Live Webinar: Using LinkedIn for Demand Generation

Editor's Notes

• #3: But before we get started, a few housekeeping items. Please do submit any questions you may have in the Q&A box, and we’ll save some time at the end to address them. You can join the conversation on Twitter using #LinkedInDemandGen, and follow us as well.
• #4: So what are we going to be talking about today? The topic of demand gen is a big one, but for today’s webinar, our goal is to focus on how you can use LinkedIn to support your demand generation objectives. A discussion of the buyer’s journey is key, here, specifically how it’s unpredictability requires today’s marketers to be ready whenever and wherever their prospects are ready to engage. And after we identify where the key gaps are in how we marketers approach the buyer’s journey, we’ll show you can take that same journey and turn those gaps into opportunities with specific LinkedIn solutions. And finally, my colleague Amanda who manages LinkedIn’s own demand gen efforts will walk us through some sample campaigns, and let us in on her own secrets to using LinkedIn for demand gen.
• #5: Today’s buyer’s journey is at its very core—unpredictable. There are often multiple people involved in the buying decision. And those people are using multiple devices to consume information, and at different parts of the day, inside the office and frequently outside of office hours. All of this complicates the buyer’s journey, and marketing’s role in it.
• #6: We all know that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to influence purchase decisions. The buyers journey is non-linear and people are making it through 90% of it before they reach out directly. Today’s buyers have no shortage of online destinations they can visit to to find information about products, compare prices, get social recommendations and so on. Against this backdrop, content is playing a huge role in the buying process, making it easier for buyers to be self-sufficient, and that’s why they’re able to make it through most of this journey on their own. On average, people are consuming 10 of those pieces of content before making a purchase.
• #7: So with all this in mind, what are we as demand gen marketers currently using to help educate and engage with prospects during their buyer’s journeys? Demand generation strategies have evolved tremendously, even in just the past few years, so we have a lot of tools at our disposal. Display advertising has done much to help build our brands, as has our presence on social media. Content marketing continues to play a massive role throughout the marketing funnel, from brand-building and thought leadership to driving leads. And finally, we can’t forget our “tried and true” channels of email and search, which continue to be marketing workhorses for us.
• #8: But, no big surprise, getting relevant content in front of prospects where and when they need is far easier said than done. Why is that?   First, marketers are challenged to cost-efficiently get their brands and content in front of their target audiences early in the buy process, a challenge underscored by this Nielsen stat that more than 40% of ads are not reaching the right audiences.   Next, even when we do get in front of our prospects -- and even with the big investment most marketing orgs are making in content marketing -- it seems we’re struggling to be relevant, and helpful, with 60-70% of content we’re creating going unread. In fact, this stat from Sirius Decisions uncovered that the most cited reason as to why B2B content goes unread is that it’s irrelevant to the target audience.   Finally, as we drive prospects lower in our funnels, even when we manage to reach the right audiences and drive them to our websites, 95 of 100 visitors are leaving without filling out a web form. So, in the best case, you’re getting a 5% conversions on your site visitors – the average is more like 2 – 3%   This is a pretty sobering snapshot which implies a lot of potential value slipping through our fingers... but it also presents some pretty big opportunities for upside if we can make progress in these areas.
• #9: So what’s the bottom line? To be successful, marketers need to get their brands and the right message and content in front of the right prospects at every stage of the purchase decision if you want to to be in a strong position to shape the outcome. Said another way, relevant content is the key.
• #10: Let’s go back to the real-world buyer’s journey we looked at earlier. And this time, let’s dig deeper into the opportunities we’re missing. No less than 17 people stat: http://www.insurancetech.com/is-the-cio-losing-control-of-tech-decision-making/d/d-id/1315218? 44% stat – “2014 State of B2B Procurement Study: Uncovering the Shifting Landscape in B2B Commerce,” Acquity Group, LLC Half of business decisions made outside of the office - http://www.b2bmarketing.net/news/archive/research-news-half-business-decisions-are-made-outside-office
• #11: ....but it also presents some pretty big opportunities for upside if we can make progress in these areas.   What if you could be sure to reach only the right people and deliver highly relevant content to them in the channels where they’re engaging. By doing so, you’d be better able to drive them to your site or the right destination based on your campaign. Then, what if you could establish an ongoing connection with them and provide them the content they want at the exact right times to help them make their purchase decision?   What if you could eliminate all those leaks and realign the funnel, generating significantly more conversions and opportunities?
• #12: And this is where LinkedIn Marketing Solutions comes into play, by giving you the ability to reach impact your prospects anywhere along the buying process. We are in a unique position to help you a) generate awareness and reach more of the right people to send to your marketing channels b) nurture those audiences by delivering the most appropriate content depending on where they are in their purchase cycle.
• #14: Let’s see how we can use LinkedIn to start to rethink demand generation as we know it.   First let’s start with letting go of the bottom funnel for a bit, and focusing on how reaching more of the right people at the top of the funnel can really set our demand gen efforts up for success.   Next, let’s talk about that 95% of website visitors who aren’t converting on your website. LinkedIn can help you tap into the value of your anonymous website visitors.   Third, we all know the importance of being relevant in the way we communicate with our prospects. LinkedIn can help you customize your messages based on who people are and what their interests are.   And finally, let’s take a look at how LinkedIn can help you conquer the unpredictability of the buying process that we looked at earlier by helping you reach prospects when they’re most engaged, regardless of device.
• #15: Demand gen marketers need to start embracing the top of the funnel. Email and search are reliable channels and will always have value, but if you just rely solely on these traditional “bottom funnel” channels, you’re going to encounter challenges when it comes to reaching more of that right audience you’re looking for.
• #18: Next, let’s focus on all of those anonymous website visitors who aren’t converting when they come to your site. If you think about it, it’s not unreasonable for someone not to want to fill out a form right away – B2B and high-consideration B2C purchase decisions are generally long and complex. Historically, demand gen marketers would sit back and hope that people would come back to their site and eventually convert, but with LinkedIn, this no longer has to be the case.
• #19: LinkedIn Lead Accelerator enables marketers to deliver more high-quality leads to their sales teams by uniquely retargeting prospects anywhere online with relevant ads and content.  The solution builds on the success brands have had using retargeting tactics but takes an approach purpose-built for B2B by enabling marketers to deliver ads based on the demographic profile of a prospect or customer, their online behavior, and how they may have engaged with your brand on LinkedIn – and then to sequence the most appropriate ads across the web based on where a prospect likely is in the buy process based on this behavior.
• #20: Marketing/training notes: Product: Sponsored Updates Bislr, a provider of marketing automation solutions based in San Francisco, seeks to fill its sales pipeline with high-quality leads that convert well, while also spreading the word about the Bislr brand and products. LinkedIn Sponsored Updates support Bislr’s goals of a favorable cost-value ratio and high-quality lead generation and conversion, while also growing brand awareness and lead volume. Challenge Bislr’s team of marketing experts is continually on the lookout for new and effective ways to drive leads for Bislr’s own marketing automation solutions. “We’re always testing new channels, and LinkedIn consistently performs well against search and other social networks,” says Gonzalo Mannucci, Demand Generation Leader for Bislr. The next step was to identify ways to combine paid demand generation campaigns with social sharing
• #21: We all know the importance of relevant content. But to what extent have we been able to do this to both the prospects we know and have in our database AND all of the anonymous website visitors?
• #22: Again, this is where Lead Accelerator really shines. Suppose you have two different audiences visiting your site: One audience visits your home page, and bounces The other audience dives deeper into the product section of your site BOTH of those audiences are valuable – they have both raised their hand and indicated that they’re interested in what you have to say SO, you want to nurture both of those audiences BUT, you want to nurture them differently For the Home Page Bouncers: You probably want a relatively short nurture stream that focuses on higher level messaging and overall brand positioning. For the Product Page Visitors: You want to nurture them more aggressively with a longer nurture stream that tells your story the way you want to tell it. You wan to leas the prospect through a series of messaging and content that ultimately drives directly to a conversion event
• #23: Marketing/training notes: Product: Multi-Channel Nurturing AtTask appreciates our technology, but ultimately it just wants high quality leads and lots of them. Its use of Multi-Channel Nurturing is textbook: it uses both website navigation and business demographic data to segment and nurture its anonymous website visitors. This has led it to drop other retargeting vendors who just weren’t hitting CPL goals, and this has been a huge lead generation engine for the company. Text (highlights) of the case study: AtTask is a cloud-based Enterprise Work Management solution that helps marketing, IT, and other enterprise teams conquer the chaos of excessive email, redundant status meetings, and disconnected tools. Unlike other tools, AtTask is a centralized, easy-to-adopt solution for managing and collaborating on all types of work through the entire work lifecycle, which improves team productivity and executive visibility. On average more than 96 percent of the visitors to AtTask’s website leave without converting—a challenge shared by most B2B marketers with savvy products and long sales cycles. Micah Beals, Director of Digital Marketing at AtTask saw this as a huge opportunity. “In B2B you can’t expect most of your anonymous visitors to convert on their first visit to the website,” he explained. “To combat this we’ve tested website retargeting with various vendors in the past, but they’ve always missed our cost per lead targets.” Segmentation and nurturing AtTask began using Bizo Multi-Channel Nurturing, which provided a retargeting-like solution but was more catered to AtTask’s B2B sales cycles and enabled it to better speak to the unique needs and interests of different website visitors. Using website navigation, anonymous visitors’ business demographic data and more, AtTask developed a variety of nurture paths that were customized for different audience segments. For example after visiting (then leaving) the solutions page on AtTask’s website, IT professionals would see sequenced waves of display and social ads over a several week period that were very specific to IT and related to its solutions, while other (non-IT) visitors would see different sets of ad creative and calls to action.
• #24: Finally, we can rethink demand generation by rethinking engagement. As we saw earlier, this goes back to the unpredictability of the buyer’s journey – because buyers are in control, marketers need to engage them with great content that is presented to them when they’re most receptive to receiving this content.
• #25: Down the funnel Great for sharing content, in the feed, where people are most engaged Across desktop, tablet and smartphone. Upper funnel and lower funnel objectives
• #26: Marketing/training notes: Product: Sponsored Updates As a social media marketing company, Spredfast’s own marketers are keenly aware of the value of social for generating new, high-quality leads. However, finding social media decision makers, and using content marketing to attract their attention, proved challenging. “The titles of people who work in social media vary greatly – they might work in digital marketing, branding, or community relations,” says Heather Hildebrand, Senior Marketing Manager for Spredfast. “That made it difficult to pinpoint the right people for our campaigns.” 
• #27: As we now move firmly into the lower half of the funnel where direct response goals reign supreme, Sponsored InMail is a game changer in terms of taking email marketing effectiveness to the next level. With the new messaging experience on LinkedIn, your brand can now join in on the conversation and make an impact. Sponsored InMail is the most direct and personalized way to reach your target audience on LinkedIn. Personalize and amplify your content with Sponsored InMail to effectively build trust, humanize your brand and drive high quality leads. Use Sponsored InMail to send a personalized invitations for industry events, webinars, VIP gatherings and open houses. Build credibility and get your content in front of people who matter most to your business in an uncluttered professional environment where business leaders come to engage with their connections. 
• #32: Reformat – color LOL different (1 row/column) Remove PR/Analyst Outreach
• #45: I’ll turn it back over to Jen to recap things for us.