Harnessing the Power of LinkedIn Sponsorships
I love using LinkedIn to help supplement my clients’ marketing and PR efforts. While there is still value from traditional advertising in publications and other media outlets, sponsoring a campaign on LinkedIn provides companies with a high-level of flexibility and cost control that is otherwise absent. More importantly, LinkedIn allows the advertiser to drill down to specific companies and titles when setting-up an ad campaign, helping to target the best prospects. While doing all of this, the advertiser is in complete control of the campaign and there is no middleman that has to post and take down content.
For these excellent reasons, it comes as no surprise that we have been helping clients launch a wide variety of sponsored ads on LinkedIn over the last several years. The campaigns have ranged from obtaining exposure for an upcoming event to promoting a product or service. Out of all the different types of campaigns offered by the professional networking giant, we’ve had the best luck with sponsored content. Sponsored content allows you to provide your prospects with an interesting teaser and then drive them to compelling content on your website. To be successful with your LinkedIn campaign, there are several steps that we find useful to help ensure that the campaign stays on track, attracts the right kind of prospects and does not explode your budget.
Identify your Demographics
The first thing you need to do when creating a sponsored campaign is determine the type of prospect you’re going after. This will determine the style of content that you’ll use to drive traffic to your website. It will also influence the brief summary you write on your LinkedIn page. For example, messaging towards senior IT leaders will be different from those of facilities managers. In addition to determining titles, LinkedIn also allows you to target specific companies. This is another area where you will have to tailor your content to produce maximum results. For example, the particular product or solution you offer will change depending on the size of the company you’re targeting, as larger and smaller companies usually have vastly different needs and budgets.
Create or Repurpose Content
Once you’ve determined your demographics, the next step is to create the content. However, one of the benefits of a sponsored LinkedIn campaign is that you don’t necessarily have to create new content if time, budget or lack of material are issues. In these cases, repurposing existing content and assets developed by your company are an excellent alternative. For example, was there a great blog or case study written six months ago that is now relevant due to a particular event in your industry? That content can be used as part of your LinkedIn campaign and its long-form is (presumably) already posted on your website.
Decide on Budget and Duration
Another advantage of LinkedIn advertising is the flexibility that comes with sponsored content. In addition to having complete control over budget, the ad can be turned on and off as you need it. The platform also allows you to duplicate ads with different demographics, providing valuable insight into which messaging is working for which group. For those just jumping into the LinkedIn advertising world, it makes sense to start small and test the waters with different content sent to different groups to see what is resonating best.
Once you kick off your campaign, you can get real-time updates on how it’s performing and what the click rate is. Additionally, in some cases you’ll be able to see the titles and companies of the prospects that are clicking on your content within the platform. That’s a level of detail that our predecessors would have loved to see from their print ad campaigns.
While there are many other factors that can go into a sponsored LinkedIn campaign, the points outlined in this piece should give you a basic outline to get the process rolling. If you’re interested in receiving some assistance in getting a LinkedIn campaign set-up for your company, please feel free to reach out to see how Milldam can help you to maximize your exposure and results.
Adam Waitkunas authors the column “Anecdotally Adam” and is President of Milldam Public Relations.
