The truth is people by from people, especially when it comes to B2B. I may be sticking my neck out here but looking at Marketing Sherpa’s recent benchmark report I can see that traditional direct marketing just isn’t performaing the same way it did 2 years ago. When I say ‘traditional’ I mean email direct marketing, something that many organisations still see as a route to market.
Amazingly use of social media is on the increase. This may be helped by recent introduction of Google+ but according ComScore research, social media platforms account for 3 out of every 4 minutes spent on the internet!
Whilst much of this might be inane conversations I recently saw LinkedIn’s stats and was quite shocked at how often senior managers spend pruning their profiles and seeking people to connect with.
LinkedIn tell us the by for the biggest industry active on their platform is in Information technology. Combine this with 35% of user visiting at least once a day and you have a ready made marketing platform.
But how do you use LinkedIn? Once you’ve got your profile up then what? Many LinkedIn users use their profile only never to return, despite the potential opportunity to connect with prospective employers and customers. For many LinkedIn is just too hard to connect with people that you’ve never met.
But that shouldn’t be the case.
LinkedIn gives users the ability to build profiles that engage and attract prospects and the ability to drive genuine interest on busines topics through ‘Groups’.
LinkedIn groups are there to facilitate discussions, job posts and networking under a single topic. And, it seems, most topics are covered. LinkedIn allows users to belong to up to 50 Groups – so there’s plenty of opportunity to network if you know where your target audience mingle and you have the sort of profile page that won’t make visitors run away.
Be honest. If you’re an IT buyer, who are you going to respond to? An email from the marketing team or a direct, relevant and personal message from a business owner? If your proposition is attractive and your persona compelling people with respond to a peer. So it makes sence to optimise your LinkedIn presence to make sure you’re talking to and connected to the people that matter most to your business. Connecting to people in your groups enables you to so this.
But before you start to randomly send invites to connect be warned. LinkedIn will ban you from sending invites to group members if 5 or more reciepients report you as spamming. Here’s whar you need to do…
Build your profile first
Is your profile page good enough? Remember people are connecting with you the individual not the company so make sure it’s engageing, interesting, chatty even but don’t use your profile as a sales page – whay would anyone want to connect with a sales page.
Join the Groups where your customers are
I’m always amazed at the number of IT co directors that join their industries groups and thats it. If you’re selling to FS sector join IT FS job groups. Go where your target audience hang out not where your competitors look for talent.
Add value to the group
Before you attempt to connect with anyone in your groups you need to build your visiblty and credibility for the group. Add to discussions, share ideas, links and topics but don’t sell – you’ll be cast out before you even begin.
Great content gets shared so it’s worth taking the time to read through the discussions to identify any common issues and then think about a response either as part of a discussion or even consider a blog post on your site. It will drive traffic and if it’s good enough it will get shared and you’ll reach an audience way beyond that of LinkedIn users. Great content also has the benefit of being recycled for similar groups to discuss, althoguh be carefull, users share similar groups and repeated content can damage your credibility as a thought leader.
If you don’t have the time or budget to create content try sharing great content. You won’t be the thought leading guru you want to be but you’ll get the attention.
Use your existing connections
After a couple of months your group input will start to get liked and shared. When it does you’ll know the time is right to start trying to make connections. Now, I don’t mean blanket email everyone, be selective, go the the group influencers first even if they happen to be outside your target list. Once you have these guy’s as a connection your targets will more likely see you as worthy of connecting with.
Keep adding value
Once you think you have a groups interest you need to continue nurtuting it. Keep adding value, keep adding ideas you need to stay at the for front of their minds.
If you’d like some help with how your IT company could benefit from LinkedIn Marketing feel free to get in touch. I’ll be happy to listen to what you’re trying to achieve and point you in the right direction.