Building Connection through Cross-Channel Experiences
By Jack Butler, Alliance Manager at Integrate
and Liz Demers, Partner Manager, LMS Channel Sales at LinkedIn
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As B2B Marketers we’re challenged to deliver results, but where do we start? Now that many professionals have been working from home for 7 months or more, and in-person opportunities have all been put on hold, how do we create new game-plans for connecting with buyers?
Less than a year ago, most connections were made at events, in conference room working sessions, over lunches & dinners, and during office visits. Goals and sales targets aren’t changing with our new reality, but our strategy for connecting with people, growing relationships, and building trust must evolve.
The good news is that while in-person gatherings are limited, buyers haven’t disappeared. Businesses are hard at work, buying and selling, prospecting and nurturing buyers. Consider how these connections are facilitated today. Where are buyers — potential customers — going to learn, solve problems, and network?
As humans we gravitate towards communities because they help us to be more productive and successful. That’s why many people are turning to LinkedIn’s online professional community for staying up to date on industry topics, learning new skills, finding job opportunities, and growing their professional network. LinkedIn’s professional network is not only helping to close gaps for in-person gatherings, but it is considered to be the most trusted social platform. (BusinessInsider Trust, 2019)
LinkedIn has become an essential part of every B2B marketer’s Martech stack. Releases over the last year include Conversation Ads, re-vamped Lead Gen Forms, Interest-based Targeting, LinkedIn Live and Events. This exciting lineup of new features and functionality offers marketers a suite of tools for engaging and converting every member in your buying group. Particularly in this remote environment, when gaining buy-in from expanding buyer groups and cultivating brand champions can be a challenge. Through white papers, videos, offers, and demos deployed with an aligned message across touchpoints – LinkedIn makes it easy for buyers to discover your content and build trust in your brand.
Building meaningful buyer experiences becomes even more achievable when marketers leverage the Integrate Demand Cloud — a centralized, customizable cloud platform that provides connectivity, standardization, and scale across all aspects of your marketing and advertising technology stack and key marketing channels. By connecting the components you use to generate demand — marketing channels, media, events, data providers, processes and workflows, and existing and future technology investments — the demand cloud creates an efficient, effective engine to build trust and drive demand.
Pairing LinkedIn Marketing Solutions’ many customer touchpoints and trusted platform with a personalized demand cloud elevates marketing teams’ ability to align messaging strategy to each member of the buying group, across all marketing and sales touchpoints. By connecting the entire Martech stack and data from marketing programs into Integrate, marketing and sales teams can finally break traditional silos and create relevant, data-driven buyer journeys that build brand preference and consensus among key decision makers.
The result will be a more seamless and engaging buyer journey that will show your customers and prospects that you’re really listening and learning from your interactions with them to ultimately drive the results that matter for your business.
To learn more about the combined power of LinkedIn and Integrate, contact Jack Butler or your LinkedIn account representative.