B2B LinkedIn Marketing Strategies

In a sea of B2B brands on social media, it can be tough to stand out from the crowd. But with a little creativity, your brand can be the one that breaks through the noise. 

Last week six & flow attended inbound 2022. In one of the B2B sessions, LinkedIn offered a deep dive into how to make the most out of the Platform.  This blog post offers insight into B2B LinkedIn marketing strategies you can use to navigate through the crowd and stand out. 

Strategy first. Tactics second.

When planning your LinkedIn marketing strategy, sit down and answer the following questions first.

1. What existing collateral pieces do you already have 
2. Where do you get most of your content for marketing 
3. Who are the important thought leaders
4. What stage of the funnel does this collateral solve?
   
   

The goal here is to look at what you’ve already got. Your marketing team and thought leaders at your organisation have likely given you a scavenger hunt…or if you use HubSpot, a checklist… of existing collateral Inbound Marketing strategies. As a marketer, your life will become easier to find these valuable pieces of content and repurpose them.

To learn more about how HubSpot can help with B2B content, visit our Why Use HubSpot page.

In this article, we will discuss how to develop a linkedin marketing strategy.

B2B Marketing - You still need to market to a human.

Marketing to an emotion

While yes, B2B marketing is about crafting a message that shows how your business can deliver value to another business…

But, we often forget that there is a human sitting at the other end of a computer.

The decision-maker in any organisation is a human being, so it's essential to create content that appeals to their emotions. 

Humans remember how something made them feel, not stats or numbers. 

Example content from B2B companies that have tapped into emotions

Samsung

Samsung asked their team which innovations they are most excited about in 2021. In this example, Sansung humanised its brand. They tapped into the personal stories of the people who saw the innovations being built first-hand. They then asked these individuals, to share their personal opinion. 

Six & Flow thought leadership

Yes, I am using Six & Flow as an example here… But there is a good reason for it. Our team is passionate about our agency and HubSpot. And to those who follow us on LinkedIn, my guess is you’ve probably noticed that as well. 

Our team believes in the HubSpot product and our services. They share personal content that means something to them. And as a result, they are able to connect with their audience.

Each week, our Managing director sits down with real people to discuss the challenges and successes of business leaders. It’s human. It’s unfiltered. It’s The Six Sessions. It shows our visitors that there are in fact, people behind the brand. Rich shows visitors that you too can connect with businesses on a human level. 

Humanise your B2B brand’s voice

Six & Flow is knowledgeable. We are creative. We are frank. And, we are playful.

The humans that make up Six & Flow contribute to our brand voice and it is showcased in our work with clients. This voice needs to be captured in our Inbound Marketing strategies and sales strategies as well. The voice carried in our company's LinkedIn posts needs to be used in our LinkedIn marketing efforts.

So, don’t be afraid to let your brand’s personality shine through to boost reliability. 

Get Personal with B2B Marketing

Think: How does it help MY PROBLEMS instead of how does it help my organisation 

What does this do? 

By getting personal in your Inbound Marketing strategies you are communicating helpful and relevant content. Your brand is helping individuals achieve their own personal goals. 

Tips to get personal with B2B Marketing

• Ignite Audience Passion Points - what is your audience passionate about? How can your message evoke those passions? 
• Be concise, compelling, clear
• Call out your audience by their name - rather than being general, call out specific audience groups.
• Use 2-3 hashtags per post
• Avoid posting just your recent blogs. Create social posts that start a conversation and encourage your audience to engage. 

LinkedIn B2B Marketing Tactics

Retarget nurturing campaigns

Video & Events:

For lead generation LinkedIn advertisements, you can create a retargeting campaign that nurtures prospects who watched 25% of your video. 

We know that people need multiple touchpoints with your brand before making the decision to purchase. In fact, it usually takes about ten touches before they even reach the consideration stage. That means they need to engage with an average of 10 pieces of content before they purchase.

Within LinkedIn, you can set up an audience whereby if a visitor watches 25% of your video, you can add them to a retargeting list. 

Single Image Ad Interactions:

LinkedIn has recently rolled out a new feature where visitors who have clicked your call to action can be enrolled into an audience list. This means that whether or not the visitor has navigated to your website, their initial intent allows you to complete retargeting. 

For single-image ads, you can retarget anyone who has completed an interaction on that ad, whether it be a comment or a reshare. 

To learn about importing prospecting data into LinkedIn, check out this blog article.

Carousel ads

Storytelling is an essential ingredient to any inbound strategy. There is an endless supply of information competing for our attention. In this noise, the ability to capture someone's attention and hold it long enough to tell a story is a valuable commodity. 

This is where carousels come in. Carousels are a powerful tool for storytelling because they allow you to control the pace and order of the story. They also offer a visually engaging way to tell a story, which can help it to stand out in a crowded feed.

Tip: Add 2-5 slides for the strongest performance.

Post long form content on LinkedIn articles

The ‘Big Rock Content’ secret is about repurposing content. Repurpose. Repurpose. Repurpose. 

Remember how I mentioned that prospects engage with an average of 10 pieces of content before they purchase. Well, have you tried creating LinkedIn articles yet? 

Your visitors will find content unique to your brand through different methods. The more forms of distribution you test, the greater likelihood you will tap into your audience group preferences.

For example, many of the applicants that apply to our careers page will typically navigate to our LinkedIn Profile first. As such, you will find helpful LinkedIn posts that talk about our brand and hiring process.  

You can check out our most recent LinkedIn article, the Six & Flow Ideal Teammate

Create a weekly newsletter

Do you run a weekly podcast? Or, an email newsletter campaign? 

If so, there is a great opportunity to expand your reach by creating a newsletter on LinkedIn.

Six & Flow does this for our Six Sessions podcast. After each episode, we distribute a newsletter for our LinkedIn Six Session’s subscribers. 

A final note

There is one final note that I’d like to leave with you.

Bring value to people’s lives.

You may think, this is a given, Sarah! But the reality is that many companies share content just to share content. Blog posts, videos, and images will only be engaging if you are offering value. 

Once the content is engaging, you then need to make it easy for your audience to take the next steps.

 Include actionable CTAs and remove friction. For advertisements, consider testing lead generation forms. 

Tip: Include 3-5 properties to collect.