LinkedIn Marketing: A guide to help you learn everything

With over 810 million users worldwide, LinkedIn has become the most popular platform for gaining visibility, attracting new customers, and making sales. Today, we’ll teach you everything you need to know about LinkedIn Marketing to become a search engine virtuoso. Full speed ahead ! LinkedIn is a must-have among professional networks. However, to get started on this network, you’ll need a few concepts.

Are LinkedIn Marketing offers worth it?

We’ll start by finding out if LinkedIn’s offerings are worth it. This will not be the only information we will cover in this article. More serious definitions will appear later. LinkedIn Marketing will be of utmost importance if you want to stand out on this platform. That’s good, but how do you actually do it?

You should know that LinkedIn offers the possibility of using one of these tools for marketing: it is LinkedIn Ads. You will be able to:

• Generate qualified leads.
• Increase traffic to your website.
• Increase your brand awareness.
• Communicate with professionals.
• Grow your business.

Now that we know what it’s for, we’ll be able to focus on the different formats you can use for LinkedIn Ads.

LinkedIn Marketing: LinkedIn Ads Ad Formats

On LinkedIn, you can choose from 4 different formats:

• Advertising text.

The “Text Ads” format will appear on the right or top of the LinkedIn News Feed. You’ll have the option to create cost-per-click (so-called CPC) or cost-per-impression (so-called CPM) bids. They will come in a variety of sizes and shapes, and you’ll have the option to use a call-to-action (CTA).

• Sponsored post.

With this format, you’ll be able to send customized messages to your various prospects directly to their LinkedIn email. This will give you the opportunity to drive traffic to your website and even invite them to fill out forms.

• Sponsored Content.

This format appears in the LinkedIn news feed. It’s even better if it appears in the news feed of the people you want to target (and that’s great). This will give you the opportunity to target a quality audience with accurate data.

• Dynamic ads.

This format will allow you to make personalized advertising using data from different profiles (company, job title, profile picture…). This will allow you to run ad campaigns very quickly to increase your brand awareness and significantly increase traffic to your website.

LinkedIn Ads: Price

LinkedIn Ads already offers us quite a few solutions, but what is the cost of these different services offered by the platform?

In fact, everything here will depend on what you are willing to invest in the advertising budget. Indeed, LinkedIn Ads operates on a bidding system. Therefore, you will have to figure out in advance how to optimize your expenses.

When you have finally chosen which ad format suits you best, you now need to choose the type of bidding according to your goals. If you choose cost per thousand, you will develop a brand image.

As for the cost per click, then you will use it to generate links. When you want to launch a campaign, you’ll have a goal in mind (we hope for your sake, as we keep talking about the importance of creating a persona!)

And, of course, you know that your goal is also the goal of your competitors (which seems logical). Therefore, you will have to make a higher bid than your competitors. If you want to get more information on the subject, we strongly advise you to read this article. Not because you have to bid higher, you have to blow up your budget.

You need to think carefully about everything. Estimate your budget so you know how best to optimize it.

Right now, LinkedIn offers its paid solutions, but you don’t have to pay for LinkedIn Marketing. We offer you these alternatives on a golden platter.

Free alternatives to LinkedIn

The bidding system isn’t for you yet, and you’re going to think about it? You can already start with other methods.

#1 Creating a company page

If you want to sell a product or service, you will have two options:

• Create your company page.
• Sell from your personal LinkedIn account.

If you decide to build your strategy by creating a page dedicated to your business, you will have to think about important elements such as:

• The name of your company.
• Its URL.
• Fill in the website field.
• Fill in the size of the company.
• Scope of activity.
• Place a logo and banner.
• Fill in the hashtags.

You have the basic elements that allow you to create a page. It will allow you to achieve visibility if you take care to design it well. Don’t forget to share it with your network and add calls to action. You can also promote your page from your personal account.

#2 Engage Your Leads With LinkedIn Inbound Marketing

You can promote your products or services from your personal account, as mentioned earlier in this article. However, there is a little subtlety here. If you want to sell through a personal account, it is recommended to clear your LinkedIn account of colleagues, friends and leave only those people who meet your goals.

In this way, you will have a LinkedIn account for your friends and colleagues and one dedicated exclusively to your search. Once you’ve done that, it’s now time to think about a content strategy.

FYI, thanks to LinkedIn you will be able to benefit from “personal branding“. Of course, this doesn’t just happen. To gain credibility, you’ll have to get published, yes, but publish regularly.

In addition, you need to think about what topics you want to express yourself on. This is where we begin to get into serious topics. Indeed, you will have to define your themes according to the famous TOFU-MOFU-BOFU.

Table of Contents of TOFU-MOFU-BOFU

Once again, I remind you that these terms in no way replace meat … When you want to write a post on LinkedIn, some topics will be included in your:

• TOFU.

This is the “top of the tunnel”, that is, the highest part of the tunnel. It is believed that the content of your TOFU should be universal. What does that mean? This means that it is addressed to everyone. You don’t have to write about tech content, you can write about well-being at work, social issues, or telework.

• MOFU.

This is the “middle of the funnel”. You’re addressing a smaller goal, between a broad goal and your primary goal. Your audience is just beginning to qualify. You can talk about copywriting or SEO.

• BOFU.

Thus, the “bottom of the funnel” corresponds to the end of your funnel. Therefore, your content will be very specialized 🤓 in this type of posts. You’ll be able to cover specific topics like what you’re learning in your business, how to optimize an article, technical SEO, or even the benefits of running a self-service business.

#3 Recommend & Get Recommendations

On LinkedIn, the more people trust you, the easier it will be for you to sell. This is where LinkedIn recommendations come into play. Indeed, if people in your network recognize your skills, chances are others will too. Recommendations 🥰 give you credibility, but be careful, you can’t just do it the old way.

Recommendations can be given by someone who has worked with you before or who has already purchased a product or service (client). Of course, in order to get referrals, you must also be able to give them. You should also know how to give before you receive.

So, you have recommended someone and would like to be recommended for your various skills as well. There are two scenarios:

• You’re new to the platform, so you’ll have to ask for a recommendation. Beforehand, you must determine to whom and for what skills you want to receive a recommendation. Once this is done, review the profiles you are interested in and click on the “More” tab and then on “Request a recommendation” and fill in the required fields.

• The second scenario: You begin to have some influence in the “LinkedIn game”, and therefore recommendations will come to you by themselves.

#4 Groups for LinkedIn Marketing

Group LinkedIn offers a great opportunity to connect with people who are interested in the same topics as you. Thanks to this, you will be able to share content, maintain and grow your network.

By the way, please note that if the person is not related to you, but is in a group, you will still be able to send him a message and access his profile. So, by sharing your ideas on these LinkedIn groups, you have a chance to not only gain notoriety, but also to bring your product or service to market and potentially sell it.

What is Marketing?

Let’s improve your knowledge, let’s deal with small definitions. Marketing is used to analyze the needs of consumers. Therefore, you will have to do persona research (this is a portrait of your ideal customers) in order to then achieve your goals.

Once this is done, you will compile a set of ways to influence the various behaviors of your buyers. You will then tailor your offer. This is done with the goal of continuously creating value in the eyes of your customers. Marketing exists to differentiate itself from various competitors. In a marketing strategy, you should:

• Find your purpose.
• Build your customer network.
• Emphasize your value proposition.
• Create loyal customers.
• Maintain relationships with customers.

There are different types of marketing that we will discuss.

BtoB Marketing

Even if you’re not selling directly to a person, it’s important not to neglect the analytical part of your goal. You’ll focus on things like:

• What type of business do I want to sell to?
• How will they react to my product?
• How will I meet their needs?
• How can I distinguish myself?

The logic is the same as in BtoC marketing, but the marketing plan, on the other hand, will be completely different. If you’re still not sure how to tell the difference between Btoc marketing and Btob, here are two btob examples that might help you:

• A company that buys computer parts for its computer fleet from a specialized company.
• The restaurant buys products from a wholesaler.

In fact, btob is just a commercial relationship between two companies.

Inbound Marketing

In recent years, inbound marketing has become a benchmark in this field. This is one of the customer acquisition strategies that works best. And we’ll explain why. Inbound marketing means “inbound marketing“. It is about bringing to you a potential customer who does not yet know you and thus becomes a customer. There are several ways to conduct inbound marketing:

• White papers.
• Webinars.
• SEO.

• Podcasts.
• Advertising on television.
• And so on…

In BtoB, it is a technique par excellence, because it allows you to keep in touch between you and your potential customers so that they become customers.

One of the elements to consider when conducting Inbound Marketing is maintaining relationships, which is most commonly referred to as “lead nurturing.” With nothing to do with cooking, “nurturing” leads will allow you to keep in touch with your prospect or customer. Yes, it’s good when a potential customer reaches out to you, but what’s next?

This is where you have to think about to accompany the client throughout his shopping journey. Depending on where the prospect is located in the conversion tunnel, you’ll have to:

• Attract his curiosity, his attention.
• Encourage them to come back to your site.
• Let him know that you are able to meet his needs.
• Let him know that you will be there every step of the way.

Outbound Marketing

Unlike inbound marketing, outbound marketing will go and pursue the customer rather than letting them come to you. The term stands for “outbound marketing” and is a traditional 🛖 form of marketing.

You’re going to make sure you’re communicating to achieve your goal. How? You’ll place posters in key places (we’re talking physical locations) where your customer base is potentially located, as well as on digital signage (e.g., when advertising in Adwords).

This form of marketing is used less, and less as new approaches have emerged. However, the simplicity it presents makes it still relevant for some brands. We can also combine physical delivery campaigns with digital delivery campaigns.

This leads to complementarity of communication. It’s possible to do outbound marketing via email (it’s called “cold email” and we strongly advise you to check out this article). Do you think email is outdated and no longer useful? By no means, on the contrary.

Email is and will continue to be a powerful tool in your search strategy. You should use it but use it well. In order to be very effective, we even advise sending an email to your prospect before contacting them through another channel. Why should you do this? Because your prospect already knows your name, and it will be easier for you to start a conversation if they have already seen you somewhere.

Strategic Marketing

We have made a lot of progress in learning about the different types of marketing, now let’s move on to strategic marketing. What’s it? Well, it’s simple! Strategic marketing, as opposed to operational marketing, will allow you to concentrate on short-term goals. It is carried out in the following stages:

• Define its goals.
• Analyze the market.
• Goal setting.
• Positioning your offer.
• Definition of a marketing mix (a marketing mix corresponds to the actions you will take to ensure the success of your decision).
• Follow-up.

You develop a strategy that aligns with your company’s business goals, taking the entire strategy into account during strategic planning. To help you with goal setting, you can use the SMART method, which corresponds to:

• Specificity (What is my goal? Is it clear?)
• Measurable (How will I measure the success of my goal? How will I quantify it?).
• Achievable (Is it achievable?).
• Realistic (What can I realistically do?).
• Temporary (How long do I need to achieve my goal(s)?).

What you need to remember is that your marketing strategy will mainly focus on finding leads and then on how to build your audience’s loyalty.

Product Marketing

If you want to sell a product on the market, you will definitely turn to this type of marketing. As the name suggests, it will focus mainly on what you are going to offer your customers.

Therefore, you will have to think (again) about your personas and thus understand what you are going to offer them. Reminder: You should definitely respond to the pain points of your target.

What are you going to offer them? How will you meet their needs? Their expectations? That is, everything should be thought out to satisfy your customer. You’ll be thinking about the following elements:

• Your product design.
• Brand name.
• Packaging.
• Your product range (Medium? High?).

You should be able to offer a product that meets the expectations of your consumers, based on the points we talked about earlier. That is why the analysis of your personas, their expectations, as well as the market will allow you to choose an offer that matches your consumers. To market a product, there are two elements to keep in mind:

• Visual.
• Characteristics of your product.

Indeed, it is said that appearance doesn’t matter, but when you’re marketing a product, it changes a bit. You need to come up with an aesthetically pleasing visual image that evokes desire, has good ergonomics. It is through the analysis of your market that you will be able to offer a visually pleasing product.

As for the functional aspect, market analysis will also allow you to provide the functionality that your target audience needs. You have to ask yourself how your consumers will use your product.

Operational Marketing

This type of marketing is the opposite of strategic marketing. It refers to all the techniques you need to implement to achieve your marketing goals.

The goals of operational marketing are medium-term. They will certainly change along the way to adapt to the realities of the market.

This is the time when you will surely take action, as you will receive feedback and make decisions accordingly. In operational marketing, you will talk about your product, promote it and then make it famous.

One important piece of information is that while operational marketing is the opposite of strategic marketing, they often complement each other. Operative will take over the functions of strategic marketing to bring your projects to life.

Digital – LinkedIn marketing

We’ve talked about many types of marketing, now let’s talk about digital marketing. This type of marketing is very easy to understand as it combines different marketing techniques to promote a product across all digital channels, such as:

• E-mail.

Email newsletters still have a great future. And for good reason, it will allow you to get closer to a potential client, activate him and build loyalty. What’s more, in a search strategy, you can even automate emails, but we’ll get to that later in this article.

• SEO.

This is also called natural abstracting. This will allow you to position yourself in search engines according to the user’s query (keyword). Implementing SEO is very easy and it won’t cost you almost anything. Indeed, you will need small hands to write content about your offers (goods or services).

• Adwords.

This is an online advertisement: you will be able to create different ads depending on what display you want to have (on the screen, on Youtube , in search format… It’s up to you).

• Affiliation.

You will be able to promote your product or services through partner partners. For example, Amazon has several hundred thousand affiliates in its affiliate program.

• Social networks.

You can also run a social media marketing campaign (you have two options: organic (free) or paid).

There are other media through which you can communicate, but we decided to list the main ones. Also, we’ve talked to you about social media, what if we focus on LinkedIn?

What is LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is the first professional platform in the world. It has more than 810 million users, which makes this platform extremely popular. Know that this platform is designed for employees, entrepreneurs, recruiters, those who are looking for jobs in various fields. On LinkedIn, you can do just about anything:

• Search for potential customers.
• Achieve visibility and notoriety.
• Meet the professionals in your sector.
• Promote your products or services.
• Grow your network and career.

Among other things, the platform will allow you to connect with members, share content, and increase your brand awareness. Of course, this is a professional network, we understand that, but what does it give?

I’m glad you asked that question. Your LinkedIn page is more than just a resume. If you are looking for a job, this page will serve as your showcase. Therefore, it is in your best interest to focus on it. If you are not looking for a job, the platform will allow you to find prospects or simply show your area of expertise, which will make you reputable if you want to sell your services, for example.

This medium provides you with a digital presence that can’t be ignored if you show a little diligence.

What is LinkedIn marketing?

Now that we’ve seen the two definitions of two different words, we’re going to explain what LinkedIn marketing is. Simply put, LinkedIn marketing consists of:

• Create relationships (so that you have new connections).
• Strengthen your brand to sell a product or service.
• Build partnerships.
• Share content (especially through the power of copywriting).
• Drive traffic to your website.
• Get new leads.

If you want to have a top-notch marketing strategy, you should definitely incorporate LinkedIn into your efforts.

Why do LinkedIn marketing?

We don’t always think of LinkedIn when it comes to marketing. Of course, we think about Facebook and Instagram, we do sponsored posts… However, this professional network has a lot to give you. By the way, did you know that LinkedIn has proven to be more effective in terms of lead generation than Facebook? That’s because LinkedIn is a platform based on trust.

In fact, people who come to LinkedIn trust LinkedIn (it’s one of the most trusted platforms in the world) because when you go to someone’s profile, they see a real person, not an entity.

Therefore, when we see the profile of a person who wants to sell us a product, we will be able to see his connections (is he related to someone I know?), his various posts, the way he expresses himself online. You will be able to determine whether he is really an expert in a given topic or not.

Plus, on LinkedIn, you don’t have barriers. What we mean by this is that you can communicate directly with the people in charge of the product or making decisions. That’s the great strength of LinkedIn. That’s why LinkedIn marketing is paying off. Your chances of conversion are significantly higher than on the social networks we are already familiar with.

Move to an omnichannel marketplace.

If the word “multichannel” doesn’t mean anything to you, we’ll quickly explain what it is. Simply put, multichannel is a marketing strategy in which you use different methods of contact to sell a product or service.

You adapt to the behavior of your users. With multi-channel marketing, you don’t skip the steps, you’ll of course have to define your goal (that buyer persona again!) and think about the means of communication. If you only connect with your prospects on LinkedIn, you lose the opportunity to catch future customers via email.

Conversely, if you’re only looking for customers via email, you’re missing out on chances to convert them to LinkedIn.

So, what do we do? Well, yes, we will reach out to the same person, but we will multiply the conversion opportunities by reaching out to them through different channels. You can add something like a newsletter to your LinkedIn strategy.

Some consider it outdated, but email still has a very bright future ahead of it. It is even believed that it is better to contact your potential client by email first and then reach out to them again via LinkedIn. By the way, did you know that you can do multi-channel messaging with Waalaxy?

A multi-channel tool? Of course, Waalaxy!

We no longer need to introduce you to our flagship search tool: Waalaxy. With it, you will be able to perform a large number of actions that will allow you to significantly improve the efficiency of your search.

You will be able to do automatic searches to increase all your business opportunities, expand your network and send messages as well as emails. And yes, pretty complete to become an ace in search, right?

Waalaxy Sequence

You just need to choose the sequence that suits your needs. For example, if you want to make a multi-channel channel, you can try Thomas Pesquet’s sequence, it allows you ..:

• Visit the profile.
• Find the prospect’s email.
• If the email is found, you can send the email and then repeat it.
• Finally, send an invitation on LinkedIn.

It’s a great sequence for multi-channel search. And as we said earlier in this article, starting by sending an email only optimizes lead generation.

You’ll have a better chance of reaching out to a potential customer if you use multiple communication channels. Cold mailing has a significant advantage over sellers who send emails: it’s automation. This will allow you to:

• Send a very personalized message and tailored to your purpose.
• If the person does not open your first email, thanks to the sequence, you will be able to resend them the second email, then the third, and so on.

The fact of sending multiple emails to the same person will increase the likelihood of opening. And the good news? This small chrome extension offers you the possibility of prospecting 100 people per week for €0. A what? 0€? But it’s impossible! But it’s possible!

For €0 you will get the basic features of the app, all without giving your credit card details. Once you get a chance to test it on the free version, you can completely change your subscription to take full advantage of the tool’s features.

LinkedIn marketing : Article Conclusion

So, we come to the end of this article and quickly summarize what we have seen during this time, which are:

• A marketing definition that matches all the actions you are going to take to sell your product or service.
• Various existing marketing (but not exhaustive), such as:
  • Strategic marketing.
  • Operational marketing.
  • BtoB marketing.
  • BtoC marketing.
  • Digital marketing.
  • Inbound marketing.
  • Outbound marketing.
  • Product marketing.

• What is LinkedIn and what you can do with it. Namely, a professional platform to help you promote your products or services, increase visibility, and improve personal branding.
• LinkedIn marketing is all about building relationships, establishing partnerships, sharing content, driving traffic to your website, and getting new leads.
• How to conduct LinkedIn marketing using the platform’s ad formats and its free alternatives.
• How to switch to multi-channel marketing and use Waalaxy to improve your search.

FAQ on LinkedIn Marketing

In this article, we have touched on many topics. Therefore, we are going to give a brief overview in this FAQ.

Definition of Marketing

If you don’t understand the concept of marketing very well, we’ll just tell you that it corresponds to the various actions you take in order to sell a product or service. And know that you may well sell a product on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn marketing

Marketing involves a lot of parameters, but that doesn’t mean it’s hard to implement, especially on LinkedIn. LinkedIn marketing should take into account the fact that:

• Create new relationships.
• Share your ideas and topics in the form of posts in order to promote your brand.
• Engage in conversations in LinkedIn groups to potentially generate new leads.
• Build partnerships with players in your industry.

It is thanks to a well-honed marketing strategy that you will be able to take off on LinkedIn. By the way, a well-thought-out strategy begins with the creation of a persona.

How to create a good persona?

You’ll hear time and time again about the importance of creating an image of your ideal customer: the famous buyer persona.

You need to be able to personalize your target so that you know exactly who you’re going to sell to. You will also need to determine their position, the level of decision-making, if they, for example, work in the company.

Also you have to think about the pain points (nothing sadomaso, we assure you): it is what corresponds to its blocking points on the way to buying a product or service. Yes, you should know everything about your person:

• His/her last name, first name.
• His age.
• His work.
• What he likes to do.
• His position in the company.
• Its goals.
• His favorite means of communication.
• His level of responsibility.
• And so on…

Finally you realized that you have to know this person like the back of your hand, by ❣️ heart . Once you’ve decided on the perfect persona, you’ll be ready to send them the most beautiful search message the Earth has ever born.

A strategy to adopt on LinkedIn

Given everything we’ve covered in this article, you might be wondering what strategy you can apply on LinkedIn to kick-start sales.

Once you’ve defined your goals, your persona, and your means of communication (including, of course, LinkedIn), we’ll finally know how to put it into practice. For an effective LinkedIn strategy, you will need:

• A good buyer persona.
• Have a clear understanding of your goals, such as:
  • Get more visibility with customers.
  • Generate more leads.
  • Build a community.
  • Increase your brand awareness.
• Choose the topics you will be writing about.
• Choose the type of content you’ll share:
  • Text.
  • Photographs.
  • Video.
  • Articles.
• Be regular.
• Use software that allows you to automate your search (Waalaxy!).
• Personalize your search invitations and messages.

Is it possible to do BtoC promotion on LinkedIn?

While the term may sound barbaric, B2C marketing simply means “business-to-customer” Its main feature? This is the direction of your offers to a customer who wants to receive a product or service from the company.

The difference with BtoB marketing is that this client does not represent an organization or company. Therefore, it is very important to think about these different issues when doing b2c marketing:

• Who is my ideal customer?
• How can I meet his need? Or how can I create a need?
• How do I achieve my goal? In what ways will I communicate with him?
• How much budget am I willing to spend?

Of course, the analysis of the person is not your only task. You will also need to analyze the market on these points, of course:

• Who are my competitors (direct and indirect)?
• How is a competitor’s product or service perceived?
• How will my product or service be received?
• What are the prices on the market?
• How will my product be differentiated?

And above all, you should remember that if a solution works for a competitor, it does not mean that it will work for you. Analysis is of utmost importance in marketing. Either way, know that doing BtoC marketing on LinkedIn is entirely possible.