LinkedIn recently published a guide titled: Brand and Demand Playbook. It’s a really good guide for cost effective B2B lead generation through the LinkedIn ads platform. One of the case studies shared in the guide on VMWare highlights how utilizing best practices recommended in the guide, “VMWare generated click-through-rates 3x higher and Cost per Lead 50% lower than LinkedIn industry benchmarks.”
Who doesn’t want those kinds of results? This, among other case studies included in the guide make it ever clearer that when data-driven marketers map their marketing efforts to the buyer journey they will yield much better campaign performance.
Mapping Content, Media Formats, and Ad Types to the Buyer Journey through LinkedIn Ads
LinkedIn provides a helpful chart and real-world examples of mapping marketing objectives, LinkedIn ad formats or placements, and audience targeting to the buyer journey.
When brands approach their LinkedIn marketing strategy more holistically, they can achieve KPI goals for lead generation and brand building to help achieve revenue growth goals. By providing the right content to the right audience at the right time and in the right way, brands are seeing a much higher return on their LinkedIn ads spend.
Striking the Right Balance with LinkedIn Ads
The guide specifically emphasizes striking the right balance between branding and direct response marketing efforts indicating that the optimal split to be 60% branding, 40% direct response.
Are You Missing Part of the Buyer Journey in Your LinkedIn Marketing Strategy?
All too often, I see startups just going for the jugular out of the gate. They lead with a free demo or a free consultation because they are desperate to close new customers, all before establishing any brand credibility and building trust. Their target customers have ever heard of them, who cares if their guide or webinar has an interesting sounding topic. Prospects are not going to exchange their contact information for gated content with a company they have never heard of.
When brands instead first share content that educates and builds trust through non-gated content, like blog articles and video, target customers become a lot more open to conversion offers like free guides, white papers, webinars, and even a free demo or consultation. Because they now view the business as a ‘go-to’ industry authority that’s helping solve their key problems and challenges.
Here is LinkedIn’s summary of what you’ll learn in their guide:
- What ad formats and targeting features you have in your LinkedIn toolbox
- How to combine feed and messaging to reach and convert your audience
- How the best global marketers are using a brand and demand approach in their strategy
- How to leverage LinkedIn Audience Network, retargeting, and other tools to reach your audience throughout their buying journey
Get the LinkedIn Ads Brand and Demand Playbook here: https://business.linkedin.com/marketing-solutions/strategy-guides/linkedin-brand-to-demand-playbook
