In this podcast, Chester Hester, a LinkedIn power connector with more than 16,000 direct connections, shares his tips on creating an effective B2B marketing strategy on LinkedIn.
LinkedIn might have a smaller audience than other social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, but it still has a huge base of prospective clients for B2B marketers. In fact, businesses are more likely to buy your products or services if you are active and established on LinkedIn.
According to Chuck Hester, LinkedIn is the ultimate B2B content marketing tool where people are connecting with businesses to do business. This is quite obvious considering the fact that LinkedIn users usually seek professional and career development, and not products that they’ll use in their personal lives.
3 Smart Ways to Start B2B Marketing on LinkedIn
For an effective distribution strategy for B2B marketing, here are three key areas within LinkedIn that you need to concentrate on:
1. Update Your Status with Engaging Content
This is used for quick, tweet-like pieces of information that you put out to other users. Ensure that the content you share drives engagement from your potential market. The content you put out is the most important part of your B2B marketing strategy.
2. Join LinkedIn Groups with Potential Clients
Being part of a group of other marketers and colleagues is great, but it might not be so beneficial to you simply because they are not going to buy your products or services. You have to concentrate on your core audience and join groups in which you can be a vendor. Such groups will give you the opportunity to build great business relationships with potential clients.
3. Utilize the LinkedIn Publishing Feature
LinkedIn Publisher came out three years ago, and it provides users with a platform to blog from. Once you publish a post or an article from your profile, you can share it to other platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and relevant LinkedIn groups. You can also message it directly to your first-level LinkedIn connections.
Engage your readers so that they comment and share your posts. Ask them what they think of the article, what their personal views are, if the content was helpful, and other similar questions.
What’s more, you can mention and tag your key connections in your posts. Ensure you link back to their articles if you used their ideas. Send them a direct message to notify them that you’ve mentioned them and thank them for the helpful posts.
Establish a Relationship before Selling
If you have not developed a relationship with your client, you may find it difficult to sell to them. Building a business relationship on LinkedIn is as easy as joining different groups, direct messaging, or sending quick invitations to connect with some really good information on why you want to connect.
With an established relationship with a potential client, you are definitely going to nail down that sale. With the above tips, you don’t have to pay so much to advertise on LinkedIn.