THE

MARKETER
Issue 6 Quarter 3 2019 QUARTERLY

the data on b2b turning ideas

video tactics
into profits
GROWING WITH with the
LINKEDIN
ALL THE TOOLS
YOU NEED growth
how would
david ogilvy
write ads today?
formula
BREAKTHROUGH
RESEARCH ON
THE ROLE OF
BRANDS IN B2B

THE SALES HEROES ANN HANDLEY’S LATEST LEARNING THE

TRANSFORMING LIVES ADVICE COLUMN LESSONS OF FYRE
FROM THE TEAM
A NOTE TO SOPHISTICATED MARKETERS

G
rowth: it’s what every business
depends on, what shareholders and
CEOs demand, what the happiness
and prosperity of many are linked
to, and what marketing and sales teams feel
daily pressure to deliver. It sounds as natural
and inevitable as grass turning greener, but in
reality it can be anything but.
In this special issue of The Sophisticated
Marketer Quarterly, we’re taking an in-depth
look at the question of growth: How can it be
sustainably achieved? Which aspects of sales
and marketing contribute most to it? What’s
the most effective way to use new technologies
to drive it? And how can your business find the
most effective way to grow on LinkedIn?
We’re examining the digital trends that
future growth will depend on, the everyday sales
heroes who play the critical role in delivering it,
the applications of AI that have most effectively
unlocked it so far, and the role of organic and
paid marketing in laying the foundations for
it. Most importantly, we reveal the results of a
new study conducted by legendary researchers
Les Binet and Peter Field in association with
LinkedIn, which reveals the marketing formula
that’s most effective in driving growth for B2B.
In short, the Growth issue packs in
everything we can find to help move your
business forward.

Happy growing!

I I
THE TEAM: EDITORS Jane Fleming Grace MacDonald Megan Golden Alex Rynne I I
I I I I
Sean Callahan Steve Kearns Kate Mallord Amanda Bulat Lizzy Knights-Ward George PutongI
I I
CONTRIBUTORS Ann Handley Rebecca Harmer Preethi Sundaram Andrew Davis I I
I I I I
David Beebe Heidi Bullock Simon Kemp Siobhan Waters Caroline Young I
I I I
Tom Pepper Jennifer Bunting Andrew Monu Clémence Beauchamp lnkd.in/US-Blog
FOR CREAM PUBLISHING: CONSULTANT EDITOR Matthew Cowen I lnkd.in/EMEA-Blog
I I
ART DIRECTOR Tim Mapleston DESIGNER Vicky Trainer PUBLISHER Victoria Furness

CreamPublishing
Cream Publishing, Adur Business Centre, Little High Street, Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex BN43 5EG.

Sophisticated Marketer 3
 CONTENTS
46
06 FYRE:THE MISSED
MARKETING LESSONS
What content marketers need to
learn from the famous meltdown
in the Caribbean.
08 DAVID OGILVY ON GROWTH
The wisdom and work of the
Father of Advertising is as
relevant today as ever.
11 MORE DIVERSE BRANDS
OR MORE DIVERSE
COMPANIES?
Is it enough for businesses
to include diverse audiences
in their advertising? Or must
organizational change come first?
4 Sophisticated Marketer
66
13 INTEREST TARGETING
FOR TECH MARKETERS
Here’s why it’s a game-changer
for the sector.
15 ANDREW DAVIS
ON VIDEO
The former Today Show
producer has built one of
the most influential video
brands on LinkedIn.
17 THE ROLE OF BRAND
IN ABM STRATEGIES
Engagio’s CMO Heidi
Bullock explains how to
balance brand and demand
gen for more effective ABM.
18
18 DIGITAL TRENDS 2019
Simon Kemp has trawled the global
data to reveal the three trends B2B
marketers most need to respond to.
23 TOOLBOX SPECIAL:
GROW WITH LINKEDIN
All the new tools designed to help
drive growth on our platform.
36 ASKING FOR A FRIEND
Our superb advice column from
content pioneer Ann Handley.
38 THE INCUMBENT’S GUIDE
TO SELF-DISRUPTION
Once considered impossible, it’s
now an essential B2B strategy.
 64
50
42 THE RETURN OF ORGANIC
Free from unrealistic expectations
of virality, organic marketing is
now more valuable than ever.
46 THE B2B MARKETERS
MAKING BEST USE OF AI
Four brands going beyond the
hype to drive genuine growth.
50 REAL GROWTH HEROES
The everyday sales heroes that all
marketing strategies depend on.
54 THE B2B GROWTH FORMULA
New research from Les Binet and
Peter Field reveals the balance of
budgets that drives B2B growth.
38
06
60 THE ULTIMATE GUIDE
TO SALES PRODUCTIVITY
13 sales experts share their tips
for beating the time crunch.
64 DATA-LED CREATIVITY
The essential skill in an era when
insight can come from anywhere.
66 THE REAL IMPACT OF
THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
Treating it as an awareness
play could seriously damage
your growth.
68 WHAT WORKS IN B2B VIDEO:
LinkedIn data reveals the formats,
styles and subjects that engage.
08
72 THE CONTENT SHAPING
THINKING ON DIVERSITY
A marketing priority, but still a
complex and challenging issue.
75 IN DEFENSE OF THE LISTICLE
It’s been let down by marketers’
laziness—let’s change things!
77 WHAT’S IN YOUR BAG
Storified founder David Beebe on
staying creative on the move.
78 CONTENT HEROES:
DAVID ATTENBOROUGH
Far from just a wildlife presenter,
he’s the man who made TV a
thought-leadership channel.
Sophisticated Marketer 5

FTY
H E M I S S E D
It’s held up as a story of influencer marketing gone rogue, but there are more challenging
lessons that digital marketers need to learn from the Fyre Festival fiasco.
A
s an event marketer, I watched most of the
Netflix documentary, FYRE: The Greatest
Party that Never Happened, from behind the
sofa cushion. It felt like my deepest, darkest
nightmares were coming to life on-screen.
Every event manager spends sleepless nights in the build-up to
a big project, mentally running through all the potential things
that could go wrong. Sometimes you can’t plan for disaster.
I’ve had the venue roof cave in the night before a conference,
storms leave trees blocking access routes, volcanic eruptions
prevent keynote speakers attending. On all of these occasions,
though, the challenges were unexpected and created at the
last minute.
My experience told me that something very different was
happening where FYRE was concerned. The problems in this
story weren’t a case of bad luck or planning. They also weren’t
a case of a few celebrity influencers sabotaging an otherwise
sensible marketing idea. There were far more serious issues at
work that we should be learning from.
Primary responsibility for FYRE has to come down to its
driving force, Billy McFarland. He had a big marketing idea
and a gift for drumming up enthusiasm around it. However,
that idea had no strategy behind it. As a result, it quickly start-
ed to resemble a pyramid scheme, extracting money from
investors, betraying the faith of employees and leaving others
to face the consequences.
One man alone couldn’t possibly have created a disas-
ter on the epic scale of FYRE though. He had lots of help. It
was easy to point the finger at the celebrity influencers who
formed a key part of the marketing strategy, and persuaded so
many people to buy tickets. FYRE became a parable about the
dangers of influencer marketing. However, I think this misses
the point badly. It’s really a parable about what happens when
marketers take no responsibility for the stories they tell.
6 Sophisticated Marketer
RE :
ARMER
REBECCA H
W0RDS BY
M A R K E T I N G
LESSONS
Five lessons marketers
need to learn from FYRE
FYRE wasn’t just a failure of influencer marketing.
It shows just how much can go wrong with event
marketing, content marketing and social media
marketing when we set the wrong objectives, ignore
the metrics that matter, and convince ourselves
that our messaging and our stories don’t need to
connect to the real world.
LESSON 1: DON’T LET THE CONTENT
OVERTAKE THE MARKETING
The FYRE Festival was originally conceived as an epic piece
of content marketing. The idea was a music event that would
demonstrate the artist-booking app that McFarland was
developing in partnership with the rapper, Ja Rule.
One of the tragedies of the story is that a booking app for
musicians feels like a fundamentally compelling market-
ing proposition in its own right. It didn’t need a ridiculous-
ly ambitious content marketing moonshot to promote it.
Early in the Netflix film there’s a brief mention of a different
content idea: a simpler, smaller, exclusive gig for music indus-
try insiders that would showcase the app’s line-up of talent.
If only they’d stuck to that!
LESSON 2: THERE ARE ETHICAL
IMPLICATIONS TO STORYTELLING
It’s easy to be seduced by the art of storytelling—and FYRE
was always a great story. McFarland told it on the stages of
Web Summit and in the pages of Rolling Stone: how he and Ja
 THE BRIEF

Scenes of marketing gone

rogue, from the Netflix
documentary (from left): a
building site masquerades
as a desert island, the
influencer launch
video, the meltdown
in a monsoon exposes
everything.

Rule had spotted an abandoned island once owned by Pablo the day of the festival: editing maps to make a promontory look
Escobar when flying over it in a plane they’d piloted from New like an island, deleting comments on social media that asked
York; how they’d decided to buy it; and how the whole, crazy inconvenient questions. Throughout, the festival organizers
inspiration for a different kind of festival started from there. treated their community of customers as a captive audience
You can just feel how addictive the little embellishments to to be squeezed for financing purposes. Transparency was the
this story became as people kept adding them in. enemy. When that happens, you’re no longer marketing—
The trouble is, making a story compelling doesn’t take away you’re engaged in a cover-up.
the responsibility to keep it real. And that’s especially true when Had the bad news been allowed to escape, FYRE Festival
it’s a story that’s going to be used to persuade investors to put might have managed down expectations and staggered to
in millions of dollars, or persuade festival-goers to advance some sort of end-result that worked. However,
thousands. When the story becomes the product, there nobody was incentivized to deliver an
are big ethical and legal implications for marketers Throughout, authentic experience. The marketing was
in how much of it is fiction. The marketers and everything. Reality never received a
agencies involved in FYRE never faced up to this. the organizers high enough priority.
treated their
LESSON 3: DETAILS MATTER community of LESSON 5: THERE’S
NO SUCH THING AS
Sometimes it pays to let the details get in customers CONSEQUENCE-FREE
the way of a good story. That detail about the as a captive MARKETING
planned location for FYRE being a private
island owned by Escobar wasn’t strictly true—nor audience to be All marketing has consequenc-
was the claim that Billy McFarland now owned it. squeezed es. When the marketing is effective,
The real owner had asked him to play down any associ- the consequences should be positive
ation of his island with drug running. FYRE’s marketers all round. However, for that to happen,
ignored this. As soon as the festival’s heavily promoted launch marketers need to start with a clear proposition that
video announced it would be happening on Escobar’s former creates value for both their business and its customers; then
playground, the owner pulled the plug. Now this was a festival build their stories around that. Nobody involved in FYRE ever
without the location it had built its promise around. took marketing that seriously. The only consequence they
were interested in was hype; the only stories they told were
LESSON 4: WHEN TRANSPARENCY designed to intensify that hype. They believed that the ability
IS THE ENEMY, YOU HAVE A PROBLEM to create social media excitement was an end in itself. That’s
a danger for any marketer who confuses execution with strat-
Perhaps the most shocking aspect of the FYRE story is the way egy. It’s only a great story if the message at its core makes
the marketing team insisted on sticking to the story right up to sense—and FYRE never did.

Sophisticated Marketer 7
THE BRIEF

W0RDS BY GRACE MACDONALD

His career spanned the

Second World War and
the Mad Men era, he
never saw a smartphone
or social media feed, yet
the Father of Advertising’s
ideas are as relevant
now as ever...

The David Ogilvy

Guide to Growth
“Unless your advertising contains a big idea,
it will pass like a ship in the night”
The limited nature of human attention means that Ogilvy’s thinking
on big ideas is as relevant ever. People respond to big ideas because
they express something they’ve never heard expressed before, but
which is absolutely relevant to themselves and their lives. Unique,
original and striking, they continue to draw attention away from ideas
that are smaller and less ambitious.
Look back over the history of advertising and it’s big ideas that
stick out: Budweiser’s Whassup campaign, Cadbury’s Gorilla, Dove’s
Real Beauty Sketches, Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Epic Split for Volvo
Trucks, Guinness’s Surfers, Dumb Ways to Die. Ogilvy proved how a
big idea could be as simple as adding a mysterious
eye-patch to a model, creating the iconic Man in
the Hathaway Shirt.
If anything, the effect is even more pronounced
today, with search engine algorithms and social
media feeds reinforcing the visibility of content that
captivates people, either by questioning received
wisdom and taking on conventional thinking, or
being so definitive and so authoritative that nobody
can ignore it.

8 Sophisticated Marketer
“Do not address your readers as though they and so many creative ways to apply them. In his 18
were gathered together in a stadium. When Miracles of Research, he listed the many different
people read your copy, they are alone” ways in which signals of intelligence should contrib-
ute to marketing strategy. They included defin-
In the age of social media, it’s easy for digital marketers to become fixated ing your target audience, determining the most
on the shared side of their audiences’ experience. We know that they engage persuasive and relevant promise for that audience,
with our marketing messages as part of a community, where they can see testing the most effective creative approach—and
others’ responses through likes, comments and shares. There’s a definite settling internal arguments. Today’s digital and
sense of talking to people in a huge, virtual stadium. However, the most effec- social platforms make this kind of data available
tive marketing on social platforms doesn’t get distracted by the opportunity in robust, real-time form. The rewards of using it
to “go viral”, make headlines or create a big noise. It starts with the opportuni- creatively have never been higher.
ty to be intimately and personally relevant, and then builds social proof and
organic sharing from there. Your prospect’s sense of shared identity is never “In advertising, what you
as powerful as their sense of what’s relevant to them personally. say is more important than
That’s why Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is such a rapidly growing how you say it”
and effective strategy for B2B marketers, and why formats like LinkedIn
Sponsored Content are at their most impactful when they call out a target Despite his famous skill, Ogilvy never showed off
audience in headlines and copy. Tactics and formats like these would in the way that he wrote ads. He knew that creative
have been the ideal vehicles for Ogilvy’s style of personally relevant flair, groovy styling and the channel and format of
writing, with headlines and copy that focused on the most relevant and the moment are only effective when they’re deliv-
resonant detail for the individual reader he had in mind. ering relevant value that repays the attention your
audience pays to them. His content was imagi-
“Advertising people who ignore research native in the details it picked up on, but it always
are as dangerous as generals who ignore got straight to the point. This direct, concise but
decodes of enemy signals” eloquent style would stand out even more today.
When your audience gives you their attention, they
Ogilvy started out as a researcher expect definite value in return for it. Otherwise,
and despised marketers and adver- you’re offering style over substance—and the
tisers who either ignored insights, people you want to engage walk away frustrated.
or used research selectively to back
up what they had already decided “Your role is to sell. Don’t let
to do. He would have seen modern, anything distract you from the
digital marketing as a playground: sole purpose of advertising”
so many different sources of insight,
Ogilvy’s creativity focused on one thing and one
thing only. “When I write an advertisement, I don’t
want you to tell me that you find it creative,” he
wrote. “I want you to find it so interesting that you
buy the product.”
Focusing on selling isn’t the same as focus-
ing solely on price or promotions, though. Ogilvy
recognized the value of compelling brand promis-
es, and he knew exactly how to create a brand
image. His ads are infused with personality, aspira-
tion, style and intrigue. However, these were always
firmly rooted in what the brand’s products actually
were—and what they actually did.
Marketers today have more data available than
ever before to measure how advertising contrib-
utes to sales—and Ogilvy would have devoured
this insight. He may have been a passionate believ-
Classic Ogilvy ads that fused er in selling, but he was also passionately curious
big ideas with telling, about what made people buy. For David Ogilvy,
personally relevant detail,
and delivered them through
the wealth of evidence available today would
concise copy: Zippo lighters simply have enabled more creative, innovative and
Rolls Royce and The Man intriguing ways to sell. Let’s try to have as much fun
in the Hathaway Shirt. exploring them as he would have done.

Sophisticated Marketer 9

More diverse brands
or more diverse companies?
It’s great to see diversity firmly on the ad industry agenda, but we need to be clear about the objective.
M
ore representative and more diverse ad campaigns have been one
of the dominant themes of marketing conferences this year, and it’s
encouraging to see this issue rising up the industry agenda at last.
However, I think there’s still a lack of clarity about what marketers
should be trying to achieve.
Is it enough for brands to create advertising that includes a greater range of ethnic
groups, disabilities, genders and sexualities? Or do we need something more from the or-
ganizations behind that advertising? Is this a creative advertising problem? Or is it a far
more fundamental marketing and business problem?
THE COMMERCIAL LOGIC FOR MORE DIVERSE ADS
There’s a compelling argument that the simple act of including more diverse groups in ads
has a positive social impact. Minority groups are often either absent from the media gener-
ally, or used as shorthand stereotypes: from submissive Muslim women to a promiscuous
and flamboyant LGBTQ+ community, to disabled people perpetually facing hardship and
living on benefits. Making minority groups more visible in advertising provides an oppor-
tunity to erode the sense of otherness and confront the clichés.
There are obvious benefits for brands and businesses too. There are more than 1 billion
people with some form of disability worldwide; and the LGBTQ+ community has global
buying power of over $3.7 trillion. Creating ads that are relatable to such big and lucrative
addressable audiences makes commercial sense. What’s more, studies show that people re-
member ads featuring diverse people more than ads that don’t.
ARE DIVERSE ADS MORE INCLUSIVE?
However, there’s also evidence that including diverse groups in
ads can have serious, unintended consequences. When the me-
dia agency MediaCom asked if ads present LGBTQ+ audiences
in a negative light, 54% of LGBTQ+ respondents said that they
do, versus only 11% of straight ones. Ads that feature diversi-
ty often can’t resist drawing attention to that diversity and this
leads to them either amplifying stereotypes or grandstanding
about undermining them. Either way, the representation is ex-
treme. It’s almost as though, after going to the perceived trou-
ble of putting diverse characters into advertising, brands want
to get maximum impact from it, one way or another.
What’s missing are fully rounded, diverse characters whose
diversity is incidental to the point of the ad. And yet that’s the
type of representation minority groups actually want. It raises
the question of whether diverse ads are really talking to diverse
THE BRIEF
W0RDS BY ANDREW MONU
audences, or to mainstream ones. Without a genuinely inclusive
viewpoint behind it, diverse advertising can feel like tokenism,
alienating rather than inclusive.
IS UNDERSTANDING ENOUGH?
Reaching out to diverse groups as part of the development pro-
cess can help. That’s what underpinned the treatment of disabil-
ity in award-winning ads for the UK chocolate brand Maltesers.
However, I’d argue that a business also needs to embark on a
wider cultural journey, before it starts to signal values of diversi-
ty and inclusion in its campaigns. It needs to start by committing
to serious, open and inclusive conversations with the most im-
portant brand asset that any business has: its own employees.
“People often talk about brands with a purpose,” says LinkedIn’s
UK Country Manager and VP for EMEA and Latin America, Joshua
Graff. “But I subscribe more to the idea of companies with a pur-
pose.” If the vision that a brand shows in its ads doesn’t align
with the reality of its values then sooner or later it runs into
trouble. If you advertise values of diversity and inclusion, you
need to be serious about creating products and experiences that
reflect those values, and to do that you need to be serious about
embedding those values within the business as a whole. This
takes time; even more time than properly researching an ad
among diverse groups.
It’s easy for marketers and advertising agencies to convince
themselves that by holding up a vision of diversity in advertis-
ing, they magically inspire the business itself to become more
diverse. The reality is very different: it involves a long and com-
plicated cultural journey, with difficult conversations about
unconscious bias and a rigorous process for identifying and
addressing it. An ad is no shortcut to any of this. It’s definitely
not a substitute for it.
Marketing is more than just advertising, and marketers need
to build every aspect of their proposition around diversity, not
just their ads. They need to address diverse groups’ need for
inclusion and belonging through the way they operate and the
products they bring to market. You don’t need to have complet-
ed this journey to make a diverse ad, but if you haven’t started it,
that’s maybe that’s where your focus should go first.
Sophisticated Marketer 11

Why Interest
Targeting is a
game changer for
tech marketers
ech marketers have a particular challenge when it comes to
targeting. More people and more functions are involved in our
buying decisions than ever before. Crucially though, they are
not all involved in the same way—and they’re not all involved
at the same time. It’s not enough to know who is part of the
decision. What’s vital is being able to zoom in on the moments when they
are a part of it. You need to reach all the people who are relevant, at the
moment when they are relevant.
LinkedIn recently conducted the largest ever study of tech buying, and
it found that four out of five employees on average are now touched by the
tech-buying process. They may be involved in scoping out needs, short-
listing and selecting suppliers, or providing the feedback that will decide
whether a business sticks or twists with a tech vendor. These people are
often hidden from demographic targeting, because their job title doesn’t
define them as part of the IT department.
THE THREE REASONS WHY INTEREST TARGETING MATTERS
That’s why Interest Targeting on LinkedIn is a real game-changer for
tech. It enables you to target all of the people across different functions
who are taking a meaningful, active interest in your category, and to
do so at the moment when they are taking that interest. It helps to
reach the hidden members of buying committees, ensures you’re
reaching them when their business is in the market for a solution, and
helps you reach out with content that’s relevant to the specific issues
driving the purchase.
INTEREST TARGETING VS BEHAVIORAL TARGETING
Targeting by behavior has a bad rap in B2B marketing. If you’ve been
followed around the web by ads for irrelevant businesses based on a link
you clicked on months before, then you’ll understand why. The crucial
difference between this type of targeting and Interest Targeting on
THE BRIEF
Preethi Sundaram investigates how
targeting by meaningful professional
interest solves three key challenges for
B2B tech marketers.
LinkedIn is triangulation. Using LinkedIn data, we’re
able to bring together different sources of insight to
identify genuine, relevant professional interest.
Interest Targeting uses deep signals of inter-
est based on the way that members engage with
content. We track explicit signals such as content
that is clicked on, liked, commented on and shared,
and we get extra context from the topics and pages
that people follow. We’re layering in data from Bing
searches as well, adding another highly relevant
signal to the mix. By bringing these sources togeth-
er, our models ensure that the interest you’re
targeting is interest that matters.
HOW TO TARGET BY INTEREST ON LINKEDIN
Interest Targeting isn’t just a content delivery
mechanism. It’s also a powerful content planning
mechanism. Having the confidence that you’re
reaching relevant people at a moment of active
consideration enables you to create assets to suit
that phase in the buying journey. The B2B tech
marketers who make the most effective use of
Interest Targeting will be those that build their
content strategies around these extra capabilities.
Interest Targeting is available through LinkedIn’s
self-service Campaign Manager platform, which
provides an estimate of the size of audience you’re
targeting and forecasts likely results for your
campaign as well. Find out more at
https://lnkd.in/interest-targeting
Sophisticated Marketer 13
 THE BRIEF

Andrew Davis ON B2B VIDEO

The former Today Show producer and star of The Loyalty Loop shares his video strategy secrets.

e’s worked with The Muppets and

H
The Today Show, written and direct-
ed his own documentary films,
and developed The Loyalty Loop
into one of the most creative and
popular pieces of marketing-related content on
the LinkedIn platform. In other words, there are
few more relevant experts to discuss what drives
great B2B video than Andrew Davis. We put him
on the spot:

Q: What’s your advice for marketers looking to

get started with video on LinkedIn?
A: First, create an appointment with your audience.
Set a time and day, every single week, that you are
going to deliver valuable content via video, and
deliver on it religiously. I upload my videos every
single Friday morning, and it keeps me on track.
That commitment of consistency will deliver the
longest and best returns.
Second, shoot with what you’ve got. Don’t go out
and buy a bunch of fancy gear to get started; do it
today, with the equipment you have. If you have an
iPhone, shoot on your iPhone. The truth is, the gear
can get in the way. There’s a large and long learning
curve for a lot of this stuff, and instead of trying to
figure that all out, you just need to start shooting.
Third, take the time to pre-produce. Have some
notecards or a script ready before you hit record,
and you’ll create videos efficiently and effectively
without worrying about what you’re going to say.
Q: Which types of video content convince
you to engage?
A: When I’m scrolling through my LinkedIn feed,
there are a couple of types of content that catch my
attention and engage me as an audience member.
I’m tired of talking heads. Instead, if you’re
going to create video content, make sure you show
instead of tell. Video is a “show me” medium, so
if you’ve got something to show, show me! Think
about additional shots you can add to your video
to make it more compelling. Compelling, intrigu-
ing imagery always makes me stop scrolling and
consume content. And maybe most importantly,
ask questions. Don’t overlook their small, signif-
icant power. I’m always interested in the answers
other people give, or the conversation it sparks
in the comments, and I love to engage if there’s
advice that I can give.
Q: What’s the key to a successful video series?
A: If you want to launch a series of videos on
LinkedIn, I have three pieces of advice for you,
and they all come out of the television business:
Andrew Davis a 1. Make sure your idea has legs.
keynote speaker When you come up with a video concept, write
and bestselling
author whose Loyalty down 25 topics that fit into it, to ensure there’s
Loop videos are enough content for you to cover over time. The
required viewing for worst thing you can do is realize, three episodes
B2B marketers on
in, that you’ve got nothing else to talk about.
LinkedIn
2. Bring some personality to it.
Make sure there is a persona attached to the
content you’re creating—a show host to drive
content and build connections. LinkedIn is a social environment. It’s
hard to have a relationship with content that doesn’t feature a personality
that drives the show. I can build a relationship with that person, and then
a relationship with the brand.
3. Create a format for every episode.
People fall in love with the format of a show before they fall in love with
the show itself. Ask yourself: What is the formula for this show?
It could start with an intro, introduce a problem, talk about three
potential solutions, and close with a tease for next week. That’s a very
simple outline, but if you create a format that reliably delivers consistent,
high-quality content every week, people will eat it up.
You’ll find more inspiration for B2B video on LinkedIn in our
study of the characteristics of top-performing video campaigns,
on page 68 of this issue.

Sophisticated Marketer 15
 THE BRIEF

Heidi Bullock
ON THE ROLE OF BRAND IN ABM STRATEGIES
Engagio’s CMO reveals how to find the right balance when developing Account-Based Marketing.

L
ead generation and brand
awareness are intri-
cately intertwined, and
the most sophisticated
LinkedIn strategies place
a complementary focus on both. But Heidi Bullock is
how do you maintain that balance Chief Marketing
when developing an Account-Based Officer (CMO) for the
ABM automation
Marketing (ABM) approach, with its platform, Engagio
natural focus on targeted demand
generation? We asked Heidi Bullock,
Chief Marketing Officer for the ABM
platform Engagio, about how she finds
the right formula:

Q: What role does LinkedIn play in

your ABM strategy?
A: A strong LinkedIn presence is
important—period. I think with ABM, it’s essential because
many teams are driving more outbound efforts. If a company
receives an email, direct mail, or outreach from a rep, the
first thing they do is look at LinkedIn to understand what
the company does and what they stand for. It’s the CliffsNotes
for business.
Q: Which insights and metrics do you find most valuable
when measuring marketing performance on LinkedIn?
A: It depends on what we are highlighting. If we’re posting
a customer perspective or a video, I like to look at overall
engagement and views. I like to understand if we reached
the right set of people. If we’re sharing information about
an event, or another piece of content, I like to track registra-
tions or downloads. If we’re promoting an event, and we used
LinkedIn as part of our strategy to focus on target accounts,
then I really want to look at how many target accounts we got
to sign up.
Q: How can marketers gain more traction within buying
committees through LinkedIn marketing and advertising?
A: For B2B marketing, most folks reading this understand that
purchase decisions involve multiple people. Most buyers are
inundated with choices, and it’s harder than ever to stand out
and ensure your value proposition is clear. LinkedIn is a great
way to engage a buying group on their terms, and delight them
with a video or post. A simple thing is to tag folks in a post
directly, like individuals the buyer looks up to. We have also
leveraged LinkedIn ads to get in front of the right set of people,
as part of a larger strategy.
Q: How can marketers find the sweet spot between brand
awareness and lead generation?
A: Brand and lead generation are equally important. I think of
brand as the wrapper around lead generation. Without a great
brand, your lead gen will be sub-optimal. For example, lead
generation is very dependent on content, and content benefits
from a strong brand.
The key for social is making sure that, firstly, there is a
balance. You don’t want to post only one content format
for only one objective, exclusively ebooks or heavy product
information, for example, or just videos of your CEO walking
through the parking lot. It’s helpful to have a calendar with the
types of posts listed out, and it becomes apparent if there is an
imbalance. Secondly, you have to ensure that what you post is
valuable to customers, not only about you.
Q: What are the key details you look for when researching
a prospective account?
A: To understand what an account and key stakeholders care
about, I like to listen to earnings calls and read annual reports.
Our team also reviews profiles on LinkedIn and Twitter. We
actually track LinkedIn job alerts as a key part of intelligence.
Q: What are your favorite types of posts to come across on
your LinkedIn feed?
A: I enjoy posts that offer a tip or trick from someone that is an
expert. LinkedIn is a great way to get concise information that
can help with your job and career. I also like it when people
post videos from events. I can’t make it to everything, and this
is a way of feeling like you are there (event FOMO, NOMO)!

Sophisticated Marketer 17
18 Sophisticated Marketer

DIGiTAL
TRENDS
2019 Kate Mallord looks at global trends in digital behavior to
identify the greatest untapped opportunities for B2B growth.
or many businesses, the best
opportunities for growth
come from embracing new
trends early and capitalizing
on first-mover advantage.
B2B marketing is no differ-
ent. Failing to keep up can
mean the beginning of the end.
Every year Simon Kemp, the CEO and
founder of marketing strategy consultancy
Kepios, meticulously scours the globe for
new research that helps to identify digital
behavioral patterns. He uses these studies
THE BRIEF
to predict how people’s use of the internet
will change. The Digital 2019 Report that
he produced in association with Hootsuite
and We Are Social compiles thousands of
charts from across more than 200 global
and local studies. We’ve taken that report
a step further, to highlight the most impor-
tant three trends (and one tip) for B2B
marketers looking for growth. Ignored,
these trends could undermine your
marketing performance going forward.
Respond to them, and they will start to
represent significant growth opportunities.
Sophisticated Marketer 19
THE BRIEF

TREND 1:
B2B VOICE SEARCH
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
Voice search is not a new trend but
it’s worth noting that the adoption
and use of voice assistants increased
significantly during 2018. According
to Kemp’s 2019 report, roughly four
in every 10 internet users use voice
commands or voice search every
month. Right now many business-
es still have first-mover advantage,
especially if you serve a smaller geo.
If you can get yourself into the top
three snippets on search engine
results pages, you could be in a
position to capture the 50% of search
traffic that Comscore predicts will be
triggered by voice in 2020.
coming through an AI, including training for those on your
HOW DOES A B2B BUSINESS TAKE ADVANTAGE? end of the phone. Get this right early and conversational AI
There are two ways of looking at this. The first, is to optimize tools could work to drive growth for your business.
for FAQs and concentrate on an SEO strategy that places your
business in the top three responses to common questions. MOST IMPORTANT COUNTRIES:
The second is to think about how your business could India, China and Indonesia are the top users of voice search
support a voice AI. Conversational AI technology is increas- according to Global Web Index data. In each of these countries,
ingly capable of speaking on behalf of a user, with a more than half of the internet users are using voice search or
human-sounding voice. It’s highly feasible that a B2B buyer voice commands. Thailand, UAE and Vietnam are also heavy
could request a voice assistant to price the five best video users of voice control so APAC-based marketers, in particular,
conferencing packages—by making calls to businesses to need to respond quickly.
research the options. Is your business ready to accommo-
date an AI trying to make a booking or gather more informa-
tion about your services? If your organization receives a lot
TREND 2:
B2B VIDEO CONTENT
of phone calls, you’ll want to know how to respond to calls

THE KEY TIP: MARKETING AS A SERVICE
Why is it important?
The Digital 2019 Report argues that brands achieving the greatest
success “treat marketing as a service.” Instead of focusing on where
and how big a logo is, B2B brands should, “use their marketing
budgets to create things of value for their audiences.”
How does a B2B business take advantage?
Think about how your service or product enables someone to
be more successful in their career. Focus on helping your clients
find value and achieve a business goal, instead of disruption for
disruption’s sake, or obsessing over volume of eyeballs and leads.
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
Research by Global Web Index claims that 92% of internet users
now watch videos online each month. This means that more
than 4 billion people around the world are consuming online
video content. Back in 2015, Google’s The Changing Face of B2B
Marketing report claimed that “70% of B2B buyers and research-
ers are watching videos throughout their path to purchase,” with
over half of views representing engagement of 30 minutes or
more. The growth of B2B video since then suggests that its role in
the B2B buyer journey has only increased.
HOW DOES A B2B BUSINESS TAKE ADVANTAGE?
Brands need to understand how to leverage short, long and
live form video that appeals to B2B buyers accountable for
purchasing decisions. This means creating a range of videos

20 Sophisticated Marketer
 that can provide overviews, in-depth analysis, how-tos
and of course case studies that demonstrate how other
THE KEY B2B DIGITAL TRENDS companies have succeeded with your business. Think
AROUND THE WORLD about how video can be used to build trust in your
service and don’t be tempted to only focus on distribut-
How important is each trend in your market? ing highly produced TV ads. B2B buyers are more likely
to be comfortable with a low-fi production if it comes
from an industry expert or they find the content helpful
TREND 1: VOICE SEARCH in their buying decision.
Percentage of internet users who report using
voice-controlled functionality (any device) MOST IMPORTANT COUNTRIES:
Every market on the planet—but especially Mexico,
TREND 2: VIDEO CONTENT Brazil and Indonesia, where 98% of internet users watch
Percentage of internet users who videos online.
watch videos online

TREND 3: SOCIAL FOR BUSINESS

TREND 3:
SOCIAL FOR BUSINESS
Percentage of internet users who
use social media for work purposes

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
AUSTRALIA ITALY The amount of time that people spend on social media has
25 30 increased yet again this year. Global Web Index reports
87 92 that the average social media user now spends two hours
13 11 and 16 minutes each day on social platforms, up from two
hours and 15 minutes last year. This equates to roughly
BRAZIL MEXICO
35 40
one-third of their total internet time, and one-seventh of
27

98 98 their waking lives. However, the Digital 2019 Report also

29 29 states that a quarter of internet users are using social
media for work purposes. Expect this figure to increase
CANADA NETHERLANDS as more and more business transactions take place away
27 13 from desktop computers and on mobiles instead. These
90 91 are far better suited to short, quick messaging through an
14 14 app than they are to lengthy email exchanges.
CHINA RUSSIA
49 21 HOW DOES A B2B BUSINESS TAKE ADVANTAGE?
89 90 For marketers there are two important things to consid-
24 14 er. First of all, are you leveraging messaging and advertis-
ing solutions across these social messaging apps? It’s vital
GERMANY SPAIN to be where your customers are. You want to make sure
17 27 prospects can easily find information about your services or
81 93 products in the same app they’re already using for research
10 19 and communicating with colleagues. Secondly, you’ll want
to think about whether your business is set-up to support
INDIA UK
51 26
transactions on social media. Can you converse, sell, book
97 88 or provide service to your customer within a professional
32 13 social context?

INDONESIA USA MOST IMPORTANT COUNTRIES:

45 35 Social habits vary greatly across the globe; Vietnam,
30 98 90 Colombia and Indonesia are the top three countries most
37 92 14 likely to use social for work purposes. However, only 6%
11
of Japanese internet users will check-in to social media in
order to do business.

Sophisticated Marketer 21
 T OL BOX
The Toolbox Grow with LinkedIn Special: tools and tricks for B2B marketers

B2B Marketing Hot or Not

Are you dropping the right subjects onto team meeting agendas? Spending time slotting
the right platforms into your strategy? Making the right cultural references? Leveraging the right
LinkedIn tools and techniques? Decorating your office with the right stuff?
It’s tough balancing on the cutting edge of B2B. Our temperature gauge for sophisticated marketers is here to help:

HOT NOT
Learning
organizations Unicorns
Augmented Reality Self-promoting
sales profiles
Binet and Field
Legacy IT
Video selling
Palm oil
Black Mirror Gender
Cognitive diversity stereotypes
Thought Game of Thrones
leadership video Plastic drinking straws
Women’s football Deepfake
Guinness Clear Vietnamese campaigns
Tiny canapés
Iced Coffee
Lazy thought
Clean beaches leadership
Luxury brand Cannes
purpose cynicism

Sales Intelligence
Presenteeism
Conversational AI
Celeb influencers
Brand
'What no WiFi?'
documentaries
panics
Ladies who lift

Sophisticated Marketer 23
TOOL BOX

FIRST
A BRIEF ADVERTISEMENT
ON LINKEDIN

HISTORY OF LinkedIn Display Ads

enable targeting on

ADVERTISING
the platform.

2003
ON LINKEDIN
2005

IT’S BEEN OVER 14 YEARS SINCE THE FIRST DISPLAY LINKEDIN FOUNDED
AD APPEARED ON LINKEDIN, and during that BY REID HOFFMAN
time, the world’s largest professional network has
evolved into one of its most versatile and impactful
advertising channels. From the transformation of
B2B content marketing through the 2013 launch of
Sponsored Content to the explosion of B2B Video in
the LinkedIn feed last year, here are the new formats,
targeting capabilities and tools that have made
LinkedIn advertising what it is today:

2019 2018

LINKEDIN INTRODUCES NEW DYNAMIC ADS AVAILABLE

TARGETING FEATURES
Options include Lookalike Targeting and
Interest Targeting featuring data from
Microsoft’s Bing search engine.
NEW CAMPAIGN MANAGER
LAUNCHES
LinkedIn Campaign Manager now includes
Objective-Based Advertising, which tailors the
interface to specific campaign goals like lead
generation and brand awareness.
IN CAMPAIGN MANAGER
Marketers can now deploy Dynamic Ads through
LinkedIn’s self-service interface.
CAROUSEL ADS LAUNCH
Carousel Ads enable marketers to feature multiple
images in their Sponsored Content.
LINKEDIN INTRODUCES VIDEO ADS
Video enables marketers to tell more compelling stories
with sight, sound and motion.

LINKEDIN LAUNCHES PAGES

The next generation of Company Pages, this free offering enables
organizations to connect with their audience on LinkedIn.

24 Sophisticated Marketer
 LINKEDIN REACHES 
100 MILLION MEMBERS
IN EIGHT YEARS
Over the next eight years
its growth would accelerate,
surpassing 6 30 million
users in 2019.

2008 2011 2012 2013

TEXT ADS LAUNCH LINKEDIN SPONSORED CONTENT

Then known as Direct LAUNCHES
Ads, this offering enables ADS API
marketers to reach their This feature enables
target audience at scale. custom tools for
large-scale advertising
campaigns.
LAUNCHES
Then known as Sponsored Updates, this
native ad format, which appears in the
feed, is the platform’s most popular.

2014

BIZO, WHICH PROVIDES

A CRUCIAL AD TARGETING
TECHNOLOGY, IS ACQUIRED
FOR $
 175 MILLION.

2017 2016

LINKEDIN LAUNCHES A NATIVE ADVERTISING NETWORK LINKEDIN UPDATES SPONSORED INMAIL

The LinkedIn Audience Network allows marketers to place Sponsored Content The popular messaging tool becomes available as a self-
on high-quality, third-party publishers across mobile and desktop. service product through Campaign Manager.

WEBSITE DEMOGRAPHICS NOW AVAILABLE MICROSOFT ACQUIRES LINKEDIN

This remarkable free reporting tool enables marketers to see
the seniority, job titles, geolocation and other aspects of the
professionals who are visiting their websites.
LINKEDIN INTRODUCES MATCHED AUDIENCES
This tool enables marketers to use Website Retargeting,
Account Targeting, and Contact Targeting on LinkedIn.
LEAD GEN FORMS LAUNCH
Lead Gen Forms remove the main barrier to mobile conversion: making
a prospect complete a clunky contact form on a smartphone.
The deal creates numerous sales and marketing synergies
with the computing giant’s software offerings.
ACCOUNT TARGETING LAUNCHES
This feature provides a new method for running effective
Account-Based Marketing (ABM) campaigns on the platform.
CONVERSION TRACKING INTRODUCED
This tool enables the easy measurement of leads, content
downloads, purchases, and other results delivered via ad
campaigns on LinkedIn.

Sophisticated Marketer 25
TOOL BOX
HOW MARKETERS
ARE PLANNING
TO GROW ON
LINKEDIN
What’s the secret to growing a business successfully on LinkedIn? As Alex Rynne explains, it often
involves an always-on approach that can find ways to engage audiences and achieve marketing
goals consistently, even in challenging economic times.
THE CALIFORNIA REDWOOD IS ONE OF NATURE’S
GREATEST MARVELS. Like any tree, it starts out as
a mere sapling, sprouted from a humble seed. But
these towering titans can grow to be more than 300
feet tall. That’s about the height of a 30-story building.
How do they get so huge? Through rapid, steady
growth, regardless of the conditions. Redwoods can
add two to six feet per year on average, and one
notable characteristic of the species is its
shade tolerance. More than most of its relatives,
the redwood can survive and thrive even in the
absence of sunlight.
You don’t have to travel too far from LinkedIn’s
offices in San Francisco to find a coastal redwood,
so these tremendous trees are a handy source of
26 Sophisticated Marketer
inspiration for those of us based in the city. There’s
an obvious parallel with the ambitious marketers
working to grow their businesses on LinkedIn, since
the key to success is often finding ways to grow in
unpredictable and unfavorable conditions.
We wanted to learn more about how these
marketers approach the challenge of driving growth
on LinkedIn, and so we invited readers of our blog
to fill out an interactive survey asking about their
marketing aspirations. Hundreds participated, and
we really appreciate it!
On these pages, you’ll find some of the key
takeaways from that survey. They show the priorities
your fellow B2B marketers are focusing on, and the
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions that most interest them.
Marketers’ top LinkedIn
products and priorities:
We asked: What are your top marketing priorities for 2019?
Build brand awareness
63%
Create better content
Demonstrate thought leadership
Sales and marketing alignment
Drive more leads Better understand my marketing ROI
Understand how to better measure video
What do you hope to achieve on LinkedIn?
To master Campaign Manager
69%
To A/B test everything and
optimize my campaigns
To achieve more with Video
To build my and Carousel Ads
Page following
What LinkedIn product(s) could you use more help with?
Matched Audiences
Lead Gen Forms
Pages
40%
Conversion Tracking
Sponsored Content
Website Demographics
Sales Navigator
Audience Publishing Platform
Network
Video Ads
Dynamic Ads
Sponsored InMail
Programmatic Display Ads
Carousel Ads
What type of marketer are you?
Content Marketer
Tech Marketer
48%
Demand Gen Marketer
Event Marketer
Higher Ed Marketer
Brand Marketer Healthcare Marketer
None of these
What type of content would you like to receive more of from LinkedIn?
Case studies
69%
Infographics
Checklists and worksheets
Inspirational and
aspirational content
Tactical how-to Product tips
guides
Videos
Interactive HTML pages
How do you spend your time on LinkedIn?
Publishing original content
75%
Reaching out to prospects
and customers
Searching for job opportunities
Interacting in Groups
Building my
LinkedIn network
HOW MARKETERS PLAN TO GROW
ON LINKEDIN IN 2019
62%
Here’s what our survey revealed about the marketing
58%
40% community on LinkedIn, and where they focus their attention:
38%
36%
LINKEDIN HOSTS A WIDE ARRAY
18%
OF MARKETERS
We asked survey participants: What type of marketer are you?
Here’s how they identify themselves:
Brand Marketer (48%)
Content Marketer (44%)
44%
Tech Marketer (23%)
36%
Demand Gen Marketer (21%)
25% Event Marketer (15%)
Higher Ed Marketer (8%)
Healthcare Marketer (7%)
Nearly one in five (18%) said they
don’t fall into any of these buckets.
39% LEAD GEN TAKES THE LEAD
38% AMONG PRIORITIES
35%
35% In last year’s survey, building brand awareness was cited as
34%
32%
the top marketing priority. This year, driving leads surpassed
28% it at Number 1, with 63% of respondents calling it out as a
27%
top priority compared to 51% in 2018. Brand awareness is
26%
25% still a major focus, falling just slightly behind lead gen at
21% 62%. Creating better content (53%), demonstrating thought
20%
20% leadership (40%), and better understanding marketing
ROI (38%) follow.
POWERING UP LINKEDIN PAGES IS THE TOP
44%
MARKETING ASPIRATION
23%
21%
When asked what you hope to achieve on LinkedIn in 2019,
15%
an overwhelming majority (69%) pointed to growing your
8%
LinkedIn Page followers. This doesn’t come as a surprise,
7% because the LinkedIn Page serves as a backbone of your
18% brand’s presence on the platform. More followers means more
consistent organic reach, and more community engagement.
Which LinkedIn products could you use more help with?
The top choices were Audience Network (40%), Matched
Audiences (39%), and Lead Gen Forms (38%). We’ll definitely
49%
aim to serve you more info on using these tools for targeting
48%
and reaching your ideal customers on LinkedIn.
48%
44%
HOW MARKETERS SPEND TIME ON LINKEDIN
42%
35%
The runaway winner in this category is “Building my LinkedIn
18% network” (75%). Marketers recognize that this is the most
valuable core activity on LinkedIn, because a network full
of relevant, quality professionals can open many doors
and advance your career. Other common answers include
49% “Publishing original content” (49%) and “Reaching out to
prospects and customers” (48%).
48%
34%
23%
Sophisticated Marketer 27
TOOL BOX

The pages toolkit

The new LinkedIn Pages have everything you need to connect to a
community on LinkedIn. Here are the key features:

1 Pages 2 Updates
YOUR PLACE IN THE WORLD’S PROFESSIONAL COMMUNITY HAVE A DAILY CONVERSATION WITH YOUR AUDIENCE

YOUR PAGE IS YOUR CHANCE TO: IT’S YOUR CHANCE TO:

Establish a headquarters on LinkedIn and Share content that
empower your organization to engage the matters.
world’s professional community.
WHAT UPDATES DO:
WHAT PAGES DO: They build trust and
They help you to know and grow your establish a real connection
audience, while promoting your company with the audience.
on a daily basis.
GREAT BECAUSE:
GREAT BECAUSE: Companies that post
They engage all of your weekly see a 2x lift in
key audiences, including engagement with their
employees, and make content.
your brand part of the
global conversation.

3 Showcase Pages 4 Page Analytics

A SUPPORTING PAGE THAT SITS BELOW YOUR MAIN BRAND PAGE INSIGHT ON VISITORS, FOLLOWERS AND CONTENT ENGAGEMENT

IT’S YOUR CHANCE TO: IT’S YOUR CHANCE TO:

Put a spotlight on a part Know and grow your
of your company. audience.

WHAT SHOWCASE WHAT PAGE ANALYTICS DO:

PAGES DO:
They promote a specific
business line, product,
brand or initiative.
GREAT BECAUSE:
They enable tailored
messaging for specific
audiences and link
directly to your main
LinkedIn Page.
They reveal the content
trending with your target
audience, and enable
you to monitor activity
on your Page.
GREAT BECAUSE:
You can see what’s
engaging your audience,
and what isn’t. This real-time
feedback enables quick
strategy pivots.

28 Sophisticated Marketer
LinkedIn Pages are designed to act as an organic marketing hub, and
are entirely free to set up. Here’s how to get yours up and running:

Creating your Page Creating a Showcase Page

SHOWCASE PAGES target a distinct subset of your audience with
content related to their specific interests and needs.
1 Click WORK in the top
right corner

2 Click CREATE A PAGE

1 Click ME at the top of the
homepage and below the
3 Choose the type of page MANAGE option, select your Page
you want to create

2 Click ADMIN TOOLS in the top

right corner

3 Select CREATE SHOWCASE PAGE

from dropdown

4 Enter company name and URL: 4 Click pencil icons to

linkedin.com/company/
begin editing.
[yourname]
Start with a description,
industry and admin name
5 Add your website link, company
size, industry, logo and tagline
5 Enter Showcase Page and URL
6 Read and check the
verification box
Add a LinkedIn
7 Click CREATE PAGE button ‘follow’ button to your
Showcase Page to
attract followers
CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE CREATED YOUR
COMPANY’S HEADQUARTERS ON LINKEDIN
Companies with complete information get 30% more weekly views. We
recommend
spending 2-3
Managing your page hours a week
on your
1 Click ME at the top of the homepage. Page
Below Manage, select your Page
(Alternatively, click MANAGE PAGE at the top of your Page.) Split your time between the following

Post frequently
2 Click ADMIN TOOLS on the upper right of your Page

PAGE ADMINS Be always-on; post at night and weekends, too

designate admins, posters and managers
Engage with comments
SPONSOR YOUR UPDATES
extend your Update reach
Change header image 2x a year

Sophisticated Marketer 29
TOOL BOX

MASTERING
OBJECTIVE-BASED
ADVERTISING
ON LINKEDIN
Effective marketing campaigns start HOW TO USE OBJECTIVE-BASED ADVERTISING
with clarity over objectives. That’s why
Here are the most important tips for building your LinkedIn campaigns around objectives:
LinkedIn’s Campaign Manager interface
has been re-engineered to put objectives
at the heart of how you plan and execute
campaigns on our platform. Now, when
you choose the option to Create Campaign
in Campaign Manager, you’re invited to
select the most important objective you
are targeting. This enables a streamlined,
simplified campaign planning experience,
where you’re presented with the best-
performing options for your particular
objective. However, a smoother user
experience is just the start. Equally
important is the way that selecting an STEP 1
objective enables Campaign Manager CHOOSING YOUR OBJECTIVE
to optimize around your most important You can now choose from six different marketing objectives that cover all phases of the
campaign goals, and provide powerful customer journey: building brand awareness, increasing consideration by targeting either
insights about the likely results of the website visits, engagement or video views, and then driving conversion through either
activity you’re planning. LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms, or specified conversion actions on your website.

30 Sophisticated Marketer
 TEXT ADS, which appear at the top and in the right-hand column of the
LinkedIn desktop interface, and feature a small visual and short message of
up to 100 characters. They’re nimble, versatile and cost effective.
DYNAMIC ADS, which leverage LinkedIn profile data to capture attention through
an ad that’s automatically tailored to each member of your target audience.

STEP 4
SETTING BUDGET AND
BID AMOUNTS
When it comes to setting budgets and
STEP 2 bid amounts for your campaign, the
SETTING YOUR CAMPAIGN TARGETING Objective-Based Advertising interface will
Objective-Based Advertising on LinkedIn enables you to use the full range of suggest the bid types that best suit your
LinkedIn targeting options to reach your audience, including uploading target goals for the campaign, such as Cost per
account lists, email matching, and the wide range of targeting facets available Click (CPC) for campaigns driving website
through LinkedIn profile data. traffic, or Cost per Thousand Impressions
As you set your targeting parameters, keep an eye on the forecasted (CPM) for those building awareness. You
results window that appears at the right side of the page. As you add targeting also have the option of leaving Campaign
parameters, you’ll see the forecasted size of your audience change. The more Manager to optimize your bid amount
targeting criteria you use, the smaller your audience will become. This automatically, so that you are always bidding the amount you need to secure an
helps you to ensure that your targeting approach matches your campaign ad impression, or setting your bids manually to take more control over how your
objectives. If you’re running a lead generation campaign among a tightly budget is spent.
defined group of high-value prospects, or using LinkedIn as part of your Once again, your bid approach will be guided by your objective. If you’re
Account-Based Marketing (ABM) strategy, then you might expect to target a targeting high value leads as part of an ABM strategy, you will probably want to
more specific audience. However, if you’re aiming to build awareness, drive set your bid above the amount that Campaign Manager recommends, to ensure
traffic to your website or generate demand at scale, it’s important to avoid that you secure the ad impressions you need among a specific target audience. If
hyper-targeting, which limits your ability to reach a relevant audience. you’re looking to build awareness over a longer timeframe, you might want to set
a lower bid, define a wider audience, and spend your budget securing the right
STEP 3 impressions over a longer time period.
CHOOSING
YOUR AD STEP 5
FORMAT CHECK YOUR FORECASTED RESULTS
Based on your As you set up your budget and bids, more forecasted results for
objective, Campaign your campaign will start to appear. The great advantage of
Manager suggests the Objective-Based Advertising is the guidance you get at this
LinkedIn ad formats stage as to whether your
that are proven to be approach is aligning with
most effective at driving your goals in the way that
that particular outcome. you would like. You’ll be
For example, when you choose the objective of generating leads through able to check projections
LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms, you’ll choose from Sponsored InMail, Sponsored of performance against
Content and Dynamic Ads, the most effective formats for driving leads. relevant KPIs such as the
The LinkedIn ad formats you’ll choose from in Campaign Manager are: number and cost of clicks
that you’ll generate, or the
SPONSORED CONTENT, which delivers your brand’s content in the LinkedIn
number of impressions.
feed, as updates, video and immersive formats such as Carousel Ads. Sponsored
At the same time, you can
Content’s versatility makes it a go-to format for every stage of the funnel.
check how quickly your
SPONSORED INMAIL, which delivers private messages to your budget will be spent, so
target audience at scale through LinkedIn’s multi-platform messaging you can ensure that the
environment. It’s a fusion of email and instant messaging that campaign runs for the
professionals trust and respond to, with open rates averaging 52%. This time period you
makes InMail ideally suited to generating demand and driving leads. are planning.

Sophisticated Marketer 31
TOOL BOX

YOUR TACTICAL PLAN FOR

CONTENT MARKETING
ON LINKEDIN
OPPORTUNITIES WHAT TO SHARE

• Company news
PAGES • Blog content
• Industry news and research
1 HOUR DAILY • Case studies

• Company videos and presentations

• Infographics
• Webinar decks
30 MIN DAILY SLIDESHARE

• Value-adding insight, not self-promotion

• T hought leadership and community-building content
• Industry trends and challenges to spark conversations
• Questions that can crowd-source sentiment
20 MIN DAILY GROUPS

• Professional expertise and experiences

</> • Industry trends
• Lessons learned
1 HOUR DAILY SELF-PUBLISHED POSTS

• Video
• Helpful how-to content and eBooks
• Thought leadership posts
• Case studies
30 MIN DAILY SPONSORED CONTENT

• Webinar and event invitations

• eBook launches
• Program demos
1 HOUR DAILY SPONSORED INMAIL • Blog subscription campaigns

• eBook launches
Aa • Product one-sheeters
• Webinar and event invitations
• Program demos
30 MIN DAILY TEXT ADS

32 Sophisticated Marketer
 WHAT IS A TACTICAL PLAN? IT’S THE DETAILED, PRAGMATIC
framework that translates strategic priorities and marketing
objectives into regular habits that are designed to drive growth
for your business.
In the case of content marketing on LinkedIn, that tactical
plan provides the foundation for building your brand,
engaging your most important audiences and amplifying the
impact of your paid campaigns. It contains the everyday details
that add up to being a highly effective content marketer.
The principles of an effective tactical plan apply no matter what
the size of your business or marketing budget. They leverage
the full range of Linkedin opportunities to maximize impact.
How do we know this? Because the tactical plan we set out
on these pages is the same tactical plan that LinkedIn’s own
B2B marketers follow when marketing on LinkedIn. It’s based
on the time we’ve found most optimal to allocate to different
LinkedIn activities each week. It works for us, and we’re
confident it will work for you.

OBJECTIVES KEY METRICS ACTION ITEMS

• Page followers
• Brand awareness
• Clicks • Post 3-4x a day
• Lead generation
• Engagement • Engage with followers via post comments
• Thought leadership
• Inquiries and leads • Change header image every 6 months
• Event registration
• Event registrations

• Lead generation • Upload new content weekly

• Views
• Brand awareness • Highlight decks on your profile page
• Leads and inquiries
• Thought leadership • Group content into playlists
• Linkbacks and embeds
• SEO • Add Lead Gen Forms

• Number of new contributors • Create a group for your company

• Number of discussions • Ask for opinions and provide insights
• Thought leadership • Quality of conversions • Monitor submissions daily
• Number of profile views • Thank other contributors with a like or a comment
• Number of new connections • Promote group on social media

• Post views (and demographics of your readers)

• Publish whenever you feel passionate
• Thought leadership • Post likes, comments, and shares
• Recommended: bi-weekly or once a month
• Profile views

• Engagement rate
• Lead generation
• Impressions • Run for 3 weeks
• Brand awareness
• Inquiries or leads • Share links to Lead Gen Forms, and add URL tracking code
• Thought leadership
• LinkedIn Page followers

• Brand awareness • Open rate/click-through rate • Keep copy under 1,000 characters
• Lead generation • Inquiries, leads and conversions • Use a clear call to action with a 300x250 pixel banner
• Event registration • Event registrations • Use first name personalization
• Program enrollments • Program applications • Bid competitively, especially if your audience is narrow

• Include an image: 50x50 pixels

• Brand awareness • Website traffic • Use a strong call to action
• Lead generation • Inquiries, leads, and conversions • Use 2-3 active ad variations per
campaign to compare success

Sophisticated Marketer 33
TOOL BOX
Unlocking the power of LinkedIn
Pages for your content strategy
ANY BUSINESS’S LINKEDIN PAGE NOW COMES EQUIPPED WITH FREE TOOLS that are designed to deliver in-depth audience
insight and provide real-time guidance for your content planning. Here’s how to make the most of them:
1 UNDERSTAND YOUR AUDIENCE LIKE
NEVER BEFORE WITH PAGE ANALYTICS
Page Analytics provides you with real-time insight on how your page is
performing, and that can provide crucial insight for your LinkedIn content strategy:
HOW TO FIND PAGE ANALYTICS
Click Manage page on your Page’s feed.
Next, select Analytics in the header.
Here you will find three
marketing-focused options:
Visitor analytics
The number of unique LinkedIn members
who visited your Page within the last 30 days.
Update analytics
Engagement metrics for your organic
and Sponsored Content over time.
Follower analytics
All-time Followers and new Followers
of your Page in the last 30 Days
2 PLAN CONTENT STRATEGY WITH
CONTENT SUGGESTIONS
Content Suggestions is one of the most powerful free tools available for
analyzing the topics that priority audiences are engaging with, and finding ways
to join those conversations. Depending on the options you choose, Content
Suggestions can give you insights from the full LinkedIn community, or focus
those insights on your Page followers. There are streamlined options for sharing
content with your followers that similar audiences are engaging with. This also
provides powerful insight for planning your own content strategy.
GETTING STARTED WITH CONTENT SUGGESTIONS:
1 Log into LinkedIn and select the Page on your sidebar you wish to manage
2 Click “Content Suggestions” on the top navigation bar
3 Define your target audience with parameters like industry,
location, and seniority (these can be adjusted later)
4 In the Content Suggestions interface, you’ll be served a list of topics
(at the top) and articles (below) being engaged with most by
LinkedIn members based on the criteria you selected
5 You can alter and tweak the list of articles in real-time by clicking
different topics and audience variables
6 While perusing the list of suggested content, click through to review
and, if the piece fits within your strategy, click the “Share” button
7 Here you can quickly craft a customized message to accompany
the link, and publish it directly to your LinkedIn Page
Sophisticated Marketer 35
TOOL BOX

No Man’s Brand
Should B2B brands create content that puts their
ANNOTATED employees in the spotlight?
MARKETING Shine Bright Like a Diamond
AND CAREER Dear Shiny & Bright
ADVICE (WITH THE Heck yes! Shining a spotlight on the actual voices
OCCASIONAL PUN) of your actual employees is important for a whole
host of reasons.
FROM ANN We live in a post-perfectly-polished world:
HANDLEY Your customers and would-be employees don’t
believe your stock-photo’d, photoshopped,
perfect content. It’s far more valuable
that they see your company as real.
Only 3% of employees share content about
their company, but those shares are
responsible for driving a 30% increase in
the total engagement a company sees.
Collectively, employees’ networks
are, on average, 10x larger than a
company’s, and people are more
likely to engage with content when it
comes from someone they know: It’s
seen as 3x more authentic, and the click-
through rate is 2x higher.
Let’s talk about the elephant in the
Ann is a room, though: What happens when
Wall Street Journal those content-creating, social-media-
sharing employees move on to other jobs
bestselling author and
the Chief Content Officer
of MarketingProfs
www.annhandley.com
for more

ASKING
FOR A FRIEND
36 Sophisticated Marketer
in other companies... taking all that brand goodwill with them? That’s
a terrifying thought.
Or is it? What’s the real risk to you or your brand? And isn’t the upside
far greater...? To be known as a brand that generously, fearlessly trusts
and celebrates its employees?
Grow Shawty
assets, making it feel more vibrant and tangible: a
series of video posts or Instagram stories highlight-
ing key findings, an eight-week podcast show, or
voice-enabled Fact-of-the-Day flash briefings on
Alexa or Google Home.
Give it a go. Revel in the high-fives. And let me
know how high up you get promoted.

What’s your advice for content marketers looking to grow their career
while still creating content?
Growing Pains
Dear Painful
The further you go up the corporate ladder, the less time you spend
touching things. So be more intentional: Keep creating anyway.
Guard some piece of content like a dog guards her dish: This is mine,
mine mine... and no one can take it from me! Create for the fun of it.
Create because you want to. Create even if it doesn’t have a clear business
goal, because it’ll feed your soul.
“Fun” is exactly why I started my own newsletter. It’s exactly why I still
maintain the MarketingProfs Twitter account.
Writers, designers, or content creators need a way to actively refuel
our creativity. Otherwise, our creative juices will seize up and atrophy.
Fast Tense
How can you manage your content team to work
and publish at high speeds but keep the quality?
Speed Demon
Dear Speedy
I’d challenge the idea that speed is your best
approach. Throttle back to produce (near-)uncom-
promising quality. The world doesn’t need more
content; we need better content.
That said, I’m realistic. You’re realistic. You can’t
spend six months handcrafting an artisanal blog
post. So here’s my two-part prescription:
Commit to quality. This is non-negotiable.
Slow down your story-telling. Conceive of and
craft a leadership-backed content asset that
is flexible enough to be released over time to
various audiences. Slow down your story telling
so that it’s stretched out over time, rather than
delivered all at once.
Let’s say you conduct some important research.
Instead of releasing one report, that research
becomes the basis for countless content marketing
Let There Be Write
What tips do you have for finding and evaluating
solid writing talent, either full-time or freelance?
Write Sweats
Dear Sweaty
Finding writing talent can feel like finding a needle
in a haystack. Or finding a unicorn in a forest. Or
finding Nemo.
There are roughly five places where writers
congregate: freelancer job boards, agencies,
freelancer marketplacers that match writers with
jobs, content marketing platforms that sometimes
provide a one-stop shop for editorial services, social
media and publishing platforms like LinkedIn, and
internally, in the shape of your own company’s
subject matter experts.
The challenge is then ID-ing the best writers.
Here’s what I do:
Stalk socially. What kind of things do they
share online? And how do they frame them?
Writing is thinking. Look for people who
demonstrate higher-level thinking.
Solicit clips and bylines, but pay special atten-
tion to the ones a writer writes for their own
blog or posts on LinkedIn. Those are the places
where an editor likely isn’t polishing the writing.
Share clips with others internally to get
feedback, especially with subject-matter
experts. And speaking of internal experts...
Nurture internal contributors, because they
might be your best source of expertise. The best
writers aren’t those with the sharpest grammar
skills; they’re the ones with the most knowledge.
Choose one or two internal subject-matter
experts willing to share their ideas and expertise.
Work with them to turn their writing from compa-
ny-centric to audience-centric. (A good first step is
to buy them a copy of Everybody Writes! )

Sign up for Ann’s newsletter at AnnHandley.

com/Newsletter, and keep an eye on the
Want more top
LinkedIn tips for getting
Marketing the Page
Solutions most for
fromour
LinkedIn targeting?
next call Join our
for questions Sophisticated
at https://lnkd.in/
Marketer’s Session on Finding your Ideal Audience
linkedin-marketing-solutions

Sophisticated Marketer 37
LONG FORM

THE INCUMBENT’S
GUIDE TO
SELF DISRUPTION
What self-disruption looks like for incumbent
businesses, and how to make it happen.

W0RDS BY TOM PEPPER

38 Sophisticated Marketer
O
ne of the greatest challenges in business is for
established sector leaders to find the abili-
ty to disrupt themselves. Earlier this year,
I was thrilled to host an event with Kantar at
LinkedIn’s London offices that brought togeth-
that have been able to embed self-disruption within their
DNA, and the many that are still seeking ways to do so. The
question is: how can it be achieved? What are the principles of
the art of self-disruption? Here’s my take:

1
er innovators and business leaders from across A RE-IMAGINING OF CREATIVITY
different sectors, to debate whether it’s possible. Omobono’s global head of strategy, Jonathon Palmer
When the Harvard professor Clayton Christensen coined argues that a new approach to creativity is essential
the term ‘disruption’, and popularized it in his classic book The for businesses looking to self-disrupt. Encouraging diversi-
Innovator’s Dilemma, it seemed almost impossible to imagine ty of both background and thinking has a big role to play in
an established business mastering the art of self-disruption. this. However, it also depends on what Jonathon calls, “viral
Christensen’s great insight was that it’s not a new technolo- strategy.” This is a strategic vision for the business that can
gy that disrupts—it’s the business models that challengers be reduced down to astonishingly simple terms and enables
build around it. Incumbents struggle to innovate those new high-velocity decision-making at the edges of an organiza-
business models for themselves, because they would distract tion, where disruptive innovation around the needs of niche
from what their existing customers expect. It’s only when a markets is most likely to happen. Jonathon uses the example
challenger business model grows to the point when it hits the of Admiral Nelson banning complicated semaphore messages
mainstream that those existing customers suddenly shift their during battles—and instead instructing his ships’ command-
expectations—and at that point, it’s too late for the one-time ers to focus on one thing: getting as close as possible to the
established leader to do anything about it.
We opened our discussions with a quote from Christensen
about the inevitability of challengers rising to disrupt market
leaders. We then spent most of the rest of our evening finding
evidence to try to prove him wrong: to show that estab-
lished businesses today can self-disrupt.
Self-disruption is still far from easy. However,
there is growing evidence that it’s both possi-
ble—and essential. Incumbents can’t afford
to just wait for the inevitable disruptive
challenger to come along.
According to Kantar UK’s Managing
Director Jane Bloomfield, only 6% of
the world’s most established brands
succeeded in growing their financial value
significantly over the last three years.
However, that same three-year period
is all the time that Amazon needed to
launch Alexa, buy Whole Foods, launch
its first bookstore—and double its brand
value. We can already see a major distinction
between those few established businesses

Sophisticated Marketer 39
LONG FORM

enemy. He also highlights the online retailer AO.com for people want to be associated with. She points out that, accord-
a customer strategy that simply boils down to, “treat every ing to Kantar’s BrandZ ranking of the Top 100 Most Valuable
customer like she’s your gran.” Global Brands, brands that are perceived to be innovative by
consumers grow 9x faster than those seen as less innovative.

2
PURPOSEFUL CHALLENGE THAT ACTIVELY
SEEKS OUT UNMET NEEDS
It’s one thing to find ways to improve what you already
do. Clayton Christensen described this as “sustaining innova-
If businesses can find a way to measure the brand value
benefits, and work them into their financial planning, it could
help investment in innovation add up.

tion”. It’s another to identify unmet needs among niche
markets that you might not have to meet to make a profit—
but which could evolve what you do in a truly disruptive way.
Established businesses can almost always drive the most
growth by optimizing what they already do. To be disruptive,
they need to challenge the scope of what they do as well.
4
EXPLOITING TODAY’S TECH HORSEPOWER
The cloud enables businesses of all sizes to access
massive computing power that’s inherently future-
proofed, cutting out the risk of investing in technology that
will become obsolete. According to Microsoft Services’ Chief
Technology Officer, Richard Potter, today’s companies can
therefore “innovate with guardrails”, without betting the

3
ASSESSING THE BRAND VALUE OF INNOVATION business on the outcome.
The big challenge with self-disruption is that it seems to This is great news for start-ups, because it removes many
make no commercial sense—until it’s too late. Disruptive of the remaining barriers to developing disruptive business
business models spring up outside of an incumbent’s core models. Potter argues that it needs to be great news for incum-
market, and the business’s existing customers show little or
no interest in those ways of dong things at first. This all chang-
es when the growth rate for those new, challenger businesses
starts to shoot up exponentially. That’s when previously loyal
customers suddenly start to think about jumping ship. The big
challenge for established businesses is finding a way to value
innovation on the periphery in a way that justifies investing in
it, before this critical moment is reached.
RBS Brand Marketing Director, Emma Isaac, talks
about a potential solution—and a critical change
that’s taken place since Christensen first published
his book. Among today’s consumers, the perception
of innovation has a value beyond the innovation
itself. Disruption is aspirational. It’s something that

40 Sophisticated Marketer
bents too. They have to develop a cadence for innovation
that takes advantage of the low costs now involved. They
should measure success, he argues, less by what
they actually build, more by the amount of ideas
that they experiment with and throw away.
That’s what keeps them in touch with the
potential for disruption on the edges of
their business models.
5
PARTNERSHIP WITH A
GROWTH MINDSET
A smart partnership strategy can
enable incumbents to build disruptive
offerings outside of their core business.
McDonalds partnering with Uber Eats
to enable food deliveries is one promi-
nent recent example. The challenge for a
market-leading business often comes down to
approaching these partnerships with the right
mindset. They have to be ready to ignore the hierar-
chy of market value and approach those they can
potentially learn from with a degree of humility.
This applies just as much when the partners are
as big or bigger than you are. Potter spoke about
Microsoft partnering with Amazon and Adobe on
technologies such as virtual assistants. He point-
ed out that a cultural shift to a growth mindset at
big established businesses is often essential for
making collaboration possible.
6
PLAYING TO EXISTING STRENGTHS
As many of these points show, the
existing strengths of an incumbent’s
business model can turn into constraints
when it comes to the art of self-disruption. However, it’s
important to realize that being an established business brings
advantages too—and it’s vital to know how to leverage them
effectively. SAP’s Global Head of Innovation Services, Maggie
Buggie argues that there are two types of previous investments
that incumbents should look to gain ongoing value from as
they self-disrupt. Their previous investments in technolo-
gy can power new business models, and their long-running
investments in culture, values and employer brand
can give them access to the most diverse and
creative thinkers. She argues that this gives
established businesses an authenticity
and sense of genuine purpose that
start-ups can’t easily compete with.
7
A HUMANIZED BRAND
TO PROVIDE SUPPORT
Disruptive innovation has
to involve experimenting with
new experiences and business
models that won’t necessarily make
sense to your existing customers when
you first develop them. It’s important
to develop the kind of brand that can
provide coverage and support when
these experiments hit the wrong note.
A humanized brand that customers trust
and identify with is an essential foundation
before embarking on a self-disruption
strategy. Having business leaders that are
happy to stand up, explain the strategy and
admit to mistakes helps too. After all, the journey
towards disruption is one that, sooner or later, your
customers need to take with you.
FIN
ISH
Sophisticated Marketer 41
LONG FORM

THE RETURN OF
ORGANIC
MARKETING STRATEGIES
Once upon a time social media marketing was all about organic
reach. You posted popular content, your audience engaged with it,
momentum built, and through the power of virality you achieved reach
and influence without having to put a penny of paid promotion behind it.
It was a romantic age—a wild west of the web where your marketing
succeeded or failed on its shareability. It was unpredictable; it was
impossible to plan around—and it didn’t last.

A
s social media feeds became more leads to discussion and sharing. They are a fertile
crowded, and brands invested more in ground for new ideas, user generated content and
sponsoring content to appear in them, deeper audience understanding. And when shared
organic content started to find itself through members’ networks, they reach audienc-
crowded out of the picture. Marketers started to es through people they trust, which is proven to
realize that organic was no longer a free pass to increase engagement.
reach and exposure—especially when it came to As such, organic marketing on LinkedIn has
targeting specific audiences. Because the virality found a new and vital role as a complement to paid
of content was hard to predict, it was very difficult media. It helps to tailor strategies, provide vital
to build a consistent marketing strategy around it. insight, and amplify a broad range of activity. Its
It made little sense to invest in creating content, if ability to do so is bolstered by the fact that LinkedIn
you weren’t also investing in a paid media plan to members are currently liking, commenting and
promote it. sharing content at record rates—twice as frequent-
Organic quickly found itself squeezed out of ly as they were just a year ago.
thinking when it came to marketing strategies as a Here’s how to build your organic marketing
result—but then something happened. Marketers strategy on LinkedIn:
started to discover the value of a slower approach;
of building communities over time; of focusing not
just on attention but on sustained engagement.
This gave organic marketing a new lease of life as
a foundation for brand communities, as a testing
ground for content, and as a vital complement to
paid marketing strategies.
On LinkedIn, organic marketing strategies
are rooted in LinkedIn Pages. They don’t
get one shot at establishing traction in the
feed. Instead they target a pre-engaged
audience with relevant content that

42 S o p h i s t i c a t e d M a r k e t e r
STEP 1:
BUILD A COMPELLING
ORGANIC PRESENCE

TELL YOUR BRAND’S STORY BY POSTING Companies

GREAT CONTENT REGULARLY that are engaged
First, make sure your LinkedIn Page is an optimal place to showcase your content. on social media are
Then, adopt an always-on approach. GE is a master of always-on. The company’s marketing team 40% more likely to
regularly posts relevant and interesting content that their audience actively engages with.
We see LinkedIn customers gaining successful and consistent engagement when they post on their
be perceived as
LinkedIn Page at least once a day. Brands can share their story on their LinkedIn Page by repurposing competitive
infographics, blog posts, videos, links to events, eBooks, and webinars.

LINKEDIN PAGE ALL-STARS

Visual is the new headline
Post images, videos, PDFs, and other
documents to your LinkedIn Page to
complement your brand’s unique messaging.
Example: Schneider Electric posts move
beyond stock photos to post eye catching,
nicely designed, branded imagery.
Links drive engagement
Updates including links drive up to 45% higher
engagement from followers than updates
without links.
Example: Hotmart’s updates almost always
include a call-to-action with a link to access
more in-depth content.
Know your audience
Use the Content Suggestions feature
to understand the trending topics your
audience cares most about.
Example: Hays positions itself as an industry
thought leader by continually adding value
and offering tips to job seekers.

EMPOWER EMPLOYEES BEST PRACTICES FOR YOUR TOP VOICES

TO FLEX THEIR INDUSTRY
EXPERTISE
Aim to activate members of your C-suite or key
individuals with expertise within your organization.
GE, for example, has a fleet of top voices sharing
strong, authentic posts and publishing long-form
articles regularly via its LinkedIn Page. When
they cross promote one another's content, their
combined networks reach a large, extended
audience. Top publishers have seen an average of
120% growth in followers for their LinkedIn Page.
Long-form articles showcase how your Short-form posts are an easy way to
top voices analyze news or trending topics respond to events and curate content
in depth. for your followers.
Be authentic. Members want to hear your Share consistently. The more you share, the
voice, not a press release. more discoverable you are.
Join in existing topics. Pay attention to Start a conversation. Engage readers. The more
what’s trending in the news and your industry. interaction, the more a post gets shared and seen.
Headlines matter. Ask yourself: “In the Get personal. Share content of interest even if
course of a busy day, would I click on that?” it's not directly related to your business.
Go long—but not too long. The sweet spot Mix it up. Mix insights with business updates
for article length is about 600-1,000 words. to provide value to followers.

Sophisticated Marketer 43
STEP 2:
BOOST YOUR REACH AND
ENGAGEMENT VIA PAID ADVERTISING

LOOK TO YOUR ORGANIC CONTENT TO

DETERMINE YOUR INVESTMENT IN PAID.

Once you've built an What you’ve been

organic LinkedIn presence building organically will
through your LinkedIn Page, help you identify which content
with active employees and resonates best with your audience.
followers amplifying your content, You’ll see content that gets
it’s time to invest in paid shared relentlessly or spawns
opportunities to reach more of the numerous comments. And
right people on LinkedIn and sometimes you’ll see content
engage them at scale. potentially fall flat.
Experimenting with
content organically keeps you
attuned to the types of content
your audience engages with.
Understanding what performs
best at an organic level helps you
confidently choose which content
to invest in with LinkedIn’s
paid advertising.
Sponsored Content
Get visual. Opt for rich, eye-catching imagery that matches the
messaging of your content. You also want to keep the text on your
imagery to a minimum. Keep in mind that 75% of Sponsored
Content engagement happens on mobile devices, so make sure
your content looks great on small screens.
Keep it short and sweet. Shorter updates—meaning 150
characters or fewer—tend to perform best. Within that short
update, focus on how your target audience would benefit by
clicking on the link.
Snackable stats work wonders. Lifting short stats and quotes
from larger content assets makes for really engaging posts.
A numbered list or surprising stats are both attention grabbing
tactics. And everyone is more likely to share content that makes
them appear more knowledgeable.

CASE STUDY: MARKETO

SMASHES LEAD GOALS
Marketo combines the power of
Sponsored Content and Sponsored InMail
to drive event registrations.
Marketo chose LinkedIn Sponsored
Content to engage with its target audience:
marketers in industries such as healthcare,
education, and financial services. The
company used similar targeting with
Sponsored InMail to send concise,
personalized invites and drive registrations
to online events.
Targeted to senior-level marketers at
small-to medium-sized companies, Marketo’s
Sponsored InMail helped the company
exceed its event registration goal by 46%.
By using Sponsored Content and
Sponsored InMail together, Marketo is
engaging more deeply with prospects.
Sponsored InMail
Be conversational and concise. The best Sponsored InMails
are brief, relevant, and conversational. Avoid chunky paragraphs
and instead experiment with bullets. Keep your message copy
under 1,000 characters or so, making sure that it fits within the
page view without the need for scrolling.
Put your audience at the center of your message. Use a
dynamic macro to pull in the member’s name or company in
the greeting. Tie your audience’s experience to the context of
your message.
Use Sponsored InMail for high-value audiences. Trying to
get executives to open email, let alone attend a webinar, is a
challenge. Use Sponsored InMail to engage them in one-to-one
conversations.

44 S o p h i s t i c a t e d M a r k e t e r
STEP 3:
MEASURE, LEARN AND OPTIMIZE TO DRIVE MORE IMPACT

LET US HELP YOU UNDERSTAND

WHAT YOUR AUDIENCE IS
ENGAGING WITH MOST
By analyzing details about the audiences that are
reading and sharing content on a specific topic,
we can surface audiences that would be good
segments to target using Sponsored Content.
LinkedIn Page Analytics is an excellent tool for
planning campaigns to broaden your reach.

LinkedIn Page Analytics dashboard

See performance over custom date ranges
Get to know your followers and visitors
with demographic charts

WEBSITE DEMOGRAPHICS
Discover the professional traits of your
website visitors
Understand your audience better. Gain valuable audience
insights on job titles, companies and industries using the
most accurate professional data, only on LinkedIn.
Create tailored content. Compare different pages to learn
which kind of content resonates with different audiences.
Customize content to your strongest prospects.
Reach your ideal prospects. Use what you learn about your
website visitors to target the people who are most likely to
become qualified leads and customers.

CONVERSION TRACKING AND REPORTING

Understand your advertising ROI with

LinkedIn Conversion Tracking
LinkedIn Conversion Tracking enables marketers to optimize
their campaigns in real time. Having the metrics that matter
at your fingertips is critical for managing campaign spend
and informing your content roadmap.

Ready to unlock the potential of organic marketing to grow your business on LinkedIn? You'll find all of the details,
tips and advice that you need in our Organic + Paid Playbook, at https://lnkd.in/organic-paid

Sophisticated Marketer 45

THEB2B
MARKETERS
MAKING
BEST USE
OFAI
The stories of four businesses
exploring how Artificial Intelligence
can drive real results.
rtificial Intelligence (AI) produces some
A
very emotional reactions among marketers.
That’s largely because there’s so little solid
information about what the technology can
actually do for them. In the absence of facts,
hype and fear tend to take over. We hear a
lot about how AI will hollow out marketing
departments and take human choice out
of buying decisions. We
also hear a lot of claims
about how it will solve every imaginable
problem—and how businesses can automat-
ically grow revenues simply by adopting it.
We hear far less from people actually using
the technology on a daily basis. However,
those stories are out there, and it’s important
to listen to them.
AI isn’t something that’s about to happen to
you as a human being or as a B2B marketer. It’s
already here, and it’s already having a signifi-
cant impact on marketing campaigns. Before
LONG FORM
W0RDS BY JANE FLEMING
too long, every marketing solution and every tech
stack will feature AI in some area or other. And that
includes yours. The more you adopt AI, the more
you tend to realize that it’s far less threatening, and
far more accessible and useful, than many people
have made out. It won’t solve every marketing
problem—nor will it bring about the end of market-
ing as we know it.
At LinkedIn, for example, AI is like oxygen.
We’ve been using it for over a decade to create the
member experiences that people value most on our
platform. It adds structure to the rich and valuable
data that we have and crucially, it helps to keep our
site safe. Our customers increasingly expect the
type of experiences that the advanced forms of AI
known as machine learning help to deliver: more
intuitive, more valuable and more secure.
We’re lucky enough to have a great perspective
on what AI actually means in practice, and we felt
strongly that B2B marketers deserve the same types
of insight: what AI solutions are actually available
Sophisticated Marketer 47
LONG FORM
today? What happens when you start to adopt them? And
what do you need to make sure you’re getting the right value
from them?
We searched for businesses of all sizes that are already
applying AI solutions to their marketing—and we talked to
those businesses about the results they’re seeing. We wanted
to know how AI shapes the experiences they create for
customers, and how it helps to evolve the role of marketers
themselves.
The stories of these businesses help to cut through some
of the myths surrounding AI. They are real-world tales of
how readily accessible technology can drive growth, when
combined with imaginative marketing and a sound strategy.
Here are four such stories that show how a focused approach
to using AI and data can change customer experiences for
the better, and help you to create marketing that’s more
inspiring, and more effective:
ServiceMax
Sector:Field technician
management software
REINFORCEMENT LEARNING PREDICTS WHERE
WEBSITE VISITORS WANT TO GO NEXT
ServiceMax is a provider of field technician management
software for some of the world’s biggest equipment manufac-
turers and infrastructure companies. That means it has a lot
of different potential customers, from across widely different
sectors, searching for very specific information. Designing a
single website where each of those prospects could find what
they needed presented a huge challenge. It was one that
ServiceMax solved using similar machine learning technol-
ogy to the famous AlphaGo project, in which an AI beat a
world champion at the complex strategy game, Go.
ServiceMax worked with the ABM solutions provider
DemandBase, which uses AI to personalize buyer journeys
through content recommendations. This form of machine
learning, known as Reinforcement Learning, aims to predict
48 Sophisticated Marketer
the most rewarding journey for an individual and under-
stands each page of a website within the context of that
journey. It uses all of the available data from a site visitor’s
role within their business to the intent signals they’ve sent,
to understand what they’re trying to achieve. By showing
prospects recommendations and snippets for the next page
they should visit, the DemandBase AI cut bounce rates on
ServiceMax’s site by 70%, doubled the time that people
spent and the number of pages they viewed on the site, and
significantly increased take-up of product demos.
Artesian
Sector: Sales insight specialist
CONVERSATIONAL AI DELIVERS SALES
INSIGHT AT SCALE
A state-of-the-art Conversational AI Platform (CAP) has
quadrupled the ROI of lead generation for the sales insight
platform, Artesian Solutions. In the process, it’s demonstrat-
ed how Artesian’s use of AI in data analysis can contribute in
meaningful ways for clients.
The CAP, which is catchily known as Arti was developed
for Artesian by the B2B tech agency, Volume. Because Arti
learns from its conversations with customers, prospects
and partners, it’s able to use natural language processing,
machine learning and text-to-speech technology to give
more natural and relevant answers. This is great for custom-
er experience, but it also gives a very significant advan-
tage to sales, improving the quality of leads. Arti is able to
make informed recommendations to the sales teams about
the risks and opportunities regarding specific customers
and potential customers, based on its conversations. That
doesn’t just increase the quantity of leads—it dramatically
elevates their quality. In its first year of activity, Arti helped
to increase traffic to the Artesian website by 11%, answered
more than 5,000 questions and increased the ROI of lead
generation by 4x.

VMWare
Sector: Platform virtualization
software services
AUTOMATED EDITING DRIVES QUALITY AND
EFFICIENCY IN CONTENT
The virtualization and cloud infrastructure business VMWare
has a product release cycle of just two weeks, with new
solutions and updates going out of the door twice daily at its
busiest times. This places huge demands on the business’s
team of content writers and editors, who create the blog
posts, user guides and other content to support these releas-
es. With its team of five editors and 120 technical writers
swamped by the schedule, VMWare struggled to maintain
the quality and accuracy of content that it required.
Adopting an AI-enabled content editing solution proved
to be a game-changer. It enabled VMWare to automate basic
editing tasks like repetitive corrections, and free up its editors
for higher-value activities like training writers, improving
the taxonomy of content and classifying it more effectively.
Provided by Acrolinx, which offers an AI-powered approach
to content strategy, the automated editing platform helped
VMWare de-risk its content output, with 73% of users saying
that it helped them to improve quality. What’s more, 60%
of Acrolinx users agreed that it made them more efficient
content creators.
“Acrolinx really helped focus resources and attention on
improving content quality,” says Laura Bellamy, VMware’s
Director of Information Experiences. “It ensures we have a
minimum level of quality verified before content goes out
the door. And it helps us in emergency situations where you
need to write it today and publish it by the afternoon.”
The impact of Acrolinx went far beyond making content
editing more efficient, however. As Bellamy explains, making
skilled editors available for higher-value tasks was just as
important. “There are a lot of ways you can use editors once
you free them from trying to cover that scale,” she says.
THE SEAMLESS INTEGRATION OF
DATA ENABLES AI-BASED SYSTEMS
TO RESPOND TO THE NATURAL
EVENTS THAT PRODUCE HUMAN
NEEDS AND EMOTIONS
Ingersoll Rand
Sector: Heating, Ventilation
and Air Conditioning
AI-DRIVEN MARKETING AUTOMATION POWERS
DYNAMIC CREATIVE
Leveraging IBM’s AI-powered campaign automation
platform has enabled Ingersoll Rand’s Heating, Ventilation
and Air Conditioning (HVAC) business to deliver more
personalized, responsive marketing campaigns at scale.
The predictive capabilities of IBM’s Watson AI enable it
to automate time-consuming processes such as customer
segmentation, and create dynamic content likely to appeal
to different roles. Through a single campaign template,
Ingersoll Rand can deliver bespoke images, content and
information tailored to very different customer types and
segments, all selected by Watson based on the data available.
This seamless integration of real-time data also enables
marketing campaigns to respond to one of the most impor-
tant factors contributing to demand for HVAC servicing:
the weather. Using IBM’s WeatherFX data, the campaign
automation platform creates localized campaigns for areas
hit by hail storms, which can do notorious damage to air
conditioning systems.
You’ll find full details on these AI success stories,
interviews with AI pioneers and advice on using the
technology more effectively, in our full AI in B2B report at
https://lnkd.in/AIinB2B
Sophisticated Marketer 49
 REAL GROWTH

Heroes THE REAL FACES OF SALES TURNING INSIGHT INTO

OPPORTUNITY THROUGH SMARTER PROSPECTING

W0RDS BY SIOBHAN WATERS AND CAROLINE YOUNG

50 Sophisticated Marketer

No matter how innovative or
disruptive your business, its
growth still depends on sales
people who can identify the
right prospects and reach out
in a way that turns theoretical
opportunity into actual
revenue and growth.
For LinkedIn’s first Real Faces
of Sales Awards, we set out to
find the everyday sales heroes
who make this magic happen—
the crucial link between
strategy and execution that
every business depends on.
We did so by asking colleagues
and customers to nominate
the everyday sales people that
make the biggest difference,
using the hashtags #RealSales
and #LIAwards to post their
stories on LinkedIn.
Our Real Faces of Sales
heroes come in many different
categories and from many
different countries. In this
issue, we’re celebrating
our Prospecting Stars from
EMEA and North America:
sales professionals who
play an essential role in
growth through their ability to
identify and activate the right
opportunities. In our next issue,
we’ll celebrate more sales
heroes from more regions,
looking in detail at how they
contribute to business success
through building relationships,
sales intelligence and savvy
social strategy.
LONG FORM
MELANIE ZDANOWICZ, UNITED STATES
ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE AT LESSONLY
It’s not often that a prospecting email leaves a lasting impression
on someone. As salespeople, we’re usually happy if our outreach
merely elicits a response. But the quality of one particular message
that showed up in Marcus Murphy’s inbox went above and beyond.
“About a year ago I received the best outbound prospecting email
from an SDR at Lessonly,” says Murphy, who serves as Director of
Sales and Monetization for DigitalMarketer, and also as an instruc-
tor and Customer Advisory Board member for LinkedIn. “If you’re a
salesperson trying to prospect you need to take notes.”
Murphy says there were four aspects of the email he received
from Melanie Zdanowicz—which carried the subject line “LOVE
that LinkedIn Profile”—that delighted him:
1 This is not the most creative subject line, BUT if you’re paying
attention to my themes you know this would catch my eye.
2 It’s thoughtful. She made connections to what I was trying
to accomplish and how her product or solution aligned to
expedite my objectives.
3 She took the time to read my LinkedIn summary and quoted it in
her introduction.
4 She also told me she just wanted to connect with me for 10
minutes. I know that it will take longer than 10 minutes but the
statement shows that she’s respectful of my busy schedule.
“She really is the future of sales and truly embodies the
thoughtfulness needed to understand the modern sales cycle,”
Murphy continues, complimenting Zdanowicz’s ability to guide
customers through their journeys with patience and substance.
“Melanie understands the importance of understanding her
future customers’ themes. Not only what my potential pain
points are but what I’m personally passionate about. Once
equipped with that information she’s skilled enough to tie it into
her outreach. I get prospected by literally thousands of people...
and I can count on one hand the people who have executed this
type of process effectively.”
Sophisticated Marketer 51
LONG FORM
ANDY COWDRILL, UNITED KINGDOM
BUSINESS APPLICATION LEAD
AT MICROSOFT
Andy has used every bit of his extensive Financial Services
experience to demonstrate the value that Microsoft Dynamics
365 has to offer for the sector. His strategic approach to
prospecting involves working closely with Dynamics’ partner
organizations—and it delivers very real results. Andy was
nominated by Dynamics 365’s Senior Director for Enterprise
Sales EMEA, David Brown, who describes how he is,
“successfully expanding our existing customers in FSI, acquiring
more new customers than any other UK biz apps seller and
maximizing sales productivity with modern sales tactics.”
DAVID VINCENT, THE NETHERLANDS
ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE AT SHOWPAD
David’s special prospecting skill has always been an ability
to identify and then open up previously untapped markets,
closing deals and building momentum for businesses from
Salesforce to Google at Work, to the content activation
platform Showpad. Former colleagues nominated him for
his adaptability to new territories, markets and technol-
ogies, and the way these have made him an asset to every
company he’s worked for.
52 Sophisticated Marketer
DANIEL FLOSSBACH, SWITZERLAND
SENIOR ACCOUNT MANAGER
AT ARCONDIS GROUP
Daniel’s approach to prospecting is characterized by always
taking the customer’s point of view. It shapes the way that
he finds creative solutions to move businesses forward—
and also the way that he reaches out to prospects at those
businesses, to initiate a conversation. Daniel is extremely
active in the LinkedIn feed, sharing content with specific
references to contacts that he knows are facing similar
issues. And the influence of his approach goes beyond
filling his own quota. He’s also helping to shape an organic
marketing strategy for Arcondis Group as a whole.
CLEMENCE YZOPT ROBIN, FRANCE
BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT &
ALLIANCE MANAGER, CITEGESTION
Creating business opportunities through an instinctive
understanding of clients’ needs has been the key to
Clemence Robin helping to drive growth for the lighting
service provider CITEGESTION. Colleagues talk of being
impressed by her ability to help develop business strategy,
and launch new business units, through identifying
opportunities with intelligence and curiosity.
Sophisticated Marketer 12
LONG FORM

The B2B
marketing
formula
for profitability
and sustainable growth
The science that B2B marketers need to balance brand and activation, emotion
and reason, as revealed by Mark Ritson, Les Binet and Peter Field.

H
ow do you balance the top and the bottom of the funnel? What propor-
tion of budget should you spend on brand, and what proportion on
activation? What’s the real role of emotion and reason in B2B buying?
And what’s the formula most likely to drive sustainable growth for your
business—and, just as importantly, sustain your own career?
These are huge questions, massive, career-changing questions in fact. And so
it’s no surprise that a new study conducted by the researchers Les Binet and Peter
Field, in partnership with LinkedIn, has had a huge impact. It’s the most in-depth
attempt yet to try and answer these questions specifically for B2B marketing. And it’s
been championed by the marketing professor and Marketing Week columnist Mark
Ritson, who’s long argued that marketers need to pay closer attention to these issues.
If you’ve read The Long and the Short of It, Binet and Field’s seminal study of
how to balance brand and activation in B2C marketing, then you’ll know why their
reputation has grown so quickly in recent years. They’ve brought academic rigor to
questions of marketing strategy that have all too often been settled by gut instinct,
received wisdom, and the pressing need to keep the C-suite happy.
Now Binet and Field are investigating whether their findings also apply to B2B.
It’s early days with a relatively small sample of campaigns. However, the early data
should make any serious B2B marketer sit up and take serious notice. It shows that
the long-running assumption that B2B marketing appeals to its audience only on a
rational level is wrong. It shows that B2B marketers are consistently under-investing
in building brands. And it shows that the long-term success of even fast-growing B2B
businesses risks being undermined as a result.

54 Sophisticated Marketer
 l availability
enta
M nd fame
Bra tion
genera
nd ess
ma tiven
c
De

tin
Dis

Sophisticated Marketer 55
LONG FORM

FAME HAS ITS BENEFITS

The Long and the Short of It
proved that, in B2C marketing,
mental availability is the most
powerful driver of growth. If
you’re the brand that everyone
talks about, and that springs
most readily to mind, then you
have a serious advantage over
any less familiar competitors.
You are always an obvious
answer to the question of what
to buy.
Binet and Field’s preliminary
research shows that many of the
same rules hold true for B2B
brands. Being the ‘no-brain-
er’ option, the most obvious
answer to the questions that B2B
buyers are asking themselves,
has great value. It maximizes
the efficiency of your market-
ing, strengthens your pricing
and increases your profitabili-
ty. It’s why people still don’t get
fired for buying IBM, for example. Over the long term, it has a something similar happens in B2B.
far greater influence on profitability and revenue than activation Building brand saliency and fame depends on investing in
activity focused on generating leads and closing deals. As a result, the right types of marketing activity over the right timeframe.
sustainable growth for B2B businesses depends on branding. However, it also depends on boldness and creativity when it
Throw the word brand at most marketers in a quick-fire comes to managing brands. Ritson, Binet and Field all agree
word association game, and they’ll probably come back with that marketers overestimate the importance of their brands in
the word, “awareness.” However, Binet and Field’s work makes their audiences’ lives. The biggest challenge they face is indif-
it clear that awareness isn’t enough. It’s important that people ference, and they don’t focus enough effort on keeping their
know about you, but it’s even more important to build on this brand front-of-mind. They also don’t make them distinctive
and create levels of brand salience and, if you can manage and recognizable through consistent codification (applying
it, brand fame. In B2C, being the brand that everyone talks consistent design cues, colours and other facets of the brand).
about, the most famous brand in a category, increases market- Marketers, and B2B marketers in particular, should be more
ing efficiency by a factor of four. There’s reason to believe open to the risks of being bold in pursuit of fame. Especially

HOW BRAND AND ACTIVATION COMBINE
SALES ACTIVATION: Tightly targeted,
about-to-buy, delivers short-term sales
MENTAL AVAILABILITY DRIVES GROWTH IN B2B
2.5
BRAND BUILDING: Broadly targeted at
all category buyers, delivers long-term
Number of very large biz fx. reported

uplifts, information works best sales and margin growth, emotions 2.0 2.2
Sales uplift over base

work best

1.5
1.6

1.0
0.9
0.5 0.7

0.0
Fame Awareness Other brand goals* Activation goals
Short term effects dominate ~6 months
* Differentiation, brand image,
Time Source: Binet & Field 2013 esteem, trust or commitment Primary Campaign Objectives Source: IPA Databank, 1998-2018 B2B cases

The premise of The Long and Short of It: branding raises the effectiveness of Brand awareness isn’t enough: Binet and Field’s B2B research shows the value of
marketing over time. Preliminary results suggest this is equally true of B2B. aiming for brand fame, even if that involves taking risks.

56 Sophisticated Marketer
since B2B brands often have a closer and more authentic
relationship with their customers than B2C ones do—and this
provides more options for building positive mental availability.
SUSTAINABILITY AS A B2B MARKETER DEPENDS ON
BALANCING BRAND AND ACTIVATION
‘Long’ brand effects are the most valuable investment that a
B2B marketer can make because they don’t decay over time
in the way that activation activity (which nobody remembers)
does. However, branding also takes time.
Part of the reason that marketers in general focus less and
less on brand is that they have immediate targets to meet—
and immediately available data that shows when they’re not
meeting them. This is why a smart B2B marketer needs to
balance long-term branding with the short stuff of activation,
and targeted campaigns designed to generate demand and
quality leads for sales.
Success depends on getting the
combination right, hitting immediate ‘Long’ brand
targets as efficiently as possible so that effects are the most
you can free some budget each month or
each quarter, to build the brand that will
valuable investment
underpin your long-term effectiveness. a B2B marketer
As Peter Field pointed out, the ‘Long’ of can make
this balancing act will benefit the ‘Short’
over time by making lead generation
more effective. However, the ‘Short’ can’t benefit the ‘Long’.
Activation marketing can’t build a brand for you, no matter
how much you spend on it.
EFFECTIVE B2B MARKETING INVOLVES
TWO TYPES OF TARGETING
Because B2B marketers need to balance brand activity,
which plays out over a longer timeframe, and activation,
which plays out in the short term, they need to master differ-
ent types of targeting.
Binet and Field are famous for their 60/40 rule, a formula
that shows B2C businesses grow most effectively when they
devote 60% of their budgets to mass-reach brand advertising,
and 40% to narrowly targeted, segmented campaigns focused
on immediate sales. Their research now shows that a very
similar rule applies in B2B. The proportions are slightly differ-
ent on average (much closer to 50/50). However, the principle
is the same.
As a marketer, you need to be able to target particularly
relevant or interested buyers through relevant messaging that
can generate quality leads for your sales team and lead to a
measurable Return on Investment (ROI). Otherwise, you could
end up out of a job. However, you also need the ability to reach
all of the people who could be involved in buying decisions
over the longer term. Because branding is a long game, it can’t
be hyper-targeted. It has to take the most inclusive possible
view of your relevant audience. It may be
years before they are considering your
business for a purchase, but that’s how
long it takes to build a compelling brand
to influence that decision. Waiting until
they’re ready to be tightly targeted at the
bottom of the funnel is waiting too long.
Performance marketing is important,
Peter Field acknowledges, but if it’s the
only thing you do then it should proba-
bly be called underperformance marketing—because that’s
what it will eventually lead to. Your targeted performance
marketing has to be supported by more mass reach brand
activity to keep driving results.
YOUR SHARE OF VOICE PREDICTS YOUR
FUTURE GROWTH, OR DECLINE
There’s a simple rule that applies to B2C marketing: a brand’s
Share of Voice tends to predict its future Share of Market. When
a brand’s Share of Voice within a category is larger than its
market share, it is very likely to grow. When its Share of Voice
is lower than the market share, it will most likely shrink. Guess
what? A similar rule applies to B2B. As Les Binet explained, the
more people you are reaching, and the more people who are
talking about you, the greater your opportunity to maintain
or grow your market share. If you’re achieving less reach and
impact than your position in your category suggests you need,
then there’s likely to be trouble ahead. It’s a simple rule, but
it’s one that’s all too easily forgotten if you push too hard for
efficiency over effectiveness.
EMOTION TRUMPS LOGIC IN B2B
Adjusting your strategy to equally balance brand and activation
is one part of the formula for more sustainable growth in B2B.
However, media isn’t everything. What you say through the
brand opportunities that you create is equally important. And
Binet and Field’s new research is already showing that most B2B
marketing doesn’t have the right balance. We place too much
emphasis on rational messaging, and not enough on emotion.
Just as in B2C, it’s emotional impact that creates the
long-term brand effects that drive profitability, outper-
Sophisticated Marketer 57
LONG FORM

formance and growth. Appealing to the

rational side of B2B buyers can work for
immediate activity driving sales and
leads. It makes sense for short-term
activation. However, it’s hard to build
a brand that will give you long-term
competitive advantage if you can’t
generate creative ideas that resonate
with audiences on an emotional level.
Emotion in B2B marketing won’t
necessarily take the same form as
emotion in B2C. Mark Ritson calls it
emotion with a small ‘e’. It doesn’t need
to be heart-wrenchingly dramatic. It
might be most effective when it’s subtle
and understated—but it has to be there.
Hope, aspiration, confidence and fear of
failure are all in play in the B2B buying
mindset. As B2B marketers, we need
to invest in understanding the relevant
emotions for our buyers and their
relationship to our brand.

START-UPS CAN’T AFFORD

TO BE COMPLACENT
Businesses will benefit from brand adver-
tising at any stage in their growth and
development. However, the effects of that advertising and the ing largely in activation is all they need to do. However, Binet
results that it delivers, will vary at different points. and Field have two important warnings. However quickly your
Les Binet pointed out that if you are bringing a genuine- business is growing, it can almost certainly grow faster with a
ly innovative product to market (as many B2B tech market- long-term investment in brand. Also, the window of opportu-
ers are, for example), then you can benefit from a brand that nity for brand-free growth is time-limited. After two years if not
builds itself—at least in the beginning. before, organic growth levels off and competitors (including
Because people are talking about you, and because you established brands) enter the market to destroy your natural
are by definition distinct and differentiated from competi- differentiation and eat into your share. If you haven’t invested
tors, you can focus more on activation and driving leads. To in building a brand by this point, it may be too late.
some extent, you can rely on word of mouth to do the brand
work for you. It’s easy for B2B marketers to look at the early WHAT DOES BRANDING IN B2B LOOK LIKE?
growth figures they are generating and conclude that invest- If branding matters so much in B2B, where should
B2B marketers invest in building their brands?
Here’s Mark Ritson’s take:
EMOTIONS ARE IMPORTANT IN B2B
DECISION MAKING AS WELL “LinkedIn is the top of the funnel B2B
marketing tool. It’s targeted but it’s not
100%
targeted. You can get both—and I think
Relative importance of emotional vs.

35% E>R
80% 42% there’s a real potential there.”
rational consideration

60%
Effective B2B marketing requires both investment in brand
35% E=R
40% 32% and activation. There’s only one platform on which you can
achieve both.
20%
30% E<R There’s more than one way to use LinkedIn in B2B market-
26%
0% ing—and as this new research shows, there’s more reason than
B2C B2B ever to explore everything you can do.
Sector
Source: IPA Databank, 1998-2018 cases
Explore Binet and Field’s groundbreaking research on
Binet and Field’s research suggests that emotion has just as significant an impact brand and activation in B2B marketing in more detail at
in B2B as in consumer marketing. https://lnkd.in/B2Bmarketingformula

58 Sophisticated Marketer


   

      
 
  
    
    

 

      
 THE
ULTIMATE

Sales
GUIDE
TO
W0RDS BY SEAN CALLAHAN

Productivity
13 EXPERT TIPS TO HELP
SALES TEAMS CLOSE MORE
DEALS IN LESS TIME
t’s one of the most striking findings of
LinkedIn’s global State of Sales report,
which surveyed more than 2,500 sales
professionals worldwide, that the
average sales person spends less than
40% of their time selling. The remainder of
their day is spent updating their CRM, filling
out expense reports, training, and sitting in
internal meetings. That makes it crucial to
spend the time that sales reps actually have
selling as effectively as possible. Marginal
gains in productivity and efficiency can
make a big difference when it comes to
meeting quota.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a big part of
the solution, maximizing productivity by
identifying the right leads, the right routes
into accounts, and the details that enable
personalized approaches more likely to
generate a response. Indeed, the efficiency
gains from tools like Sales Navigator were one
of the key benefits of technology to emerge from
the State of Sales study, enabling reps to do far
more with the limited time they have available.
However, it’s not just technology that enables
greater sales productivity. We asked 13 sales experts
for the efficiency tips and tricks that have made the
greatest difference to them and their teams. Some
involve technology, others are based around sound
time management principles; all of them will help
sales meet targets faster:

60 Sophisticated Marketer
 LONG FORM

TIP 3. DON’T BE A BUTTERFLY

“Your most valuable resource isn’t time…it’s attention.”
It’s critical that salespeople learn how to focus that attention.
It starts with putting time in your schedule at the end of the
week to plan out the next one. Then, by “chunking” similar
activities (prospecting, email correspondence, research, etc.)
into blocks of 30-90 minutes, which will prevent you from
bouncing around like a butterfly. You’ll be less reactive and
more proactive. And finally, it helps to plan out only 60% of
the day to allow for spontaneous opportunities and meetings
that pop up.

David J.P. Fisher, President, RockStar Consulting

TIP 4. ABSOLUTE CLARITY

“Time is the most precious resource for every salesperson,
and that’s why they need absolute clarity about their Ideal
Customer Profile (ICP) and buyer personas.”

TIP 1. JUST SAY NO

Buyers expect us to already know them, and we must create a
narrative that provides value in a conversation, well in advance
of talking about our product, service, or solution. We all need to
“At the RAIN Group Center for Sales Research, we focus on the customer and their opportunity for better results,
conducted an Extreme Productivity study of 2,377 sellers to rather than bang-on about ourselves and attributes of what we
find out which work habits and hacks drive productivity.” offer. Embrace technologies for productivity and time-block
Our findings revealed that Extremely Productive Sellers daily outbound activity to build quality sales pipeline.
obsess over time, spending 46% more time per day on activities Technology, especially
directly related to selling. In fact, 48% of these sellers start their AI and automation, is
day with activities they regard as having the greatest impact on changing the world, so
sales success, whereas only 12% of their peers do. blend human insights and
Productive sellers also excel at saying ‘No’, something that only emotional connection
31% of people at work admit to. They say no to unnecessary with the technologies that
meetings, co-worker interruptions, and accepting tasks that take your productivity to
aren’t theirs. As a result they get out one more call, one more super-human levels.
email message and find one more way to add value.
Tony Hughes,
Mike Schultz, President, RAIN Group Managing Director,
RSVPselling

TIP 2. SUCCESS LEAVES CLUES

“Be focused. Only you can do that for yourself.”
At the end of the day, set up what your top three priorities
are for the next day. Always make time to do this, so that you
don’t walk into your office with no idea what to do next. If your
software helps you stay organized, as some sales engagement
platforms do, use that to help you get your work done. Find the
holes where things can slip through the cracks and fix them.
Take breaks, and especially a creativity break when you feel
overwhelmed or not accomplishing what you’d planned to.
Look at those around you who get things done and learn what
they do, because success leaves clues.

Lori Richardson, CEO, Score More Sales /

President, Women Sales Pros

Sophisticated Marketer 61
LONG FORM
TIP 5. SPEND MORE TIME ON THE
THINGS THAT WORK
“The answer is simple: spend more time on the things that
work, less time on the things that don’t work.”
For me, I track where every lead and close originated, so I know
where to focus my time. For my business, it’s all LinkedIn and
speaking events. That’s how we get 100% of our business at my
company. We’ve been in business for three years, and haven’t
made a single cold call or sent a single blast email. Go with
what works!
Robert Knop, CEO, Assist You Today
TIP 6. OWN YOUR CALENDAR
“The Number 1 thing I see that separates high-performing
sales professionals is their ability to own their time and their
calendar.”
By having a strict focus on what you need to accomplish during
your day, week, or month, you avoid falling into the trap of
wasting time doing busy work, which most of the time doesn’t
lead to closed business. Focus on those things that provide
you with the highest ROI first.
Jeff Davis, Founder and Revenue Strategist,
JD2 Consulting Group
TIP 7. TASK TOOLS ARE ESSENTIAL
“With today’s distractions—I am married to my calendar.”
If it’s not in there, it’s not happening. (Including things like
my morning meditation, dinner with family, and going to the
gym. My business partner cracked up when he saw “go to bed”
on my calendar—but without it I might not get the alert and
catch myself working at 1am!) Fortunately, there are several
apps and extensions that work with my calendar to make
appointment-setting easier. LinkedIn is getting in on the game
with the calendar feature in Messaging! I use my iPhone’s
Reminder and Task apps, and I find tools like these essential to
getting everything done. Finally, I probably save hours a week
using Text Expander on Chrome and Text Replacement on my
iPhone to auto text my replies to invitations and messages on
LinkedIn and through email. Life is so busy and noisy. Any
tool, app, or extension I can use to save me even a few minutes
adds up, giving me back my most valuable asset—time!
Viveka von Rosen, Chief Visibility Officer, Vengreso
62 Sophisticated Marketer
TIP 8. IT’S NOT ABOUT THE SALES FUNNEL
“In sales, we used to say Activity equals Productivity. But we
should say Customer Activity equals Sales Productivity.”
Modern sales is about sales activity and productivity geared
to customer activity and productivity. The best way to manage
time and energy is to develop a playbook addressing the five
components of the customer journey:
1. The media
2. The content
3. The touches
4. The timing
5. The stakeholders
Arrange time around these, not around the sales funnel.
In digital sales, it’s not about how you manage your time, it’s
about how you invest it in the customer journey!
Joël Le Bon, Ph.D., Marketing and Sales Professor,
The Johns Hopkins University
TIP 9. JUMP OVER TO SALES NAVIGATOR
“I start every day with my morning productivity routine.”
Instead of watching the morning news or reading the paper, I
spend an hour on a few of the following activities:
1. Set an intention for the day: I will book five appointments
today or I will close at least one new client.
2. Have some personal time: exercising, reading a book, or
listening to motivational programs or podcasts.
3. Check your LinkedIn connection requests, messages,
newsfeed and notifications.
4. Jump over to Sales Navigator and see who’s viewed your
profile. If a good prospect, send a customized invitation.
5. Check for job changes—opportunities to start conversations
with people who have fallen off your radar.
6. Scan your saved accounts to see which accounts are in the
news or are sharing new content.
7. Check Saved Searches for hot new leads.
Ted Prodromou, Author,
Ultimate Guide to LinkedIn for Business
 TIP 10. UNDERSTAND YOUR IDEAL
CUSTOMER PROFILE
“There are three solid areas to get the most out of your time.”
1. Understand your Ideal Customer Profile. Know which customers
you can bring the most value to. Prioritize your time working
with or prospecting with customers fitting this profile.
2. Align sales and marketing. Allow marketers to use their
creative genius and marry that with the relationships sales
has with clients. Personalizing marketing and tracking its
effectiveness with specific clients is a great way to connect
these two critical departments.
3. Spend more time with up-front research. Today this is critical.
There is so much information about your clients and their
business—online as well as customized material they’ve
posted to LinkedIn. If you’re not leveraging Sales Navigator to
better prepare and understand your clients’ business, you’re
sending the message that you care more about what you have
to sell them than what they need to buy to be more successful.
People see through this today. If you want to sell me, you need
to know me.
Kelly Marberry, Sales Manager, LinkedIn
TIP 11. AVOID UNWINNABLE
OPPORTUNITIES
“The single biggest productivity drain is spending time
chasing unwinnable, unqualified opportunities.”
High-performing reps are rigorous and understand that qual-
ification is a process and not an event. It’s incomplete to sim-
ply check off activities and milestones in your sales process.
Qualification has to reflect the buyer’s process, not the seller’s.
That involves the following four questions:
1. Should I buy this?
2. Is it worth the investment?
3. Have I involved the right people to authorize the purchase?
4. What has to happen for me to be convinced and when will
I execute this purchase decision?
Julie Thomas, President and CEO, ValueSelling Associates
TIP 12. CREATE AN EMAIL-FREE ZONE
“According to most sellers I talk to, email is a big distraction
getting between them and their clients.”
Turn off the sound and visual email alert on your computer,
and check email at scheduled times instead. Only respond
to the emails that involve a follow-up for a client. It sounds
simple, but far too few sellers lack discipline about emails.
They lose themselves in non-revenue generating activities
like responding to email because it gives them a feeling of
accomplishment having responded. Get clear on what is a
revenue-generating activity for your sales process. Make
sure the majority of your time, even if it is a small majority of
51%, is spent on those things.
Tracey Wik, President, GrowthPlay
TIP 13. INTEGRATE MODERN SELLING
TECHNIQUES
“Sales professionals can boost productivity by embracing
and integrating modern selling techniques into their
workflow.”
It’s critical to target the right decision-makers at the right
time with the right information. Cold calling into the wrong
decision-makers can slow the sales cycle and quickly damage a
sales professional’s brand. Instead, leverage your networks to
look for warm introduction paths and leverage personalized
insights to increase outreach response rates and build
meaningful relationships.
Allison McGreevy, Sales Manager, LinkedIn
You’ll find more details of how Sales Navigator can
contribute to productivity for you and your sales team at
https://lnkd.in/SalesSolutions
Sophisticated Marketer 63
 WHAT
DOES
DATA-LED
How do you bring CREATIVITY
LOOK
together the two
most sought-after skills in
marketing to generate more
original thinking?
W0RDS BY CLÉMENCE BEAUCHAMP LIKE?
inkedIn data shows that Creativity is the single most
L
sought-after soft skill in the world today. It also shows
that Analytical Reasoning, working things out on the
basis of data, is the third most sought-after technical skill.
Marketing organizations of all types know that data and
creativity are equally important to their future success.
The trick is combining them in the right way .
Ours is an inherently creative profession. The ability to come up with
original ideas enables marketers to create competitive advantage for our
businesses. Those creative moments differentiate our brands, make our
campaigns distinctive and drive awareness and engagement.
Ours is also a profession with more and more data available to it, and
more and more pressure to translate that data into results. Data should
elevate creativity and open up new spaces and opportunities for it.
However, as marketers, we know that doesn’t always happen. If we’re not
careful, data can become a constraint on creative thinking. We person-
alize aspects of people’s experiences but forget to make the experiences
themselves magical.
HOW DOES DATA LEAD CREATIVITY?
If we’re to be creative in how we use data, then it’s
important not to think too restrictively about how and
when it can contribute.
Most B2B marketers are familiar with the value of
testing, which is the most obvious way for data to influ-
ence creativity. For a creative-minded marketer, the abili-
ty to access relevant metrics in real-time should be an
invitation to keep experimenting. Try something, see if it
works—and if it doesn’t, be ready to try something else.
64 Sophisticated Marketer
Quickly assessing whether creative ideas have
the desired effect is only one way for data to lead
creativity though. When marketers only use data to
optimize, there’s a tendency to narrow what they
do on the basis of what’s worked in the past.
It’s important to take a broader view if we’re
to unlock the real potential of data for triggering
creative ideas.
GETTING DATA INTO A CREATIVE STATE
It all starts with the data itself. To act as creative
inspiration, it needs to arrive in a form that’s
simple, focused and actionable. The new Content
Suggestions feature in LinkedIn Pages meets
this standard. As a B2B marketer, you get a clear,
straightforward signal of the issues that a target
audience is engaging with. It’s then over to you to
approach these opportunities in a creative way.
Data also needs to be as focused as possible.
Ask any graduate of a good design school and
they’ll tell you that creativity involves the ability
to synthesize lots of different sources of insight
in a playful, free-flowing and often unstructured
way. That’s where original ideas come from.
However, it’s difficult to do if each data source
requires a big mental investment on your part to
make sense of it. An insight is only as valuable as
the way you can apply it. If the data is confused,
the creative idea might be, too.

MAKING CREATIVE DECISIONS ABOUT
THE DATA POSSIBILITIES
In a packed seminar at Advertising Week Europe this year, Google’s
Senior Vice President for Ads and Commerce, Prabhakar Raghavan,
spelled out the company’s position on data: “Google seeks to use the least
amount of data possible to create magical and trustworthy advertising
experiences.” That’s not just a sensible approach to privacy concerns and
the new regulatory environment. It also happens to be a smart approach
for any marketer or advertising agency wanting to make creative use of
data. Challenge yourself to use as few data sources as possible—and then
select the ones that have greatest value to add. Rather than amassing
insight for its own sake, you’re pulling together information that gives you
different perspectives on a particular creative challenge.
The great news is that, in the age of Artificial Intelligence (AI), almost
anything can be quantified as data. If you can think creatively about the
type of insight that would really make a difference, then the chances are
you can access the data that you need. And the more counter-intuitive
and lateral your thinking about the data you choose, the greater the range
of creative ideas you can come up with for using it. The bank ING won a
Cannes Lion for its The Next Rembrandt campaign, using AI to create a
new painting in the style of the Dutch Master. It was only able to do this
because AI systems can now quantify things like the style of the brush
strokes and angles of light that a painter used.
THREE STORIES OF DATA-LED CREATIVITY
It goes without saying that Spotify has a lot of data on what its subscribers
listen to. It could have used that data just to rank the world’s most popular
tracks (the staple Top Ten’s that radio stations have published for years),
or tell each person what they should listen to next. Instead, it developed
a campaign to tell the stories of its listeners through carefully selected
data points: the fact that somebody had streamed “Sorry” 42 times on
Valentine’s Day, for example.
It led to Spotify being named
Media Brand of the Year at the CHALLENGE YOURSELF
Cannes Lions in 2018.
One of my favorite LinkedIn
TO USE AS FEW DATA
campaigns used a similarly SOURCES AS POSSIBLE
well-chosen piece of data to AND THEN SELECT
establish a creative oppor-
tunity that would resonate THOSE WITH GREATEST
at particular moments in VALUE TO ADD
people’s lives. The luxury
watch brand Baume et Mercier
used LinkedIn data to identify transformational moments in young
professional lives: the promotions and job moves when aspirations
are realized and new opportunities open up. It then leveraged these
moments with a personalized invitation to spend time exploring a first
luxury watch purchase: an earned sense of belonging that fitted with
the particular emotions that come from a career moving forward. The
campaign, for the launch of the Classima range, delivered some of
the most spectacular engagement levels we’ve seen on LinkedIn, and
built a constituency of new luxury buyers who remain connected to the
Baume et Mercier brand.
These two campaigns both identified one clearly defined data signal
that’s actionable, relevant and will deliver results. These brands didn’t drown
their creatives in data and expect innovative ideas to magically appear. They
LONG FORM
started with imagining sources of insight that could
enable them to do something different.
My favorite data-led campaigns don’t expect
the data to do the entire creative job. It’s there to
provide insight and open up new opportunities.
Making the most of those opportunities is the
work of human imagination. A recent campaign
for Lexus used an AI algorithm to generate a script
based on data about the most consistent features
of auto and luxury advertising. Crucially though,
the AI and its data didn’t have the job of bringing
that script to life. That was the task of award-win-
ning director Kevin McDonald—and his creative
treatment is what gave the ad impact and charm.
There’s a whole separate debate around the role
of AI in creativity. I think it’s most constructive to
consider the ideas that an AI generates as another
source of data-led insight for the human creative
process. It’s a starting point for you to play with,
and apply in a distinctly human, imaginative way.
Just as there are many different types of leader,
there are many different ways for data to lead
creativity. As I’ve outlined here, we can use data as
a source of inspiration with a role to open up new
possibilities and empower people to experiment
with them—or we can use it as a firmer guide,
channelling creativity towards what works and
what doesn’t. The most spectacular creative ideas
may come from the first type of data-leadership,
but the second also has value to add, provided we
get the balance right.
When data becomes a micro-manager, it tends
to squeeze creativity out of the process and narrow
what you do and how you do it. One example of this
is hyper-targeting, focusing in on the same core
audience just because they deliver on a particu-
lar metric, but missing the broader audience that
you need to engage and inspire to fill the market-
ing funnel and drive sustainable growth. However,
data micro-managers also risk diminishing returns
through sheer repetition: doing what the data
prescribes, but not doing it creatively enough.
Insight about what works has real value, but
you also need the courage to use that insight in
imaginative ways. I think the advertising legend
David Ogilvy put it best. “Big ideas come from the
unconscious,” he wrote. “But your unconscious
has to be well informed, or your idea will be irrele-
vant.” If you want more relevant creative ideas, start
with relevant, creative sources of data. And then
embrace the idea of exploring all of the different
places they can take you.
You’ll find other examples of data-led creativity
on LinkedIn on our customer success hub at
https://lnkd.in/customer-success
Sophisticated Marketer 65
 The full-funnel
impact of
thought
leadership A new study from Edelman and LinkedIn shows the
quality of thought leadership content changing
buyers’ choices all the way down the funnel.
W0RDS BY TOM PEPPER

I t might seem strange to argue that B2B marketers

seriously undervalue thought leadership. After all,
it has a prominent place in almost every marketing
strategy and is a mainstay of B2B content calendars.
However, that’s exactly what new thought leadership research
from Edelman and LinkedIn shows. Marketers may be creat-
ing this content at scale, but they seriously underestimate the
humanizes it by putting names and faces to that expertise.
It looks a lot like a branding play.
However, thought leadership is also far more. When
decision-makers consume it (and roughly half spend an hour
a week doing so), they aren’t just engaging with new ideas.
They are consciously evaluating organizations and the calibre
of their thinking. And they are doing so with a view to drawing
impact that it has. And they’re often blissfully unaware of the up shortlists and awarding business.
high stakes involved. In our survey, 54% of decision-makers said that
they use thought leadership as an important way
Defining thought leadership to vet organisations that they are considering
We defined thought leadership in the way that working with. And they act on that evaluation,
those consuming it do: free content delivera- with 46% saying they have asked a previously
bles that organizations or individuals produce unconsidered supplier to bid on a project after
on a topic in their area of expertise, when they
feel others can benefit from their perspective.
Thought leadership can take different forms:
research reports, videos, blog posts, essays and
webinars among them. However, it doesn't
include content that’s focused on
describing or promoting products
and services. Case studies can be
great B2B content assets, but they
are not thought leadership.
B2B marketers know that thought
leadership builds aware-
ness. It builds positive
perceptions around a
business’s expertise and

66 S o p h i s t i c a t e d M a r k e t e r
 LONG FORM

encountering their thought leadership. What’s more, 49% of

decision-makers say that they have awarded business to a
supplier as a direct result of their thought-leadership content.
It’s clear that senior buyers and influencers embrace the role
of thought-leadership. However, B2B marketers don’t recognize
how broad that role is. In our study they consistently underval-
ued its contribution.
This gap between perception and reality matters, and not
just because thought-leadership’s contribution often goes
unattributed. When B2B organizations don’t appreciate the
impact on business pipeline they are less motivated to invest
time and resource in producing content of real originality
and value. Marketers who treat thought leadership solely as
a means of driving awareness worry less about how fulfilled
an audience is when reading content. They're more concerned
that they notice it and engage with it in the first place. Our
research proves that this is a costly mistake.
Decision-makers don’t just add new businesses to their
consideration set on the basis of strong thought leader-
ship. They also remove businesses from consideration if that
content isn’t up to scratch. And a worrying amount of the
thought leadership that they encounter isn’t.

Poor content quality makes deals go dark

Only 14% rate the thought leadership they encounter as
'Excellent' or 'Very Good'. Exactly half of decision-makers say
they’ve encountered ‘Good’ thought leadership, but over a
third (36%) rate thought-leadership content as ‘Mediocre to
Very Poor’. And content of this low standard creates substan-
tial risks for the organizations producing it. Over half of
decision-makers say that they’ve stopped following a writer or
organization after reading disappointing thought leadership,
42% say that poor thought leadership has decreased their
respect for a business and 28% say they’ve decided against
awarding a piece of business to a company because their
thought leadership was disappointing.
That last stat should put any B2B content marketer on alert.
It’s one thing to have evidence that thought leadership deliv-
ers benefits at every stage of the buyer journey. It’s another to
know that poor thought leadership has negative impacts all
of the way down the funnel too. It doesn’t just get ignored or
forgotten. It makes an active contribution to reputation one
way or another.
Thought leadership is not advertising. The measure of
success for an advertising campaign tends to be whether
the right metrics moved upwards. Misguided ads can create
negative brand perceptions, but it’s far more likely that they will
just be ignored. B2B thought leadership is different. Because
it’s treated as a proxy and test for a supplier’s expertise, it is
perfectly capable of moving metrics either up or down—and
does both fairly frequently. It’s a different type of marketing
investment with different risks and rewards. The opportunities
are too great for B2B marketers to ignore—but the risks are too
great not to take investing in thought leadership seriously.

You can download the full thought leadership study from

Edelman and LinkedIn at https://lnkd.in/edelman-linkedin

Sophisticated Marketer 67
68 Sophisticated Marketer
 LONG FORM

WHAT WORKS
IN B2B VIDEO:
THE LINKEDIN DATA
Our analysis of the best-performing video campaigns for different marketing objectives
shows that audiences on LinkedIn have longer attention spans and demand original ideas.

W0RDS BY JENNIFER BUNTING

D
oes B2B video follow the same rules as B2C? Are its
audiences prepared to engage with longer content
or do they switch off after a few seconds? Does
storytelling work for a professional audience?
The first data-driven analysis of the most
effective B2B video content on LinkedIn
answers these questions and more. In the
process, it smashes some of the stereotypes around the
rules of video marketing and proves that B2B marketers need
a video strategy that fits the professional mindset.
We used LinkedIn data on every video campaign running on the platform to
identify the 250 top-performing branded videos for three different B2B marketing
objectives: building awareness, generating engagement and driving conversions.
We then categorized the approach that each of these videos took to subject matter,
format, visuals, soundtrack and length. And we compared these characteristics to
those of brand videos that ranked lower against the same metrics. This enabled us to
form a clear picture of the types of video content that engage LinkedIn’s professional
audience—and the video tactics that best suit different marketing goals.
Not all of the study’s findings are shocking. Our data confirms the value of creativ-
ity in format and visuals, of investing in production quality and of human connec-
tions. It shows that short videos of just a few seconds can often be extremely effec-
tive. However, it also warns against following too rigid a strategy. Many of the most
effective video campaigns on LinkedIn break most of the perceived rules around
length, subject matter and soundtracks. They succeed because they do so with style.

Sophisticated Marketer 69
LONG FORM
HERE ARE THE KEY CHARACTERISTICS OF
SUCCESSFUL VIDEO CONTENT ON LINKEDIN:
SUBJECT MATTER: STORIES DRIVE
1AWARENESS, NEW IDEAS DRIVE ENGAGEMENT
Stories dominate when it comes to driving awareness through a high
view-through rate (VTR): stories of brands, stories that illustrate mission
and purpose, stories of individual employees. Brand stories represent 37%
of all top-performers in the awareness category. When it comes to driving
engagement and conversions, videos explaining products take over, with
43% of top performers by engagement rate and 36% of top performers
by click-through rate (CTR). However, the highest engagement rates and
CTRs of all are delivered by thought-leadership content, which is also
the second most represented type of video among top performers in all
categories. Thought leadership is delivered through varied lengths and
formats to fit different objectives, and represents 29% of top performers
for awareness, 17% for engagement and 24% for CTR.
BRAND STORIES REPRESENT
37% OF ALL TOP PERFORMERS IN
THE AWARENESS CATEGORY
2LENGTH: THE LINKEDIN ATTENTION SPAN
IS MINUTES, NOT SECONDS
Rather than tuning out after a few seconds, B2B audiences tend to reward
longer running times, particularly when it comes to engagement and
click-through rates. Top-performing ads by VTR are typically 30 seconds or
longer. Top videos for engagement rate are above 50 seconds on average.
On CTR, films of up to one minute perform as strongly as those of less than
10 seconds. Different content types have different natural running times.
Case studies are most effective when 30 seconds long. Thought leadership
content works best with run times of around 80 seconds.
FORMAT: INNOVATIVE GRAPHICS ENGAGE,
3BUT ANIMATION CAN FALL FLAT
Innovative post-production can play a key role in driving awareness for
B2B video, with 33% of top performers for VTR featuring motion graph-
ics that help them to stand out and capture attention. However, not all
graphics deliver the same beneficial effects. Standard branded intros
undermine distinctiveness when a video first plays—and compromise
effectiveness overall. Top-performing B2B video often mixes graphics
and camera footage in striking ways, or adds effects to videos to increase
visual interest. Animation is a far riskier strategy that tends to be less
effective at forming a human connection with audiences. Only 12% or
fewer of top performers in each category are animated videos.
ONLY 12% OR FEWER OF TOP
PERFORMERS IN EACH CATEGORY
ARE ANIMATED VIDEOS
70 Sophisticated Marketer
The great news for B2B marketers
is that the LinkedIn audience has
a huge appetite for engaging with
video content—and they are ready to
reward original ideas and innovative
production with sustained attention.
When B2B videos rely on stock
imagery, animated presentations
or montages of still images, they
tend to underperform. The LinkedIn
audience wants human stories
with a sense of connection. And they
are prepared to engage for long
periods when brands can hook them
in with genuinely new ideas.
4VISUALS: HUMAN CONNECTIONS AND
NATURAL LANDSCAPES STRIKE A CHORD
Videos that focus on human activities, and feature
clear characters for audiences to identify with,
perform strongly for every marketing objec-
tive. Those that give a clear sense of location also
receive a significant performance boost. Close-
ups of recognizable characters in a story feature
in 42% of top-performing videos for awareness,
34% of top performers for engagement and 25%
of top performers for CTR. Animals and natural
landscapes feature in fewer videos on LinkedIn
overall. However, when they do appear, they drive
particularly high awareness and engagement rates.
B2B brands can benefit from breaking out of urban
landscapes and office settings when possible.
SOUNDTRACK: BRANDS SHOULD AIM
5FOR DISTINCTIVENESS
A majority of top-performing B2B videos feature
soundtracks of some sort. However, in most cases
these take the form of generic, stock music. When
brands do invest in a more distinctive and memora-
ble soundtrack, they tend to be rewarded with
higher engagement rates—which points to innova-
tive audio enhancing the viewer experience.
Find inspiration for applying these insights at
https://lnkd.in/B2Bvideo
THE DEBRIEF

The content shaping

brands’ thinking on

DıVERS TY
It’s a priority issue for marketers and a vital source of creativity and competitiveness for business, but our
analysis of diversity content on LinkedIn shows the complexities and challenges still to be overcome.

D
iversity matters for both brands and businesses. It’s critical
for building compelling employer brands and accessing
business-critical skills. It’s essential for aligning businesses
with the customers they depend on for growth, and it’s increasingly
linked to profitability in research from McKinsey and others. This makes
diversity a priority issue for marketers: diversity within marketing teams,
representation of diversity in advertising campaigns, and diverse employer
brands that engage new sources of talent, build inclusive cultures and drive
business performance.
However, diversity is also a complex issue, with new challenges
emerging and consensus sometimes hard to come by. Marketers must
wrestle with many different dimensions of diversity while overcoming
challenges and resistance both within businesses, and outside them. With
this in mind, we took an in-depth look at engagement with diversity-related
content on LinkedIn. We examined the pieces driving greatest engagement
for what they show about the evolution of the diversity conversation, levels
of engagement with different issues, and how diversity shapes perceptions
of brands among some of their most important audiences.
WHO’S ENGAGING WITH
DIVERSITY CONTENT?
Partners, Directors, VPs and the C-suite are significantly more likely to
engage with diversity-related content, which shows how this is increasingly
a priority issue for business strategy. In fact, Partners within a business
are 4.6x more likely to engage than the average LinkedIn member.
Interest peaks among Venture Capital and Private Equity firms with PR and
Communications and Management Consulting also strongly represented.
This demonstrates the importance of diversity for businesses seeking
funding, for those advising on engaging audiences and building stronger
brands, and for those charged with finding new sources of growth.

THE KEY THEMES

SHAPING BRANDS’
THINKING ON DIVERSITY
When we rank diversity themes by engagement, it’s clear that gender
dominates the conversation. Gender equality is the subject of the greatest
number of diversity-related posts, and those posts generate the highest
average engagement.

1. Gender diversity: data leads

the conversation
Data is more readily available on gender than any other aspect of diversity,
and this is reflected in the nature of the most influential content on gender
equality on LinkedIn. Leading studies include research from Accenture
on equality and innovation in the workplace; a study of the relationship
between gender diversity and business productivity; analysis of how female
support networks correlate with greater diversity; and rankings of the most
gender-diverse businesses and top female leaders.
Inspirational female leaders are a key trend among influential
diversity-related posts, with stories of women in leadership positions
making up more than 12% of the top 50 most engaging posts.

72 Sophisticated Marketer

The 10 diversity-related
posts generating greatest
engagement on LinkedIn
1 Promote women because
they’re good, not because
they’re women
This provocative post argued that
businesses need to pay close
attention to how gender equality
initiatives are presented to
employees.
2 7
This Indore girl started up
with just Rs 3.5 lakh
The story of Nidhi Yadav, the
woman behind ethnic clothing
brand AKS, touches on many
different aspects of diversity:
female entrepreneurs, working
mothers, and ethnic diversity
within fashion.
3 Julie Sweet of Accenture
Could See Her Future. So
She Quit Her Job
The New York Times’ interview
with Accenture’s North America
CEO acts as both inspiring career
story, and a discussion of the
enduring nature of unconscious
bias and other barriers to gender
equality.
4
Women in the
Workplace 2018
McKinsey’s gender equality survey
sounded an alarm call that progress
has stalled, and more concrete
action is needed.
5 What baby boomers can
learn from millennials
Author Chip Conley’s influential
TED Talk helped to push the issue
of age diversity up towards the top
of the business conversation.
6 Women in IT Awards
2019 finalists revealed
This Information Age shortlist is
one of three diversity rankings
posts in the top 20, including
Reuters’ Diversity and Inclusion
index, and FT’s’ list of the 10 most
influential BAME tech leaders.
Recruiting at Netflix:
Podcast episode
Netflix’s VP of Talent Acquisition
Nellie Peshkov explored
how an admired brand approaches
diversity and inclusion in
recruitment, and the benefits that
it gains in terms of innovation.
8 Elite Law Firm’s All-White
Partner Class Stirs Debate
on Diversity
This New York Times article
explored the limits of diversity
at big law firms by analyzing
recently appointed partners
at Paul, Weiss.
9
How do you get from
diversity to inclusion?
Ask these four questions
In this TED feature, social
psychologist Dolly Chung
distinguishes between diversity
and inclusion, which underpins
progress but is far less visible
through data.
10 University launches
sports hijab for female
Muslim students
The story of how Brunel University
tackled a key barrier to religious
inclusion in sport.
2. Ethnic diversity: tales of
discrimination set the agenda
Two key themes stand out among the most influential posts on ethnic
diversity: shocking revelations about discrimination in recruitment
and the workplace, and individual stories of those overcoming it.
Content highlighting cases of discrimination include IBM’s apology
for using insensitive ethnic labels in a job application menu, CNN’s
report on a General Motors plant where offensive racial language and
threats had been part of daily life, and research showing that applicants
from minority ethnic backgrounds in the UK had to send 80% more
applications on average, to get a positive response from an employer.
3. LGBTQ+ rights: individual
stories predominate
Content dealing with LGBTQ+ rights tends to focus on individual stories
and experiences. These include role models such as Beth Ford, the
first openly gay woman to lead a Fortune 500 company, Apple’s CEO
Tim Cook and Metropolitan Police Chief Cressida Dick. Not all stories
are positive, however. Posts that talk about the negative impact that
coming out can have on careers, and the difficulties of challenging
discrimination in the workplace, are equally prominent.
4. Age diversity: advertising
and tech lead the way
Awareness of the dangers of sidelining older workers is particularly
high in the advertising and technology industries, with posts focused
on these sectors representing five of the top 20 tackling this issue. They
include data showing that 42% of advertising, marketing, media and PR
employees have witnessed ageism towards a colleague, and 32% have
experienced ageism themselves.
A key theme of age-related diversity pieces is the challenge
of balancing the value of older workers with the need to create
opportunity for younger ones. The two most popular posts take
contrasting views. TED speaker Chip Conley argues for the benefits of
mixing different generations. A Harvard Business Review piece instead
asks, what happens to younger workers when older ones don’t retire?
5. Cognitive diversity:
celebrating early momentum
Awareness of the business benefits of cognitive diversity has
accelerated rapidly in recent years, and the positive tone of the most
influential posts in this area reflects as much. Content focuses on
raising awareness of the value that ‘differently wired’ people bring to
the workplace, including those with autism, ADHD and dyslexia.
6. Diversity in marketing
and advertising
If businesses are to realize the benefits of tackling the barriers to diversity,
they need a marketing and advertising industry that’s attuned to the
value of representing such diversity. Coverage of a Transport for London
campaign to address the impact of menopause, and an award-winning
campaign for the Royal Air Force show how the industry is responding.
Sophisticated Marketer 73
THE DEBRIEF

IN DEFENSE OF
THE LISTICLE
They’re the subject of a litany of
content marketing complaints,
but lazy listicles don’t make lists
themselves inherently bad.

W0RDS BY SEAN CALLAHAN

HEY’RE CLICKBAIT THAT’S KILLING
JOURNALISM, SHALLOW FLUFF that ruins
attention spans, repetitive and redundant.
There are a litany of criticisms of the once-trendy
listicle format, and these criticisms are not
invalid. However, it’s time to ask ourselves: do they have more
to do with the way listicles are executed than with the approach
itself? Let’s take a step back, try to figure out where it all went
amiss and start thinking about where it can go right again.
This gets clicks, but what are those clicks really achieving? Certainly not providing value to
the reader, who’s probably seen all the entries before. Worse yet, these lists often become
outdated and inaccurate because no one bothers to vet the details.
So, this is my plea to content marketers: let’s restore the diminished prestige of listicles.
Let’s make them something our audience can click on with confidence and anticipation,
rather than reflections of the worst in clickbait gimmickry. We don’t need to retire listicles.
We just need to rethink them. Here are some ideas for how:

An Inconvenient Truth: Listicles Work RETHINKING THE LISTICLE

When you look at almost any list of popular or top-performing
formats, the listicle will be there. Traffic-dependent sites like 1 Quality Over Quantity: Create because we have so many knowledge-
BuzzFeed churn them out because they reliably attract visitors. fewer listicles that include more insight hungry marketers on staff who’ve read
Why is that? Human psychology thrives on structure and and original research. And within those a bunch of them, and formed genuine
simplicity. In a piece for The New Yorker titled A List of Reasons listicles, don’t feel obliged to shoot opinions that are likely to align with
Why Our Brain Loves Lists, Maria Konnikova explains why these for some ridiculously high number. our audience. (But we’ll also check
types of articles are so effective at drawing us in. They “create an BuzzSumo analyzed more than 50,000 Amazon ratings and such to make sure
easy reading experience, in which the mental heavy lifting of list articles and concluded that “for B2B we have a decent case.)
conceptualization, categorization and analysis is completed well content, shorter lists perform better
3 Add Your Own Twist: Listicles
in advance of actual consumption,” Konnikova writes. than longer.”
are everywhere. How can you make
She adds that once we’ve clicked through, “Lists tap into
2 Stay in Your Lane: Time and yours stand out? Think about ways you
our preferred way of receiving and organizing information at a
resources can be major barriers when can spice up and differentiate your
subconscious level; from an information-processing standpoint,
it comes to creating unique list content concepts. Knowing that audiences
they often hit our attentional sweet spot.”
based on original research. In this feed off the element of surprise, a
Think about every best practice for creating resonant and
regard, it might help to stick with counterintuitive angle might be just
engaging content: it should be focused, scannable, relatable,
topics you know best. Rely on your the ticket.
and compelling. Listicles give us an opportunity to check each
internal expertise when building We attempted this on our blog
of those boxes. So why are they in the doghouse?
these lists as much as possible, recently. When Valentine’s Day rolled
while adding in enough outside around, we initially planned a “What
The Problem with Listicles Today
context for credibility. marketers love about their jobs”
The case against listicles is really a case against content creators:
One series of posts that has article. But then we thought, that kind
as the magnetic aura of lists became apparent to everyone in the
performed really well on our blog is of thing has already been done before.
content biz, quantity rose and quality sank.
top books for marketers. We don’t So instead, we assembled a list of GIFs
Too often, the ideation and execution of a listicle goes like
need to run around researching these that reflect the most heartbreaking
this: “Let’s do one on [Topic X], which we know our audience
collections online too much. That’s parts of the profession.
cares about. Just go cobble together some info from other lists
out there and rearrange it.”

Sophisticated Marketer 75
WA NT Y OUR
A UD I E NC E TO
C H O O SE YOU ?
C HO O S E U S.
We deliver content with intent. It builds
relationships and moves audiences through
the funnel. That’s why the world’s leading
financial services brands have been choosing
to work with us for over 20 years.

To find out more, call us for a free

content consultation.

N O R T H A M E R IC A
Shelly Danse
shelly@editionsfinancial.com
(+1) 646 696 0690

U K / E U R O P E / A PA C / M E N A
Tony Dickson
tony@editionsfinancial.com
(+44) 20 3911 7530

editionsfinancial.com Insight. Strategy. Delivery. Analysis.

 THE DEBRIEF

What’s
in your
bag? MACBOOK PRO
HEALING CRYSTALS
With 100s of browser
As an award-winning content tabs open and an Both our bodies and crystals
marketer for travel brands, Storified embarrassingly have energetic vibrations.
founder David Beebe knows messy desktop. I always travel with these
the value of staying fresh and crystals for stress relief,
safety, and focus.
creative on the move.

LACIE
HARD DRIVE
For all the
videos and RAV CHARGER
PASSION PLANNER photos I create It’s big, powerful, and
A journal, sketchbook, on the road. keeps multiple
gratitude log and to-do list devices charged
collection, all in one notebook. while I’m travelling.

STARBUCKS MINTS
LIP MEDEX APPLE EARPODS
A must for after coffee,
a mid day boost, or The best there is. Essential for calls,
freshening up after Travel dehydrates skin music, audio podcasts,
long flights. so I always have it handy. and the gym. Apple
Fanboy all the way.

TRAVEL TEA MUG

Insulated for keeping BOOK
drinks hot or cold, I read one new
and great for staying business book
hydrated. every month.
I’m a big believer
that we never
stop learning and
THAYERS FACIAL MIST reading more leads
Hands down the best way to to new thoughts
freshen up and hydrate your and inspiration.
face while traveling, at the
office, or even at home.

Sophisticated Marketer 77
DAVID ATTENBOROUGH
He’s Britain’s most recognizable and
More than just a revered national figure, second only to
famous wildlife the Queen in his symbolic value for the
presenter, Sir David country. For international TV audiences,
Attenborough has he’s the face and voice of the highest-
quality natural history filmmaking on
helped to define
earth, perhaps most famous for his Blue
TV as a channel Planet films that have focused global
for intellectual attention on the issue of plastic waste. He’s
storytelling and arguably the greatest storyteller working
thought leadership. in the media today—and yet he never
intended to be the one telling the stories.
Appearing on camera wasn’t one of Sir
David Attenborough’s career priorities when,
W0RDS BY
two years after leaving national service in the
GRACE MACDONALD
Royal Navy, he applied for a job as a radio
producer for the BBC. What mattered to him
then, and still does today, is a fascination
with the world and a passionate belief that
others can and should share that fascination.
He’s a thought-leader on a mission.
That mission has involved embracing
every new storytelling platform as it’s
emerged, not as the presenter most
people know him as, but as a producer,
a writer, an inventor of hugely ambitious
programming concepts. This has been
combined with an unparalleled respect for
mass-reach audiences. Sir David has never
‘dumbed-down’ content or assumed that
subject matter is too intellectual for the
public as a whole to be interested in it.
78 Sophisticated Marketer
He’s always seen it as a creative challenge
to deliver that content in the most
engaging way possible. In the process,
he’s elevated the global conversation.
He didn’t start out making wildlife
programs with huge budgets, designing the
three-part Animal Patterns series around
the animals available to film in London
Zoo. When the curator that he’d asked to
present a 1954 series on animal collecting
expeditions fell ill, he stepped up to fill the
gap, overcoming BBC bosses’ concerns
that his teeth were too big to appear on
camera. Over the next half century, the
natural history series that Sir David wrote
and presented would explore every facet
of life on earth: compelling stories of
evolution and the struggle to survive that
turned the natural world into part of the
national conversation.
Less well-known but no less important
is the way that Sir David has shaped the
development of TV as a medium. As
controller of BBC Two, he commissioned
shows from Monty Python’s Flying Circus
to the 13-part series Civilization, which
popularized the history of Art. It was
in this role that he embedded the idea
of television not just as a platform for
entertainment, but as a channel for ideas.
And he remains the embodiment of that
concept today.
There is an average of
6.8 people involved in any sale.*
It pays to find out who they are.
* LinkedIn State of Sales Report 2018

Get closer to the right people.

sales.linkedin.com