Inspirational stories of growth marketing on LinkedIn

Pandemic or no pandemic, successful campaigns always start with great ideas born of relevant audience insight. They achieve their impact through creative thinking that’s driven by a clear vision of what they need to achieve. They target the most relevant stages of the funnel for their objectives – and they do so by aligning with the motivations, priorities and mindset of those they need to engage.

Despite the disruption of the last year, businesses of all sizes and sectors have continued to drive results by applying this type of strategic creativity on LinkedIn. Their campaigns have helped to fuel the funnel, keep leads flowing and sales pipelines moving throughout 2020. Now they’re helping to accelerate growth in 2021.

We’ve gathered together the stories of 16 brands making highly effective use of LinkedIn to build brand awareness, generate leads, influence thinking and create value for both their own businesses and their customers. Our new eBook, How to Plan for Marketing Growth on LinkedIn, celebrates the many different ways in which B2B marketing is taking the lead. It reaffirms our profession’s role in driving sustainable, profitable growth in both the short term and the long. And it provides evidence and inspiration for any marketer looking to make the business case for investment.

Here are some of the highlights – a gallery of growth showing the difference that creative marketing can make at every stage of the funnel.

Brand campaigns generating awareness and salience at scale:

NatWest
Agency: VaynerMedia

Video content telling the stories of small business owners brought NatWest’s commitment to entrepreneurship and gender equality to life, growing brand favourability and consideration by 18 points and 16 points respectively, and trebling digital’s contribution to sales.

Invest in Bavaria
Agency: Hello Munchen

A tongue-in-cheek video campaign played on Bavarian stereotypes to generate over 28 million impressions and smash targets with a 44% view rate.

Barclaycard
Agency: OMD UK

Barclaycard used its monthly consumer spending report as the vehicle for strengthening relationships with the FinTech industry, building brand salience through uniquely valuable content.

Lead generation campaigns to fill the funnel and keep pipeline moving:

Department for International Trade (UK)
Agency: OMD International

LinkedIn data helped the UK’s Department for International Trade target businesses looking to expand overseas, exceeding lead generation targets for investment enquiries by 57%.

dayzz
Agency: McCann Tech

The sleep training app used video and Sponsored Content to get HR managers talking about the role of sleep in employee performance – generating over 5,725 engagements and exceeding all lead targets.

Sonovate

LinkedIn demographic data helped the payments platform identify its most relevant and responsive target audiences, focusing in on London-based IT companies and driving a 670% increase in sales qualified leads.

Thought leadership content to engage decision-makers and shape sector thinking:

Philips

Philips’ evolving Executive Opinions program helped the brand generate an engagement rate of 6.4% and reach more than 200,000 hospital and healthcare executives through Sponsored Content and organic video.

UBS
Agency: Zoo Agency Berlin

The Nobel Perspectives campaign features the largest ever collection of interviews with Nobel laureates, helping to raise awareness of the value of economics and position UBS as a purposeful thought-leader in the space.

Integrated thinking to align organisations and drive conversions

American Express
Agencies: Eulogy and Sprinklr

Partnering with LinkedIn to integrate sales and marketing helped American Express remove friction from the customer journey, zero in on the most likely prospects and generate over 700 sales opportunities.

Syte

The Visual AI provider gamified the process of A/B testing its ads, with creative teams competing for cash prizes by coming up with the Sponsored Content, Video and Display Ads that generated the most leads.

You’ll find more details and inspiration from these and other stand-out LinkedIn campaigns in our full eBook, How to Plan for Marketing Growth on LinkedIn. Download your copy for free now.