIn Marketing Strategy

In LinkedIn marketing, the 80/20 rule is an effective approach to your content strategy. It suggests that 80% of your content should be top-of-the-funnel, focusing on providing value, building trust, and nurturing relationships with your audience. The remaining 20%, which often produces the most tangible results, should be bottom-of-the-funnel content aimed at promoting your products or services, generating leads, and driving conversions.

Content that Gets Reach

Top-of-the-funnel or reach content primarily is what will make up 80% of the content you should be posting, this focuses on engaging your audience, building your brand's credibility, and developing relationships.

Including thought leadership articles, industry trends, educational posts, and engaging questions or polls in your content strategy is a good way to boost the reach of your account and get more eyes on your profile.

This content is not overtly promotional but is designed to pique interest, spark conversations, and grow your LinkedIn network.

Content that Converts into Cash

The 20% of your content that is bottom-of-the-funnel is what often leads to conversions and revenue. This type of content includes product demonstrations, customer testimonials, case studies, or direct promotional posts about your products or services. Although it forms a smaller portion of your content mix, it is often the most impactful in driving tangible business results.

Aligning Content with Marketing Funnel

Aligning your content with the different stages of the marketing funnel ensures you are effectively guiding your LinkedIn connections from being mere audience members to becoming paying customers. This means creating awareness and interest with your top-of-the-funnel content, sparking desire with your mid-funnel content, and driving action with your bottom-of-the-funnel content.

Content Creation Tips and Best Practices

Here are some tips and best practices for creating engaging and effective LinkedIn content:

• Be authentic: Authenticity resonates with audiences. Share your company's journey, values, and stories.
• Stay relevant: Keep your content relevant to your industry and audience's interests.
• Leverage different content formats: Mix up your content formats. Use videos, images, infographics, and text posts to keep things interesting.
• Encourage engagement: Ask questions, encourage feedback, and interact with your audience.
• Consistency is key: Post regularly to maintain visibility and engagement.

Using LinkedIn Analytics for Content Insights

LinkedIn Analytics is an invaluable tool for gaining insights into your content performance. It helps you understand which types of content are resonating with your audience, when the best times to post are, and who is engaging with your posts. You can use these insights to refine your content strategy and ensure you're effectively engaging your audience and driving your desired business outcomes. For a deeper dive into LinkedIn Analytics, check out this comprehensive guide on LinkedIn Analytics.

Engaging with Your LinkedIn Audience

Engagement is the lifeblood of any successful LinkedIn marketing strategy. It's not just about broadcasting your content, but also about fostering conversations, building relationships, and creating a vibrant, engaged community around your brand. Let's delve into why engagement is so crucial and how you can effectively engage with your LinkedIn audience.

Why Engaging with Your Audience Makes You More Money

Engagement is a two-way street. When you interact with your audience, you're not only making them feel valued, but you're also gaining valuable insights into their needs, preferences, and opinions. This can inform your marketing strategy, helping you tailor your offerings and messaging to better suit your audience.

Moreover, high engagement levels can lead to increased visibility on LinkedIn. The more likes, comments, and shares your posts receive, the more likely they are to appear in your followers' feeds and even beyond your immediate network. This can result in increased brand awareness, more followers, and ultimately, more potential customers.

In other words, engagement is an investment that pays dividends in the form of stronger customer relationships, valuable business insights, and improved business outcomes.

Responding to Comments and Messages

Responding to comments and messages is a key aspect of audience engagement. It shows your audience that you value their input and are eager to foster a dialogue. Whether it's a simple thank you for a positive comment, a detailed response to a question, or a constructive reply to criticism, your responses can help build trust, cultivate relationships, and enhance your brand's reputation.

Remember, every comment or message is an opportunity to engage with your audience and reinforce your brand values. So make sure to respond promptly and professionally, and always keep the conversation positive and constructive.

Using Aware to Engage With your Audience

Aware is our LinkedIn tool designed to help you supercharge your engagement efforts. With its powerful features, you can monitor your LinkedIn activity, track your engagement metrics, and even automate some of your engagement tasks.

For example, you can use Aware to schedule your posts at optimal times, track your post-performance, and get real-time notifications of comments and messages, ensuring you never miss an opportunity to engage with your audience.

By taking the guesswork out of engagement, Aware allows you to focus on what really matters—building authentic relationships with your audience and growing your brand on LinkedIn.

You can also capture everything your team is doing on LinkedIn - connections, comments, reactions, messages - in Salesforce or Hubspot CRM.

Sign up for Aware today and get a free 7-day trial.

LinkedIn Advertising

LinkedIn Advertising can be a powerful tool in your digital marketing arsenal, giving you access to a network of professionals who are ready to engage with your brand. Let's explore how you can leverage LinkedIn ads to reach your marketing goals.

Overview of LinkedIn Ads

LinkedIn ads offer a way to promote your content directly to the professionals who matter most to your business. With a variety of ad formats such as Sponsored Content, Message Ads, Dynamic Ads, and Text Ads, you can tailor your message to meet your objectives, whether it's building brand awareness, generating leads, or driving website traffic.

Are LinkedIn Ads Right for Your LinkedIn Strategy?

Before diving into LinkedIn ads, it's essential to consider whether they align with your business goals and audience. Here's a quick checklist to help you decide if LinkedIn ads are right for you:

• Your target audience is on LinkedIn: LinkedIn is a platform for professionals. If your product or service caters to professionals, businesses, or job seekers, LinkedIn ads might be a good fit.
• You have a clear business goal: Whether it's brand awareness, lead generation, or website traffic, LinkedIn ads can help you reach your objectives.
• You have the budget: LinkedIn ads operate on a bidding system, and the cost may be higher than other social media platforms. Ensure you have a budget that aligns with your goals.
• You have high-quality content: LinkedIn users value professional, high-quality content. You'll need compelling visuals and copy to stand out.
• You can invest time in optimization: Like any ad platform, LinkedIn requires testing and optimization for the best results.

Creating and Managing Ad Campaigns

Creating a LinkedIn ad campaign involves several steps. First, you'll need to choose your objectives, such as website visits, engagement, or lead generation. Next, you'll select your target audience based on factors like location, industry, job function, and more.

After setting your budget and schedule, you'll choose your ad format and create your ad. Remember to include a strong call-to-action (CTA) and compelling visuals to make your ad stand out.

Once your ad is live, manage your campaign by monitoring its performance and making necessary adjustments to optimize its success.

Targeting Options for LinkedIn Ads

LinkedIn offers robust targeting options that allow you to reach the right professionals with your ads. You can target based on demographics such as location, age, and gender, as well as professional criteria like industry, job function, and seniority. You can also target based on interests, skills, groups, and more.

Measuring Ad Performance and Optimization

LinkedIn provides detailed analytics that allows you to measure your ad's performance against your set objectives. Key metrics include impressions, clicks, click-through rate (CTR), conversion rate, and cost per conversion.

Regularly review these metrics and make necessary adjustments to your campaign to optimize its performance. This could mean tweaking your ad copy or visuals, adjusting your bid, or refining your target audience.

Conclusion

LinkedIn is a powerful platform for businesses to connect with professionals, share valuable content, and achieve their marketing goals. However, success on LinkedIn doesn't happen overnight—it requires a well-thought-out strategy, continuous monitoring and optimization, and an understanding of your audience.

In this guide, we've walked you through the steps to define your goals, understand your target audience, optimize your company profile, create engaging content, and effectively use LinkedIn ads. We've also discussed the importance of continuous strategy analysis, adjustment, and engagement with your audience.

Remember, LinkedIn marketing is a journey. With patience, perseverance, and the right strategy, you can harness the power of LinkedIn to grow your brand, engage with your audience, and drive business results.