Efficient LinkedIn campaigns in B2B marketing
Currently, there are few real contacts with customers or potential new customers. Companies need to establish new ways of communication in order to maintain ongoing contact with their target groups. Marketing campaigns – via the LinkedIn communication channel – are proving to be comparatively inexpensive and fast. Our online media expert Thomas Birmelin explains what is important to ensure that a planned LinkedIn campaign leads to successful leads.
STEP BY STEP TO THE LINKEDIN CAMPAIGN
- A well-profiled and well-maintained company website
- Defined campaign objective
- Regular posting activities
- High-quality target-group-specific content
Achieving campaign objectives reliably with sponsored content
LinkedIn campaigns are a fast and efficient communication tool in the marketing portfolio which has become very well established in international B2B communication in recent years.
It is the core of the B2B channel to connect business people with each other. The user profiles are usually maintained accordingly – after all, you want to be found on the platform. It is precisely this profile quality and the associated data depth that make the channel so attractive while enabling precise step-by-step targeting within the target group.
Whether SMEs or global players – companies should definitely start using LinkedIn campaigns for their marketing and communication. First of all, the campaign objective needs to be clearly defined. LinkedIn basically distinguishes between the three target categories “Awareness”, “Consideration” and “Conversions”, each with one to three sub-categories or focal points.
Attention-grabbing touchpoints
The combination of content and ad placement offers a variety of possibilities to address the target groups. Images, text, videos or the brand-new stories function make LinkedIn activation varied and dynamic.
Via these touchpoints, the contact accesses the linked contents of the company, which of course have to be of high quality. A clear call-to-action enables measurability of the activation’s success via the so-called conversion tracking.
A LinkedIn campaign covers the system’s entire network with an estimated 706 million members worldwide, of which about 15 million are in the DACH region. With the appropriate media selection and booking, the so-called audience network is also included. These are partners of LinkedIn, including their websites and apps.
Experiential values for campaign planning
From numerous projects for our clients, we have gained significant in the concept development and implementation of LinkedIn campaigns. For example, experience shows that after receiving the briefing for the technical implementation with coordination for a medium-sized campaign, we only need about two days of preparation. We know which motifs/subjects, which ad formats and which text content promise the most attention or what form of address best suits the agreed-upon objectives of the campaign.
The commissioning company determines the cost parameters in advance and thereby defines either a daily budget or an overall budget. Finally, a good search engine optimisation of the company’s website ensures even greater awareness. Search engines also scrawl social media platforms and blog content.
With LinkedIn from contact to lead
Clients often ask us, as a digital agency, what results or key figures they can expect when placing a LinkedIn campaign. Depending on the campaign objective and budget, the system delivers a reliable forecast with the number of estimated reach (impressions), contacts, clicks (e.g. on the company website), commitments and leads (collection of qualified contact data, including contact permission). In our experience, this can mean up to 25 leads for a one-month term at a cost of around 30 euros per day, based on a classic small business from a medium-sized German city.
We are also seeing that LinkedIn campaigns are very successful when there is a specific timing reason for them, such as a virtual trade fair. Our client Sappi’s virtual trade fair is an impressive example of how successfully a LinkedIn campaign can be used as an accompanying preliminary measure to address potential visitors and encourage them to register and participate in the event.
