Brand building

LinkedIn: Helping B2B Marketers Build Relationships That Matter

Editor’s Note: This content was featured in a keynote presentation delivered by Nick Besbeas, LinkedIn’s VP Marketing & Customer Operations, at the BMA 2014 conference in Chicago, IL. You can watch the full presentation here.

I have been a performance marketer my entire life. I used to think about audiences of people as “how do I define the right target, segment them and get them the right message.” It’s likely something you have thought about or continue to think about still in your day-to-day as a B2B marketer.

I’m here to tell you to stop thinking about audiences -- and to start thinking about individuals. Individuals have passions, they have dreams; they have stories. As marketers, our job is to deliver relevant stories to them that add value in their lives.

When we talk to marketers, their highest order goal is to drive productive relationships with individuals that matter to their business, who can add value, in order to deliver business growth and profitability. Today, we are seeing more and more of them accomplish this through helpful content, experiences, and support. We believe that this is where LinkedIn can help marketers accomplish even more than they do today.

As a marketer, LinkedIn can help you be more productive and successful in today’s world of consumer empowerment and control. Why? Because our member value propositions – the reasons why individuals are using our platform today -- are aligned with the foundations for B2B marketing success:

  • Identity: Accurate data is at the core of successful B2B marketing. On LinkedIn, we have data tied to real humans – not to anonymous impressions or fake identities – and we can help you reach these true people when they are in the mindset to do business with you. Just like individuals, companies have an opportunity to establish a strong professional identity on LinkedIn.
  • Network: On LinkedIn, you have access to over 300M members. We can help you turn the power of one relationship into ten through sharing and the dynamics of the world’s largest professional network. It starts by activating your current network – your employees – and empowering them with the right tools to become growth-driving brand advocates.
  • Knowledge: LinkedIn is no longer just about jobs; today people engage on LinkedIn 7x more with content vs. jobs. Our members seek and share content from businesses and brands that matter to them. They start their morning reading curated news on their Pulse app, get daily inspiration from Influencer posts, follow Company Pages and Showcase Pages to keep up with brands, and consume Sponsored Updates and SlideShare content you share in the LinkedIn feed. And they are doing it more and more on mobile. Some members are even publishing their own long-form content on LinkedIn to differentiate themselves and help grow their businesses.

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So how can you be more successful with your marketing today?

Embrace the opportunities social enables to develop meaningful relationships with people. At the end of the day, people -- including your B2B buyers -- want to hear a good story. As you build those relationships, recognize that storytelling is the new performance marketing; and that LinkedIn is the professional platform to enable your story to be told.

You can watch Nick’s BMA 2014 full keynote presentation, “Tell Better Stories, Build Better Businesses” in the video below.

Interested in getting more value out of LinkedIn? See how we can help below, and feel free to contact us to learn more.

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