How We Generate Engagement & Impact On LinkedIn For B2B Companies

Improving on this subject is something we are constantly trying to do. Many times b2b clients reach out and want to build a solid presence on social. But here’s the harsh truth – building a community around a brand is almost impossible. However, positioning personas within the company, and leveraging their influence to grow the company page is way more feasible.

There are the rare examples of companies such as Gong and Zest who are knocking the ball out of the park with a killer company page, but they’re the exception to the rule (and they are also fueled by strong personas that have become authorities). 

This post will focus on LinkedIn, however, there’s much to be said for Quora, Reddit and Twitter.

Here are experience-based tips on what works:

  1. When posting make sure all posts are readable with white space out
  2. Linkedin don’t appreciate linking out of the platform. Try to avoid it as much as possible. When you do, paste the link in the first comment (and mention “link in the first comment”)
  3. The more people click on your posts the better – LinkedIn will get an indication of relevancy. So:
    • write texts that are long enough for people to need to click “see more” 
    • for the same reason when posting images – aim for more than 5
  4. Speaking about images – it’s always better to show people than scenery
  5. Hashtags are important! – before using them check they have enough followers (hundreds and up)
  6. Use emojis
  7. Post in the morning when people get to work, noon when they’re on a break or afternoon as they head home

On top of the above: wadidigital published this fantastic breakdown on the types of posts the LinkedIn algorithm favors, keep it in mind.

Now let’s roll up our sleeves: Here’s a typical breakdown we try to stick to weekly for b2b c-levels who’s presence we manage.

Rule of thumb – we always try to strike emotions/ be controversial in the content, and to ADD VALUE:

  • 1 Conversational type of post – ask a question “what music do you listen to when working”, “do you outsource tech or rely mostly on an inhouse team” etc
  • 1 List type of post that end with a question “these are the top 5 books any tech pro should read, which would you add?”
  • 1 Infographic with insights 
  • (at least) 1 Share of a company blog post with a personal angle (we play around with these and sometimes also post entire blog posts as Linkedin articles, the jury is still out regarding the efficiency of this)  
  • 1 Viral type of post (the legendary Larry Kim does that so well we actually name those LK posts internally) 
  • Daily Engage with peers, like comment and share

I hope this helps, if you have further tips to share, please let me know!

By Noa Eshed

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Ali Mirza

Do you want to increase engagement on Linkedin? Here are two simple tactics you can start testing today! * FREEBIES: 2mo FREE of SkillShare (20k+ courses): https://skl.sh/alimirza2k Free hacks & experiments: https://isocialyou.com Top Resources For Biz Owners: https://www.amazon.com/shop/alimirza2k ————————- * RECOMMENDED TOOLS: Use Instagram On Mac: http://bit.ly/2LBhH6g Best tool for social media Videos: http://bit.ly/2YdBC46 Make amazing animated videos (OFFEO): http://bit.ly/2I4S5jx Social Media Management (ViralTag): http://bit.ly/2jRAWfx

How B2B Brands Can Identify Their Target Audience

How well do you know your brand’s target audience?

Or, how well do you think you know your target audience?

We find that many brand managers in Europe assume they know their audience very well indeed. They might even have a very clear image in their head of the type of individual they are trying to target with all of their advertising and marketing strategies. 

What is often the case, however, is this image in their heads isn’t always completely correct. When it comes to targeting your audience in Europe and motivating them into making a purchase, you need to ensure that your understanding of this group is bang on. Any slight differences between what’s in your head and your audience could result in some of your targeted work falling flat.

If you know that you have this problem in your business currently, here are steps to take to understand your target audience better. If you follow them through, you’ll know how to discover your target audience and start fine-tuning your aim for them in all your campaigns.

Brainstorm your target audience.

The first thing you should do is sit down and brainstorm what you already know about your target audience. Think about the characteristics that all of the individuals who are most likely to buy your products will share. Are they in the same age group? What is their job title; what kind of salary do they earn? You should also look at the common challenges, needs, and objections that this group of people might face in their life.

One great tip is to take a look at the audience that your competitors are targeting. How does that group differentiate from yours? Examine the data-driven insights using the right tools to understand the entire funnel, and how you can leverage this data to incorporate your USP to retarget.

Take advantage of brand trackers.

Use a brand tracker to get measurable and actionable data on your audience. This data can give you various, but specific insights. For instance, tracking brand awareness will tell whether or not your ideal target audience actually knows about you. As well as that, tracking brand consideration will show if they would consider using your brand. You can also track this data for your competitors and compare how your brand fares against them. 

In addition, you might even discover that this isn’t actually the best audience for you to be targeting. By digging deep into all of this brand tracking data, you might see new audiences appear that you had never previously considered. Just make sure to choose a brand tracker that caters to niche audiences.

Develop a persona for your target audience.

Now it’s worth creating a persona of what the quintessential member of your target audience is like. There are so many benefits from audience personas, so why not use it?

For example, if you target the millennial generation, go beyond a generic idea of a millennial and think more closely about who you are selling to. If you find that millennial females who live in urban areas and work in the tech sector buy your product more than anyone else, then their defining features and characteristics should also be those of your audience persona. 

Once you have made a persona, it’s important that you inform everyone on your team. To keep everyone on the same track with all their strategic work, you all need to be targeting the same persona.

Start targeting.

Now that you know who you are aiming at, it’s time to start trying to reach them. In order to target your audience, focus your efforts on the channels they use most often. 

If you know that your target audience spends a lot of their online time using Twitter, then it’s worth starting a campaign on that social media platform. However, if you are targeting an older audience who might prefer to spend their evenings in front of their TVs than tweeting, think about running some TV adverts.

Researching the channels that your audience use really can help you immensely — not doing so could end with you shooting blindly and completely missing. 

How does running marketing campaigns help find your target audience, you may ask. Well, how can you be positive that they are the audience for you unless you see if they work? And don’t forget…

Continue to monitor.

So you research your target audience well and then start to target them using suitable methods and channels. Job done, right? Not quite.

Sure, you’ve taken the right kind of steps so that the right kind of consumers will see your brand marketing. But how do you know whether that’s really happening once your adverts and promotions are out there in the wild? How do you know that they are helping your sales?

Keep your eye on the ball and monitor how your marketing efforts are doing. You can do this by tracking your brand guidelines and campaigns to make sure that they are hitting the spot. 

It’s also worth noting that target audiences can change or shift over time, so monitoring them is a continuous task for every brand manager. As long as you do make monitoring a habit of a lifetime, then there’s no risk of you ever being left behind by competitors. 

Those steps don’t sound too difficult, right? If you follow through with them, you should discover new things about your target audience that you might never have realized. And those nuggets of wisdom could help you polish up your marketing campaigns like never before. 

Not only that, but you can now carry out all of your campaigns confidently, as your target audience shouldn’t be even easier to reach.

By: Steve Habazin Entrepreneur Leadership Network VIP

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Adam Erhart

How To Identify Target Market | Target Market Examples Click here to subscribe: https://bit.ly/2HxjQRa If you don’t properly identify your target market then none of your marketing will work. Period. Not your ads, not your content, not your website, not your social media, nothing. It will all fail miserably. And I don’t want that for you. So in this episode I’m going to be breaking down exactly how to identify your target market and give you a few examples of what that might look like for your business. ***Marketing Resources: Work With Me: https://bit.ly/2FY2vzF Our Advertising Agency: http://aerh.co/1oVVeEc Facebook Ad Image Guide : https://bit.ly/2H9EPt9 FAST Content Formula : https://bit.ly/2JEu5kz 60 Second Video Ad Script : https://bit.ly/2GQF0Kl One Page Marketing Plan : https://bit.ly/2v6HPBp ***Let’s Connect: Website: http://adamerhart.com Click here to subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/2HxjQRa Twitter: http://twitter.com/adamerhart Facebook: http://facebook.com/officialadamerhart Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adamerhart

How Data Can Help You Understand Evolving Customer Expectations In The New Normal

How well do you understand your customers? Whether your brand is B2B or B2C, your customers expect seamless, omnichannel experiences. Especially during the Covid-19 crisis, customers expect brands to offer value, relevant products and services, and to grow with them as their needs evolve.

The pandemic has taught businesses that staying relevant in a time of crisis requires a deep, holistic understanding of the customer, and an openness to new ways of doing business. To stay ahead of such rapid change, customer intelligence and data is more important than ever. From remapping and re-creating customer journeys, to developing more accurate forecasting models, all businesses need a data and analytics strategy that allows everyone in the organization to see customers needs in real time and build scenarios, identify gaps, stress-test ideas and improve results with actionable insights.

Your customer is expecting you to lead, and it’s never been more important for your brand to address their pain points and deliver exceptional experiences.

Meeting the customer where they are

While the long-term economic and societal impacts of the pandemic are yet to be fully understood, customer attitudes and behaviors have already shifted in profound ways, and some of these changes are predicted to continue into the future. Recent consumer surveys reveal how rapidly behaviors are evolving:

  • 68% of people report that the pandemic has changed the products and services they think are important
  • 75% of people using digital channels for the first time will continue to do so
  • In Italy, e-commerce sales for consumer products rose 81% in a single week and in the UK, 20% of people say they won’t buy fashion in-store again

In the retail sector, the shift to online buying and direct-to-consumer selling, coupled with a decrease in discretionary spending and flat sales for net-new products, has forced businesses to change their business models overnight. Traditional B2B businesses like financial services organizations are not far behind, augmenting existing sales and service models so they can better serve customers remotely. In the healthcare sector, patients can now choose telehealth as a standard alternative to an in-person visit—and adoption has been swift: one of Europe’s largest telehealth providers, KRY International, has seen a 200 percent increase in registrations. Government agencies and educational institutions are also finding ways to deliver their services in a virtual world.

But meeting the customer “where they are” is not just smart business—it’s essential for survival. Business segments that aren’t responding to changing customer preferences by accelerating their own digital transformations will be left behind. And a central part of transformation includes prioritizing customer analytics.

In today’s competitive and uncertain market environment, your advantage lies in understanding what resonates with your customers. How businesses choose to respond will influence buying decisions today and in the future.

Goal: a complete picture of your customer

What kinds of customer experience metrics are valuable in order to gain understanding of your customer? To create baseline analyses, you need behavioral, transactional, and feedback metrics. And as Gartner points out, more frequent, real-time monitoring of customer metrics is essential during this crisis, since attitudes are changing so rapidly. Useful metrics include:

  • Customer satisfaction scores
  • Customer effort scores
  • Net promoter scores
  • Customer call volume and types of queries
  • Website behavior
  • Point-of-sale data
  • Geospatial data
  • Social media sentiment
  • Employee feedback

Every business, regardless of industry segment, should also expect to field new questions from customers about products, logistics, inventory, supply chain, and operations—and every business needs to be prepared to capture this feedback and respond.

01. Strategic Dashboard

Potential Users: C-Suite, VP, DirectorObjectives: At-a-glance cohesive data storyInsight Examples: Performance and comparison metrics tracked against enterprise goalsExample: Executive Summary dashboard

02. Tactical Dashboard

Potential Users: Analysts, Brand ManagersObjectives: Granular, in-depth analysesInsight Examples: Identify trends, monitor processes supporting strategic objectives, create targets and predictionsExample: E-commerce Marketing Optimization dashboard

03. Operational Dashboard

Potential Users: CRM Support Teams, Website Managers, Marketing ManagersObjectives: High-level, real-time monitoring and managementInsight Examples: Retail and customer satisfaction KPIs, marketing campaign performance, inventory statusExample: Store-level Product Availability dashboard

Know your customer, know your business

Things definitely look different now, and they are different. When every aspect of your operation is under scrutiny, you need information, quickly, to make the right decisions for your business and your customers. Understanding customers and their expectations has always been a priority for businesses looking to create competitive advantage, but the pandemic has proven that businesses must have an even stronger line of sight into what their customers need.

You need to be prepared to proactively respond to rapidly-evolving behaviors and perceptions. As David Leonhardt notes in a recent New York Times op-ed, “When the economy weakens, people have to make decisions about where to pull back.” By using data insights to understand and adapt to new realities, you can give your customers reasons to remain loyal and eliminate some of the uncertainty facing your business.

What untapped insights are waiting to be discovered in your customer data?

Tableau

Tableau

From connection through collaboration, Tableau is the most powerful, secure, and flexible end-to-end analytics platform for your data. Elevate people with the power of data. Designed for the individual, but scaled for the enterprise, Tableau is the only business intelligence platform that turns your data into insights that drive action.

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