Rocket Readings: Need a Shot in the Arm to Drive More Leads? Crush it with LinkedIn Ads

Need a Shot in the Arm to Drive More Leads? Crush it with LinkedIn Ads:from Sales Force Effectiveness Blog by John Koehler
Marketing leaders can finish the year strong by shifting ad dollars to LinkedIn Advertising. The opportunity is there to get the right message in front of the right buyers to drive leads.
In my last post, I provided marketing leaders a summary of the new LinkedIn features. In the past week, LinkedIn rolled out yet another new feature with positive implications for lead generation. This time, they added a 30 second video ad format to their advertising platform. The ability to drive more leads from LinkedIn just got much more powerful.
The purpose of this post is to educate Marketers on how to drive even more leads through LinkedIn. The self-serve advertising platform is perfect for marketing budgets that fall below meeting the minimum 25K spend per quarter requirement by LinkedIn. This is ideal for emerging companies in the $10M - $100M range. This approach also allows marketers to control costs by setting a budget. You then only pay for the clicks or impressions received.

What has changed? In the past LinkedIn provided limited ad format capabilities. Now there is an ability to use a targeted video ad to drive remarkable results.
Targeting capabilities of the self-serve platform include:

Target By:	Examples:
Job Title	“VP of Operations” or “HR Manager”
Job Function	“Operations” or “Engineering” or "Marketing" functions
Industry	“Banking” or “Manufacturing” industries
Geography	“United States” or “Netherlands” or “Toronto”
Company Size	"51-100" or “501-1000" people
Company Name	"GE" or "Hewlett-Packard" or "FedEx"
Seniority	“Vice President” or “Owners”
Age	“18-24” or “35-54”
Gender	"Female" or "Male"
LinkedIn Group	"Business Intelligence Group" or "Corporate Real Estate"

With this type of targeting capability, the ability to place your advertising message in front the right buyers is powerful. This is where your buyer persona can be leveraged to create an irresistible offer to your ideal targeted prospect.
Several of our clients are using the LinkedIn self-serve platform to drive qualified leads into the top of the funnel. SBI’s Demand Generation offering provides a proven framework for designing and optimizing campaigns. Our clients are experiencing 10X more success with LinkedIn targeted ads than from ads on Paid Search Engines. If you have tried LinkedIn advertising with marginal success, or you’re starting new, sign-up for our Make The Number event here. By signing up you will receive my LinkedIn Ad optimization tips sheet.
For those marketing leaders who are licking their chops to get started, I have an important tip for you. Make sure to pass on to your team the following learning that we share with our lead generation clients;

When selecting target audiences, the audience pool must reach at least 1,000 members. This means you can’t single out a handful of C-Suites at ACME Company and bombard them with custom advertisement messages. However you can target the c-suites against a broader target option that reaches at least 1,000 members.

The key to success on the self-serve platform is to continually optimize. If a campaign is not performing, don’t give up. You must try new offers until you hit one that resonates with your target audience. There are several types of messaging you can do with your ads.
Types of Ad Copy Messaging Content

Promote Product/Service/Event
Brand Message
Promote Content such as eBooks or Whitepapers
Special Offers/Discounts

Text Ad Specs:

25 character headline
75 character description
50x50 pixel image next to text ad

Video Ad Specs:

30 seconds in length
300x250 pixel size
Seamless integration with YouTube

Key Takeaway:
If you find leads are drying up and you need to finish the year strong, shift your dollars to LinkedIn Advertising. The opportunity is there to get the right message in front of the right buyers to drive leads. To set yourself up for a great 2013, drop us a line to hear about our Lead Generation offering. Learn how we help clients dominate lead generation on LinkedIn.