In a competitive marketplace, where Sales teams have ever increasing targets – concept of social selling has emerged along with targeted advertising on social channels. Today, trust and likeability play a major role in linking you and your customers & clients solidly and smoothly. LinkedIn has emerged as a strong social selling tool for businesses over the past 3 years and can be considered as a fairly a new kid in the ‘sponsored story’ ad world. LinkedIn is promoting organic & unique content presented by illustrious and famous brands with sponsored ads in news-feeds to a wider audience more effectively. Interesting and vibrant news-feeds enriched by useful and valuable content by iconic columnists are the choice niche for placing the LinkedIn ads.
Do LinkedIn ads help targeting right audience and foster social selling?
With the social media taking communication and conversations by storm, there is more interaction between the customers and sales professionals socially. Social media facilitates people to trust the professionals they come to know. The transition from one-time buyers to repeat customers is more common as a result of social interactions. In a B2B environment, LinkedIn ads work great as a social selling tool because LinkedIn ads helps you to establish a brand presence, be found and connect with the right target audience who matter for promoting and favourably influencing your business!
Still unsure of Why LinkedIn? Check out the Video below where , Arti Sharma, LinkedIn Optimization and social selling expert talks about Why should companies with sales teams invest in LinkedIn for social selling.
Various LinkedIn ad choices & their efficacy
What sets LinkedIn ads apart from other search engine ads? It is the unique facility offered by LinkedIn to choose from a number of options like
- Join Group ads
- Social ads
- Poll ads
- Video ads
Each one has its own unique characteristics to make it effective and beneficial; like the social ads which target on various members according to their activities, information and interests for more efficacies. Video ad option is the latest and far reaching powerful option.
Who benefits best from LinkedIn?
Various studies suggest that LinkedIn ads will be most effective especially if you are from
- Business services including
- Insurance.
- Real estate.
- Banking services.
- Legal services
- Networking groups
- Marketing & sales services.
- Advertising services.
- Information technology services.
- Information technology enabled services.
You can pick and choose your personalized customer profiles from LinkedIn’s extensive database related to the service you want to promote or professionals you want to target.
Outside of Ads, LinkedIn has proven to be a robust connection and prospecting tool. An avenue for qualified lead generation. One of the features that I feel is still underutilized is its Advance Search option.
How to use LinkedIn’s advanced search option
The LinkedIn advanced search option optimizes your connectivity by enabling you to search by name, title, company and locations along with correct keyword use. Joining LinkedIn groups where your prospective clientele might be is another good strategy. Targeting by geography, group interests and job function may get higher returns and more effective results. You can create awareness and visibility about your product by market research activities in poll ads. First rate content still rules and contributing content useful to your targeted clientele can make your brand stand out!
If you are a business owner, Entrepreneur, Sales professional or a senior executive in a sales function and want to learn how LinkedIn can help you, I invite you to attend my next LinkedIn workshop on Social Selling. Register now or book an appointment by calling us at 1-888-569-3032 for group training on LinkedIn. And yes, I welcome the opportunity to connect with me on LinkedIn.