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Future of Marketing and Sales: Facilitating and Monetizing Conversations – Part 1

I have spent a few decades working with a wide range of businesses, from Fortune 500s to startups. My entire career has been focused on understanding the needs of business-to-business (B2B) audiences and finding effective ways to reach them and stimulate them to engage with my clients. At Marketing Works, we have helped implement all of the traditional ways to begin relationships including:

• public relations
• direct mail
• digital marketing
• direct calls
• networking
• emails
• speaking
• paid advertising
• word of mouth advertising
• social media

However, given all of the changes that have taken place since the global pandemic began, we have found that the most effective tool to engage B2B audiences in a conversation is LinkedIn. What makes LinkedIn so unique is its ability to engage target audiences and facilitate conversations.

According to author Neal Shaffer, LinkedIn is the world’s largest database of business professionals with 722 million users. More than 310 million are active monthly and two new accounts are created every second. But the average user only spends 17 minutes per month on the platform, so you have only a few minutes to make an impact.

And, our goal for every client is to make an impact. This is why we evaluate all of the communication channels available to our clients to determine the right approach for each company. Some of the parameters of our “conversation” requirements include:

• generate leads consistently
• repeatable and not too time-consuming
• no excessive spend required
• no mass spamming required

LinkedIn has met these parameters and has been a consistent source of leads for our clients.

HubSpot has documented that LinkedIn is 277% more effective than Facebook and Twitter and is 80% more effective at generating leads than all the other social media combined. Some of the reasons why LinkedIn is so effective include:

• LinkedIn’s ability to recognize Boolean operators and filter results according to specific search terms, particularly when using Sales Navigator to help pinpoint desired business connections.
• Many of the 90 million senior-level influencers using LinkedIn who are potential connections for you are looking for what you have to offer and have the power to make a buying decision.
• You have the power to build credibility through LinkedIn by sharing your expertise.
• Opportunities for conversations are easily facilitated through LinkedIn and can then be taken offline.

We are going to continue talking about the Power of LinkedIn through a series of blog posts and then will transition to how this approach becomes part of bigger Inbound Marketing approach that drives growth.

Please let me know if you would like to chat about anything I outlined above. We are here to help. bill@marketingworks360.com.

Bill Kiefaber • March 17, 2021

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