An Exclusive LinkedIn Webcast
How Content Marketing and Social Media Can Fuel Your Sales Pipeline
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
9 am PT | 12 pm ET
Duration:
1 hour
Different content marketing strategies vary in purpose – lead generation, brand awareness, website traffic. However, the goal of each should be to help increase revenue and drive more business for your company.
Please join LinkedIn Marketing Solutions for "How Content Marketing and Social Media Can Fuel Your Sales Pipeline."
This is an exclusive conversation with HootSuite's Ashley Jane Brookes, Senior Brand and Content Manager and Andy Au, Content Producer.
Ashley and Andy will be joined by Ira Amilhussin, LinkedIn’s Global Marketing Manager, to explore best practices for using content marketing to help drive sales.
Agenda:
9:00AM PT|12:00PM ET: How Content Marketing and Social Media Can Fuel Your Sales Pipeline
9:30AM PT|12:30PM ET: Getting Started with Content Marketing on LinkedIn
9:45AM PT|12:45PM ET: Question & Answer
Speakers:
Ashley Jane Brookes
Senior Brand and Content Manager, HootSuite
Andy Au
Content Producer, HootSuite
Ira Amilhussin
Global Marketing Manager, LinkedIn
30. Building Relationships with the
World’s Professionals
Ira Amilhussin
Marketing Manager, LinkedIn
www.linkedin.com/in/iraamil
#HootLinkedContent
31. Buyers are connected, informed, and empowered
Mobile
Search
Peers
SocialExperts
Discover
Explore
Select
Advocate
ACME
60%
through decision
making process
#HootLinkedContent
32. 1 of every 3
professionals
on the planet is LinkedIn
#HootLinkedContent
33. Our members seek content
that matches their professional mindset
Influencers LI today /
Channels
Groups Brands
#HootLinkedContent
34. On LinkedIn, brands build relationships
with the world’s professionals
by using accurate targeting to deliver relevant content
#HootLinkedContent
35. Company Pages
Bring your story to life
and deliver it to your target audience at scale
Sponsored Updates
#HootLinkedContent
36. Your Company Page is
the foundation of your presence on LinkedIn
#HootLinkedContent
38. And drive quality leads
from your target audiences
#HootLinkedContent
39. Reach more professionals
with Sponsored Updates
+ Follow BlackRock • Like (12) • Comment (8) • Share • 3 days ago
BlackRock
Jessie’s Excellent Financial Adventure:
Dreams for My Mother
isharesblog.com • A journey to greater financial
wellbeing means taking care not only of
yourself, but also of those you love. This
Mother’s Day, Jessie Szymanski shares what she
hopes for her mom. What do you dream of for
yours?
• Sponsored
#HootLinkedContent
41. The Results
• 400% more leads within their
target audience than other paid
platforms
• One of the largest lead
generators during the month of
the campaign
The Solution
LinkedIn Sponsored Updates:
• Target marketing professionals
with relevant content
• Drive traffic to lead capture forms
• Provide instant feedback on level
of engagement
The Challenge
Drive quality leads among marketing
professionals.
HubSpot drives qualified leads
with Sponsored Updates
#HootLinkedContent
42. GE: content ads showcased thought leadership
5.75%
Average interaction rate
with Content Ads
1300+
Unique content
downloads
Reach influencers and
decision-makers in specific
industries
High levels of traffic and
conversion
#HootLinkedContent
43. On LinkedIn, brands regain influence
by building relationships with professionals
Discover
Explore
Select
Advocate
ACME
#HootLinkedContent
Andy and Ashley talked about a number of reasons why content marketing is particularly important now. Here’s one more reason. With the advent of digital technologies, brands have been dis-intermediated from their buyers to a larger and larger degree. Buyers are getting savvier and they’re not persuaded by advertising alone. They’re using the web, search, social networks, etc. to educate themselves during the buying process. And they’re forming perceptions about brands without those brands having an opportunity to share their perspective.As a result, and research backs this up, on average buyers are 60% of the way thru their purchase process before they initiate contact with companies. This means that brands risk being on the sidelines while their customers are making purchase decisions. That’s why content marketing is so important now because sharing authentic content is a way to influence and connect with buyers while they’re informing themselves during the purchase process. But I’d like to take that a step further. It’s not just about sharing content, it’s also about building relationships. And we’ll talk about how LinkedIn can help you do that.
LinkedIn offers brands a way to way to share content with a premium audience of professionals. We have grown to be the world’s largest professional network. More than one-third of the 600 million professionals on the planet are LinkedIn. That’s more than 225 million LinkedIn members. This represents the largest group anywhere of influential, affluent and educated people. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Their average household income is $83K. Our audience has 2x more buying power than average internet sites.71% are either college grads or post grads.Key takeaway: LinkedIn has emerged as the world’s largest professional network, enabling brands to reach a premium audience. Here are some data to support premium nature of our audience: Mean Household income of $123K (per 2012 Fall GfK MRI) 71.48% of members are either college grads or post grads (per 2012 Fall GfK MRI) Our audience has 2x more buying power than average internet sites (Comscore US Media Metrix Data, September 2012)
The content marketing opportunity on LinkedIn exists because that’s just what our members seek: content. Research has shown that time on LinkedIn isn’t simply spent. Time on LinkedIn is invested in professional development. We call this the professional mindset.The professional mindset clearly distinguishes LinkedIn from Facebook and Twitter, which exist primarily in a personal context.The professional mindset is aspirational, members are thinking about how to achieve their ambitions and provide a better life for their families. Because it’s a place where audiences are investing time in becoming better at what they do, LinkedIn is well-suited to brands using content to influence buying decisions.In fact, our members are 6 times more engaged with content on LinkedIn vs our jobs properties. They are investing time in content from four primary sources:Influencers, 2) Channels / LI Today 3) Groups and 4) BrandsInfluencers - Members are getting unique content that they can’t get anywhere else by following Influencers. The Influencers program includes over 240 of the most influential thought leaders, from Richard Branson to President Obama.On LinkedIn, Influencers have become publishers virtually overnight, attracting – in the case of Richard Branson – more 2million followers that engage with and share their content. LI Today / Channels– LinkedIn Today is like a personalized trade publication, It delivers the top stories you need to know from your network and industry. We recently refreshed LinkedIn Today with channels to streamline how you keep up on the marketing topics and Influencer posts that matter most to your success. For marketers, we have the Social Media and Marketing Strategies channels.We also introduced 20 other channels, ranging from topics such as Your Career and Big Ideas and Innovation, with more channels to be added over time. Groups - LinkedIn members are sharing insights and knowledge in more than 2.1 million LinkedIn Groups. These are where rich conversations are happening on a particular topic, and brands like Citi, Staples, and Philips electronics have robust groups on Professional Women, Small Business, and Healthcare innovation, respectively. Brands - LinkedIn members choose to follow the companies that they want to hear from, then engage with content these companies post to SlideShare, and join Groups built or sponsored by these companies
So LinkedIn members are actively seeking content from brands. This means that brands are able to build relationships by using LinkedIn’s accurate targeting to deliver relevant content. Relevant is the key word here. Andy and Ashley mentioned earlier how important it is to understand what kind of content your audience wants.On LinkedIn, the rich data we have on our platform means we can deliver the most relevant content to our members. This is very different from how content is delivered on other professional publishers.On LinkedIn, members receive individually relevant content from brands based on their profile data.
We have a range of content marketing solutions, but we’ll focus on two examples that help you bring your story to life with compelling visual content, powerful editorial, and massive reach across devices. The first solution is a Company Page, which can really serve as a hub for your content marketing efforts. The second is Sponsored Updates, which is a new solution that we released a couple of months ago, and is now available to you. We’ll now look at the Company Pages in closer detail, and then turn to Sponsored Updates
Members expect companies to have a presence on LinkedIn, and your Company Page is really the foundation of your presence on LinkedIn. Think of it as a central hub for your best news and thought leadership. Use your page to raise awareness of your brand, promote career opportunities, and educate current and potential customers on your products and services. In this example, HP shared a link to a thought leadership article on Big Data, and below that they shared a link to a YouTube about free IT skills training for entrepreneurs. So they’re sharing content that is educational and helpful and that builds a deeper relationship with their audience.Equally important is the opportunity to send tailored communications to the key audiences that follow your Company Page to build and nurture long-term engagement with your brand.With your best content on your Company Page, the next step is to extend the reach of this content and share it with your target audience beyond your Followers. You can do this by sponsoring the content as a Sponsored Update and promoting that update to your target audience.
As I mentioned, we have our new solution Sponsored Updates in a limited releaseAs with Company Updates, Sponsored Updates originate from your LinkedIn Company Page and can be used to share links, videos, presentations, whitepapers, PDFs, commentaryand images. Sponsored Updates extendthe reach of your content to any target audience on LinkedIn – both Followers AND non-Followers.You also gain valuable earned reach when members like, share, or comment on your content, distributing it to their 1st degree connections.And Sponsored Updates appear across devices – desktop, tablet, mobile – so they work wherever our members work.Adobe is in our pilot, here’s an update from them that contains thought leadership insights from their 2013 Digital Marketing Optimization survey.We’ve been piloting this product with a number of customers for the past few months and are seeing very strong results. Because they are integrated into the LinkedIn feed so members are more likely to engage with them.
Our pilot customers have found that they are getting very high quality traffic that is converting into leads. This is driven by a couple factors. First, the accurate targeting means your engagement is coming from your target audience. Second, people have already previewed the headline and first three lines of content from your landing page before clicking. This means all of the traffic you drive has demonstrated interested in your content because they’ve been able to preview it before they click. This slide shows an sponsored update from Amex inviting people to join a Beta of their OPEN Forum small business community, so this update is driving leads for that community.
It’s worth reiterating that one of the key benefits of Sponsored Updates is reaching beyond your company followers in a targeted way to LinkedIn members. BlackRock is an early adopter of our new Sponsored Update product, they’re in our pilot.BlackRock is using Sponsored Updates to build relationships with financial services professionals by sharing thought leadership. This update is about how to have that important conversation with parents about retirement.
And on LinkedIn, Display media and Content create greater value when paired together. Our internal research shows that the combination of Display and Sponsored Updates drives incremental engagement when included in a single campaign. [Note: This is not a roadblock. These were campaigns running during the same time period targeting similar audiences. At this time, we cannot run display and Sponsored Updates as a roadblock.]
Now we’ll look at a couple cases. Hubspot was one of our first pilot customers for Sponsored Updates and has seen very strong performance. For those that don’t know, HubSpot is a pioneer in inbound marketing, and it aims to help its customers make marketing that people actually love. They publish thought leadership and practical how-to content, which marketers find very valuable. This type of content works very well for sponsored updates. Here are three examples of sponsored updates that drive leads with helpful content like whitepapers and ppt templates. They had a high conversion rate from clicks to leads from their Sponsored Update. And the update delivered very high quality leads. 400% more leads within their target audience than other paid platforms. These are the kind of results you can see with sponsored updates.
We’ll now look at another example that showcases a different content solution: Content Ads. This one comes from GE, who sought to enhance its reputation and thought leadership in energy and healthcare industries in select regions around the worldAs part of their LinkedIn campaign, they ran targeted Content Ads to reach influencers and decision makers in healthcare and energy. The ads featured videos, whitepapers, infographics, and curated articles from elsewhere on the web, all of which could be clicked in the module. GE saw strong results, • Average of 5.75% interaction rate with Content Adsgenerating over 1,300 unique content downloads• Deep engagement with policymakers and industrypeers • High levels of conversions, virality, and traffic forinitiatives on LinkedIn
As these examples show,Brands are able to regain influence using LinkedInto build relationships with professionalsBrands have a powerful and authentic voice on LinkedIn and can add value with insights and information, which is exactly what professionals seek in order to be great at what they do
Thanks for listening! If you’d like more information, you can visit our resource center for content marketing on LinkedIn (that first link) and you can also learn more about our new product Sponsored Updates with that second link. On the Sponsored Updates page, you can request an invitation to use the product in the limited release period before we launch it publicly. Thanks again! And now we’ll open it up to Q&A.