Linkedin campaigns, much more than a B2B strategy

LinkedIn, it is no longer just that Social Network that you consult to see how the labor market is.

Really, not only your classmates, bosses, teachers and friends give you recommendations, but… and the brands? They are also on LinkedIn, and they are looking for you.

Are you a LinkedIn user? Stay here and see how brands find you.

Are you a brand? Stay, and here is your B2B strategy … oh! and B2C too.

We are going to skip the typical question for which we would start any post; what is your goal? Of course, you already have to have it defined if you have decided to include this platform in your strategy.

The new resources of LinkedIn and those that are about to come allow us to carry out campaigns with brand recognition, we talk about the famous branding, but let’s not forget that we are impacting users. Yes, audiences that tell us what they do, what they care about, what they need or need in their work environment and increasingly, in their personal sphere, because yes, LinkedIn users, besides being audiences, are people, with likes and preferences…. And here is our key to success: professional profiles with concerns + a little ingenuity and grace in communication. What prevents you from doing performance or creative campaigns? Let me explain to you.

One of the most searched phrases is Linkedin Advertising. So let’s go to what makes us interested, what kind of campaigns can be done on LinkedIn? And which formats have better performance?

Defining campaigns is a tedious process, simply finding the right audience and how to tell you the message we want to convey is what draws the line of success between online advertising and the brand. In Digital Menta, we like to know our customers deeply, their DNA, what and who they are, because they work like this, why advertise that product and not another, and of course, what are their unique selling points, what we all know by the value differentiation proposal.

Many times, when we have all this information, it is we who transmit it to the client, and that is our USP. So for that, we don’t need to differentiate between branding, performance, direct response, etc. We need to mark an extensive line in time and create an audience, a need and a message for each moment or moment of this line, showing them the same message in different contexts, formats and of course adapting the campaign to its objective.

In short, what I just named is the axis of everything, and from here we can create an ecosystem of audiences. On LinkedIn there are B2B audiences, but also B2C (let’s not forget that professionals are also people). How do we get to them? We segment campaigns by seniority categories; by position, sectors, skills and interests. A / B testing has led us to know what the four categories of success are and that, combining them with the best rich media formats, successful campaigns have emerged.

Another point that we must take into account is what market we are working on. Each country acts differently and are more or less likely to use their data in networks such as LinkedIn. However, it is true that this network every day implements more and better formats, which help users to interact more and generate interested profiles to this content, which gives greater confidence and usability.

LinkedIn has adapted to the new form of advertising consumption and has done it little by little.

What have been the latest formats we have tried?

• Native Video: The shorter videos have better completion rates, but the longer ones are more effective when it comes to telling something complex. Don’t forget to include humor and good feelings, people are seeing it. The LinkedIn audience responds to video content regardless of its duration, focus on the message.

I leave you an example of Telefónica’s success.

And now you will think, ok… but I am not Netflix, nor Telefónica, but this is an idea, you just have to adapt your resources to your needs .

• Dynamic Ads: Take the opportunity to send a direct and visual message. LinkedIn offers you to bid to CPM or CPC and customized. Of course, only on desktop devices.
• Lead Generation: This format does not come to us again, but remains the king of lead achievement. The volume of leads is not comparable with that of other platforms, but they are of higher quality. Its CPL is somewhat higher, but depending on the market we can see a clear difference: in Latin markets it is cheaper compared to the Anglo-Saxon market, higher but affordable. Here you realize that LinkedIn works, and it works well.
• Carousel: Another format that is not new, but is available. Under our experience, it serves to show a product or service with several examples, but it is not the key to a better or worse campaign, it is simply visible.

Segment and you will reign or the content is the king, they are phrases that you will have heard a thousand times… ladies and gentlemen, this is the digital revolution, has nobody thought that they have saturated us with advertising and users have decided to consume it in another way?

This is just a brief brushstroke of the options offered by LinkedIn ,but let’s go a little further. We will assess how to treat these people, when to address them and how to manage them to achieve the best possible results in campaigns. Also, how these act within the network.

We will contemplate that these people are in different environments, both outside and within their leisure time. Yes, although it is surprising, we visit LinkedIn outside working hours, especially on weekends. And voila, it turns out that campaigns work!

Do you shop online on Sundays? Surely yes. Well, LinkedIn also works.

After analyzing that from Thursday to Sunday the campaigns had a quite high performance, and conversions, I decided to investigate why in a fully professional network, with B2B profiles, which is visited from Monday to Friday, from 09.00 to 18.00h, these campaigns obtained good results. One of the first steps was to question the following aspects:

What do people look for on LinkedIn advertising?

• LinkedIn strategies companies
• LinkedIn marketing strategies
• LinkedIn Sales strategies

And then, we must ask ourselves what users who use LinkedIn are looking for or need, which will give us the key on what content to promote.

What do people do on LinkedIn?

• He expresses his opinion and tells experiences on his wall, that is, he is an active user.
• Show interest in a specific topic, recommend, share, comment, that is, generate engagement. It can be considered as an active user or a mere observer.
• Support, value and recommend the work and good work of their colleagues and professionals they know.
• They generate conversation, they do Networking

Analyze you, observe you as a user. You are your best target audience! Also, ask your family, friends, coworkers, etc., they are your best Lookalike.

These points, which seem insignificant, sometimes make you understand many of the behaviors of users on the network, and consequently, will improve the results of your campaigns.

We are advertising on a network that we think has a professional nature, in which contacts are generated, “plays” to run for an opinion, find relevant content, makes you be close to your contacts, acquaintances, etc…in it . However, you also find people you admire, whom you would like to look like, could we call them prescribers? Yes, there are also influencers in the workplace. Apart from that you also find development opportunities and you can even start to develop the occasional relationship.

Have you noticed that after all that I have told you about what we use LinkedIn for, I have not yet told you that users also use it to look for work? It is the main concept you have, but no longer its main function.

Have you thought about what would happen if Amazon, Google and Facebook got together and started showing us everything they know about us? If we add LinkedIn to this group, they could even tell us what kind of company could be more profitable, with what product we would be more motivated to work, what functionalities to put it and even how, when, where and with whom to run it. This is so that you get an idea of ​​the magnitude that LinkedIn is taking as such.

Conversion, a LinkedIn marketing strategy that works

In the following graph we can see the performance of a campaign:

This is a campaign segmented by seniority (to positions) with conversion objective: achievement of potential leads, summer period (end of June 2018). Let’s analyze:

• Days with greater conversion trend:
  • 06/21/2018 Thursday
  • 06/24/2018 Sunday
• Days with lower conversion trend:
  • 06/19: Tuesday
  • 06/26: Tuesday

What you are thinking is true, the target audience of this LinkedIn visit campaign from Thursday to Sunday, so we should empower it to get more conversion during the weekend. But this performance must be analyzed for each campaign, each segmentation, etc. Since it can vary from one to another.

In the end, LinkedIn has multiple functionalities for users. Now LinkedIn is already that social network where users with an older age are present and are active users, where millennial generation has long been the emerging user, turning this social network into a “new space to consume and / or create content more relevant. ” It is this generation, the digital one, that does not understand schedules, or seasonality, and where companies and / or where appropriate, responsible for these, consume it and even find it indispensable.

The passage of time has created a new concept of what LinkedIn was, and that adapting to the needs of the user is the guaranteed success of all companies, even if you are a digital platform.

But as we said before, not all markets work the same way. The previous graph shows campaigns in the United States, in Spain we are still a bit faithful to the established work schedule and that is reflected in the results of the campaigns, but it is true that in the last quarter of 2018 changes were observed that encourage us to think what 2019 will mark a very North American trend, and Latin markets will begin to not understand online standards. We will see at the end of the year how it has evolved.

Digital Marketing strategies can also have a Plan B

Speaking of not understanding norms, have you considered how GDPR works within LinkedIn?

It was one of the most talked about topics in the digital world in 2018, and it took us head to all of us who had campaigns that deal with personal data. Sorry to confess it late, but LinkedIn was salvation.

It began, and although with many changes, it is still a professional network that deals with personal data but with a commercial nature, a condition that we accept when becoming members, which allowed us to work with them without any discrepancy during the whole process of adaptation to the new law.

Take note, creating good Inbound strategies with data obtained from LinkedIn can be a case of online commercial success. Or, as I indicated in the subtitle, a good Plan B. When you fail to achieve your goal: sell, capture, etc…you must also analyze how it has worked at the level of branding. Good communication and / or brand image management helps to enhance this point. We must also not forget another point we have pointed out, the A / B testing. Trial and error is the key to success.

If it were the case, you are creating campaigns on a network that is still marking its functionality, where there are multiple types of users, each one managing their feed in a different way, we can even create new interests and needs by bringing our brand closer to the user, that Yes, you have to take care of the details. Always think about where you are: in a social network that began with a professional use and that they expect from our brand:

• Relevance: it is not necessary to communicate everything, only what is really interesting. Nor is it necessary to plan a certain number of weekly posts, this could already be considered of the last century.
• Seriousness and commitment. We must treat communication as something important in our tasks (copies of the campaigns as well) and be committed to the digital medium, without realizing that news that you have shared about your sector has affected you as a brand, and much.
• And above all news. We visit it at least once every two days for older users, and once and twice a day for younger users or with a special interest in creating personal branding (also in search of employment).

I encourage you to believe in LinkedIn strategies, to build and implement them, and if they don’t work, analyze and take a spin, remember: trial and error is not only valid in Social Networks, it is valid for everything.