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2021 – A Digital Marketer’s Playground
Target & reach over 690M professionals around the world using LinkedIn for your business marketing needs. Grow your business with lead generation, content marketing & brand awareness campaigns. 2021 Digital Marketing Trends As several companies develop their own apps for a hundred percent virtualization, it is safe to say that many are rethinking their idea of a closed workspace model. Enforced due to COVID19, but won over because of convenience, most of these businesses have proven that they are able to function virtually just as. If you don’t have a photo up on your profile, you’re hiding, plain and simple. LinkedIn is the world's largest professional network with more than 530 million users in over.
Not long ago, your everyday salesmen seemed to push products better than any digital marketer could. But that landscape has encountered a drastic change with the spike in social media and the marketing ideas associated with it. These are the ads that you see popping up in popular platforms such as Facebook and YouTube, among others.
The 2020 global pandemic further saw that business people sticking to traditional strategies were suddenly left in the dark – outdated and to a degree redundant. However, this unexpected change gave a big boost to the virtual space. From workplace activities to everyday social activities, the digital frameworks that had been rubbing shoulders with those traditional marketing methods crossed the boundaries becoming more avid, more viable, and stronger than ever.
Now, 2021 is the year where you can reinforce your newer digital strategies with little to no backlash from the traditional thinkers. As the digital marketing landscape is here to stay, many have already begun making the most of it for better or worse.
Thus, from analyzing these drifts, we have listed some of the most popular digital marketing trends expected to take center stage in this era of digital marketing in 2021.
2021 Digital Marketing Trends
As several companies develop their own apps for a hundred percent virtualization, it is safe to say that many are rethinking their idea of a closed workspace model. Enforced due to COVID19, but won over because of convenience, most of these businesses have proven that they are able to function virtually just as efficiently, if not better as during physical interactions.
As stated already, social media has become a phenomenal contributor to most of these digital efforts.
And with virtual workplaces becoming ubiquitous, the following digital marketing trends of 2021 have shown to emerge the fastest or are the most adaptive of the lot.
AI in Marketing
Artificial intelligence is becoming something that’s hard to ignore when talking about the advantages of digital marketing. “AI” has become a household term in most digital marketing verticals nowadays, with as much as 71% of B2B marketers resorting to using AIs for ad personalization.
According to studies conducted by Techgrabyte, AI has the potential to increase the worldwide GDP by 14% within the year 2030. As much as 60% of global digital marketers will be turning to AI-assisted marketing strategies going forward.
Conversational Marketing
Studies show that 82% of consumers expect an instant response to their inquiries and complaints. Let’s face it, 24/7 service is not easy, and that’s exactly where the chatbots come in. With some newer programs capable of making the consumers feel “heard”, you can now make effective communication with your potential buyers passively, with positive results.
This conversational marketing’s essential objective is to upgrade the client experience through a feedback-driven model that encourages higher commitment and a prominent dedication.
With the new age buyers being bombarded with innumerable opportunities to be discovered or distracted by competing businesses, you cannot miss any opportunity in grabbing their attention. So, as businesses gear up for the future, it is inevitable that being accessible across an expansive range of channels becomes their priority. And conversational marketing helps facilitate this one-to-one connection between you and your customer.
Market Personalization
As much as 90% of consumers find personalized advertising effective, 80% of consumers say that they would buy products from organizations, giving them a personalized experience.
Amazon is a well-known mastermind in such personalized marketing for people, as they offer products to you which you have searched for recently on any other online page. And Netflix is another such example, their “recommended series” that you are dying to watch is no coincidence.
So, grabbing attention is the rule of the game. This is exactly why your marketing strategies’ personalization is one of the most viable and valid options for staying relevant in 2021.
Video Marketing
Any blog about 2021’s digital marketing trends, just isn’t complete without mentioning video marketing at least once. Visuals have always been and will continue to be the most effective medium to market products.
More than 50% of consumers say that watching videos about the product makes them want to buy it. And also, up to 72% of the organizations get benefitted from making videos for marketing their products.
This makes video marketing an everlasting trend, and with the online environment generating more and more users by the hour, its trend can only shoot up.
Word of Mouth
Influencers. The spokespersons of the web. Not a day goes by where people don’t happen upon these pseudo-celebrities. And of course, you are more inclined to buy something after getting a recommendation from someone you hold in high regard.
Nearly 60% of consumers claim to have bought products by means of this word-of-mouth marketing from their favorite influencers. In addition to that, 35% of homemakers have claimed to have been swayed by them and bought their product recommendations.
Thus, it is believed that these influencer marketing will drive the lion’s share of the online marketing landscape in 2021.
Social Media Marketing
Zuckerberg-ian marketing techniques have been encountering a constant rise in the past decade. This decade will not be any different as Social Media Marketing, or SMM have proven to be one of the biggest benefits of these digital marketing techniques that promise definitive returns.
Content marketing
Up there with both video marketing and word of mouth marketing, content marketing has time and again proven to be effective.
Studies conducted in hopes to reinforce this view concluded that more than 80% of organizations feel that the more content they create, the more their consumers feel that they are credible.
Compared to its predecessor (outbound marketing), content marketing seems to cost 62% lesser, while giving 3X more profit to the marketer. Also, small businesses that create blogs have 126% more engagement metrics than those that don’t. Given that these studies are fairly fresh, one would do well not to ignore content marketing when analyzing the digital marketing trends of 2021.
Conclusion
With all these stats on the table, it is safe to say that 2021 will be the year where you can make the most of the benefits of digital marketing. Yet again, the landscape of digital marketing is ever-changing, and it literally pays to keep up with the change.
All said and done, the market is a living, breathing entity that is unpredictable; yet with the world bouncing back to a new normal, these digital marketing trends for 2021 offer a clear way forward to your next marketing endeavor. let us help you take over your digital marketing, this 2021.
It hasn’t been too long ago since LinkedIn morphed from a teeny professional networking site to an enormous world force. Ever since its beginning, B2B marketers have been trying to crack the code for B2B success. With all these millions of professionals in one place, surely there’s some way to open up the floodgates to leads, isn’t there?
Yes, there is a way to open up the floodgates to success. The conventional LinkedIn advice isn’t detailed enough: 1) Join. 2) Be active. 3) Get leads. What?! So, how do you actually get leads?
Sure, you might accidentally catch a few falling leads, but in order to really win you need to do your own prospecting, LinkedIn style. How do you cut through the gaggle of job seekers and find qualified people to do business with?
In this article, I’m going to show you 7 tips that will help you better leverage LinkedIn to be a powerful B2B marketing tool.
LinkedIn works
Before I go all technical and start giving you killer tips, let me step back and do a little cheerleading number.
LinkedIn does work for B2B leads. Do Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest? Maybe, but don’t bank on it.
Most B2Bs are using social media to get leads, as the research indicates. But how effective are these social media efforts?
Not very, says the data. According to InsideSales, social media is overused when we consider how many leads it actually gains.
Social media platforms as a whole aren’t scoring high on the lead awesomeness scale. But among the low-scoring social sites, there is one that stands out as a success marker. You guessed it: LinkedIn.
To put that into real numbers, LinkedIn is responsible for 97% of a business’s social media leads!
The bottom line is this: LinkedIn works for B2B lead generation.
All that remains to be done is to leverage LinkedIn in the best way possible. These 7 tips will help you do just that.
1. Turn your company page into a lead generation page.
In order to make leads from LinkedIn, you have to be intentional. Leads don’t just fall into your lap. You work for them.
The best way is to turn your business or company page into a lead generation page. This is a course reversal from the typical company page, which shows basic information and facts about the company. Who reads that stuff anyway?
Your company page is a pipeline for LinkedIn leads to visit your actual company website.
Structure your company page in such a way that it leads up to a conversion action. The conversion action is a click-through to your website, either in the company description or your recent updates.
First, use an image that gets attention or creates interest.
The header image is the first way to attract a user’s interest. This is what Hubspot does with their header image, in which they advertise one of their many guides.
The header image is a clear way of prospecting for those who are interested in learning more about personalized marketing. The header image is only where it starts. You want a response, and the next logical response is to keep reading. The image both grabs attention and makes the user eager to find a way to get their hands on that guide.
Second, create a clear and compelling pitch in your company description.
This is where many companies falter. The company description should not be a dry explanation of how much you grew and how many offices you’ve opened. That’s not the stuff of lead generation.
Instead, you want to speak directly to your target audience, and invite them to convert. (Don’t worry; the conversion part will come soon enough.)
The most important part of your company description is the first two lines because that’s all that LinkedIn displays. In order to read the rest of the description, the user must click “see more.” You’ve got to grab the user with your first couple of sentences, or they won’t read all that sparkling copy you created.
Here’s what Stride does with their description.
There’s nothing here about office locations, Forbes 5000 listings, or whatever else. This description puts the user at the forefront:
- “Helping independent workers …” BAM! Target audience identified.
- “… save time and money …” Value proposition submitted.
- “… insurance and taxes.” Service provided.
Based on that hook, the engaged prospect is going to click “see more.”
Now what? Now, they can visit your website.
That’s the path of the user who is interested in finding out more about your company — a prospect. It’s up to you to make your company website as conversion-ready as possible.
Third, make your Recent Updates section clickable and conversion-focused.
Just in case prospects don’t click through your company website on the company information section, you want to get them in the Updates.
As long as you’re regularly posting updates, you’ll have an active and engaging feed. The best way to gain leads from this section is to post updates that are directly aimed at your target audience. You can post blog updates, link to your infographics, and share other information, but keep this in mind: You’re looking for click-throughs from information-seekers.
Those are the basic steps to optimizing a company page. If you’re an industry that has broad appeal, you’ll probably see quite a few leads from this source. If you’re in a very small niche, your answers lie in the information below.
2. Create a Showcase page.
LinkedIn created showcase pages for companies to promote individual brands that are extensions of the company.
Showcase pages are the perfect way to segment your inbound LinkedIn traffic. If you can create a business unit that is directly connected to a specific target audience, then you are in a position to create a Showcase page.
From your company page, click “Edit” and “Create a Showcase Page.” (See complete instructions here.)
Showcase pages were basically custom made for B2Bs to better generate leads. LinkedIn writes, “It makes sense to create a Showcase Page when you want to represent a brand, business unit, or company initiative. These pages are intended to develop long-term relationships with a specific audience.”
Represent? Relationship? Audience? Sounds a lot like B2B marketing to me.
A Showcase page should target one customer segment and provide information that is relevant to them. Your Showcase page gets a larger header image, more above-the-fold update posts, and places to link back to your company. In this way, it differs from company pages in several key ways.
This is what Microsoft’s Showcase page for Office looks like.
A massive company like Salesforce has several Showcase pages.
Here some tips for making your Showcase pages as powerful as possible.
- Make it conversion-primed, just like your company page.
- It’s important to keep the name of the page short, so it won’t be truncated in the display sidebar.
- In the Showcase page name, use a word that your audience will understand and relate to.
Showcase pages are simply another way to spread the net a little bit wider and to gain even more targeted leads interested in your product or service.
3. Use Advanced Search
So far, I’ve explained two inbound techniques for gaining leads. Now, I want to explain how to go out and find your prospects. They may not come find you, but you can go find them.
LinkedIn’s advanced search gives you an incredible way of identifying the exact type of people you are targeting.
From the LinkedIn header menu, click the search people icon, and the advanced option.
Even without the upgraded LinkedIn membership, you have a great filter for narrowing down your search.
The most powerful aspect of Advanced People Search is the center column, in which you can filter your search by location, current company, industry, past company, school, profile language, and nonprofit interests.
Here’s how you might create an Advanced Search. This particular search is looking for people in my network who are in the Seattle area and the commercial real estate industry.
The results are focused, giving me a chance to connect with these people.
The great thing about these results is that I can continue to filter them without having to go and rework my initial search.
The search filters are helpful because I can instantly see how the search filters will change the results of my initial search. Plus, I can gain insight into how a particular company or area may be a better target for my prospecting. Notice the left sidebar:
Advanced search is the single most powerful technique for directly finding targets.
Keep in mind that the bigger and better your personal network, the greater your chance of finding warm prospects. While LinkedIn’s advanced search does allow you to search the network as a whole, the best leads will come from people to whom you are already connected at a first, second, or third level.
4. Save searches
When you go through the work of creating a highly specific and targeted search, you’ll want to save it.
Saved searches create a way to stay active in your prospecting. You know that getting B2B leads isn’t a one and done activity. You have to maintain consistency in order to have a steady pipeline of sales.
Directly from your advanced search, look for the “Save search” option in the upper right corner.
When you create a saved search, not only do you get to find that exact search again, but you can also set up alerts.
Keep in mind that without an upgraded subscription, you can only save three searches.
5. Search Groups
Searching for people is a very detailed and granular approach to looking for leads. It’s a great approach, but there’s another one: Groups.
At the time of writing this article, I identified 2,058,816 groups on LinkedIn. You can be fairly confident that there’s a group in your niche.
A great way to find blocks of leads is to search for groups, join these groups, maintain some level of activity in these groups, and nurture leads in that way.
Simply perform a simple group search using relevant keywords.
Group searches do not have the same advanced features that people or company searches have, but you can narrow down your search according to relationship level, category, and language.
Look for groups with the following features:
Linkedin Marketing Opportunities You Don't Want To Miss Marple
Highly relevant. The group must be a nearly exact match to what you are seeking in a target audience.
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Active. LinkedIn ranks groups according to their activity level, so all you need to do is pay attention to how active they are in the search results. Select groups that are “very active.”
Medium size. There’s no “ideal size” since that depends on the nature of your business and niche. Keep in mind that you don’t want to get lost in a huge group where no one will notice you. You also don’t want to join a group that has too few people to matter. LinkedIn allows you to be a member of 50 groups, so choose carefully.
6. Start groups
LinkedIn groups offer a lot of great networking opportunities. One of the ways to get even more from the power of groups is to create your own.
Linkedin Marketing Opportunities You Don't Want To Miss Someone
As you join groups and interact with groups, you may identify an opportunity for another group to be formed. When you become the owner and moderator of your group, you gain leadership and recognition in the industry.
To get started, find the “Groups” section in the LinkedIn sidebar and click “See all.”
On the page that follows, click “Create a new group.”
Now, you’ll be able to enter the information and details for this group in the popup form. Remember to keep it focused on the user, and don’t make it all about your company.
As long as you position yourself authoritatively and not in a salesy way, you can form a place where your target audience can gather and interact.
7. Publish content
LinkedIn has a powerful content publishing platform, and if you’re serious about B2B marketing, you need to be using it.
By creating quality content, you can turn your strategy from outbound marketing—drawing attention through ads—and start building an inbound strategy where you draw in users interested in what you have to offer.
There are two ways to do this effectively—by publishing both as an individual and as a company.
On the personal side, Marcus Murphy does a great job sharing intriguing and interesting posts through the platform. Using almost exclusively his content strategy on the platform, he’s acquired over 11,000 LinkedIn followers and has quickly become a recognized industry leader.
When he shares even a simple text post, he gets dozens of likes, shares, and comments.
A great example on the company side of publishing is Adobe. While they could resign themselves to a stodgy, corporate tone and voice, Adobe isn’t afraid to share colorful and inspiring stories of their employees.
It draws attention to the brand, but in a way that isn’t pushy or too closely tied with sales.
If you have publishing access, be sure to use this platform for even more exposure. LinkedIn members who are publishing report that they’ve experienced a lot of success.
Conclusion
This is a broad-level strategy that leaves you lots of room to trace down more precise strategies. LinkedIn offers a lot of opportunities and is the ideal resource for B2B marketing.
But without the right knowledge, it becomes just another time-sucking social network. Next time you’re on LinkedIn, spend at least thirty minutes doing some advanced searches or group searches, and see if you don’t come up with at least five prospects.
It’s a start, and it could very well turn into your next B2B sale.
What is your experience with B2B marketing on LinkedIn?