“Networking is more about farming than it is about hunting.”

Ivan Misner

With over 740 million users, LinkedIn is no longer just a networking site for decision-makers. It's a popular social media platform with high marketing potential. While many people still join LinkedIn to make professional connections, marketers can take full advantage of its paid ads and targeting capabilities.

Just like the rest of popular social media platforms, LinkedIn is regularly introducing new marketing tools. The latest LinkedIn marketing trends and techniques can help you improve your lead generation, brand awareness, conversion, and retention efforts.

Let's take a closer look at 6 useful LinkedIn marketing tips.

1. Focus on Remarketing

Only about 2% of potential customers convert after the first visit to your website. No matter how hard you work on generating leads, presenting high-quality content, employing lead magnets, and the like, all your efforts could be lost in vain.

Remarketing can help bring visitors back after they've left your website. LinkedIn remarketing targets these visitors when they log on to the platform. LinkedIn has tremendous targeting capabilities, allowing you to create custom audiences to target specific customers.

Last year, LinkedIn introduced new retargeting capabilities. You can now target the audience that:

● Watched 25, 50, 75, or 100% of your video ads.

● Opened or submitted a Lead Gen Form

The video retargeting option also extends to the LinkedIn Audience Network. The network allows you to show sponsored ads on LinkedIn's partner apps and platforms, thus widening your reach tremendously.

2. Grow Your Email List

If you've been on LinkedIn for some time, you can capitalize on your connections to grow your email list. You can send a message to each contact, asking them to join your mailing list.

Consider segmenting your contacts to personalize these messages as much as possible. You can go further to send personal messages to each member of your network.

To incentivize your contacts to share their email addresses, consider using lead magnets. Offer them something useful in return just as you do on your website.

Once you have an email list, you can improve your email marketing campaign and power your retention tactics.

3. Post More Actionable Content

Since more than 65% of LinkedIn users describe themselves as "news junkies," the audience is always ready to digest valuable content. When developing your content marketing strategy, make sure to make LinkedIn a part of it.

The LinkedIn Publishing Platform is specifically designed to help you publish articles for your audience. Take full advantage of its capabilities to market your products, educate your leads, and bring them to your website.

According to HubSpot, the best time to post on LinkedIn is Tuesday through Thursday between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. (for your audience's time zone). Ideally, you should publish a post two to five times a week in order to keep the audience engaged.

Pro tip: While you can repurpose some of the content you publish on your website for LinkedIn posts, make sure to adjust it thoroughly. Otherwise, it could be flagged as plagiarism by Google or LinkedIn algorithms.

4. Take Full Advantage of Groups

Joining various professional groups is an excellent way to interact with your target audience, gain valuable insights, and make connections.

LinkedIn allows you to be a member of 50 groups at one time. Depending on your time and budget, consider joining as many as you can.

Follow these rules for LinkedIn group marketing:

● Join groups as a person rather than a company.

● Be as active as possible without sounding salesy.

● Take the time to become a true member of the group by sharing thoughts, liking posts, answering questions, and leaving comments before you make a subtle promotional effort.

● Read group rules in order not to break them. Many of them specifically prohibit spam, links, and promotions.

● Focus more on providing value to group members than on promoting your products or services.

Pro tip: When you join a professional group, browse its members. Select those who may be interested in your offer and invite them to your own group.

While promoting your services in other groups is great for lead generation, creating your own is an excellent conversion and retention tactic.

5. Leverage InMail

If you aren't using InMail already, you should start thinking about it. This paid feature is a useful tool for making connections with your target audience. It allows you to craft a highly personalized message for each contact and achieve a high conversion rate.

Here are a few tips to consider:

● Invest sufficient thought into a catchy subject line.

● Keep the message short (the majority of these messages is read on mobile). The optimal size is between 200 and 400 characters.

● Write a personal greeting.

● Personalize the message for each recipient.

● Emphasize your connection to each contact.

● Read the member's profile before sending an InMail message. It can help you gain insight into what the person may expect from you.

Remember, you only get a limited number of InMail messages each month, so use them wisely.

6. Get Help from Your Employees

While LinkedIn is an excellent place for marketing efforts, it's still a useful networking tool. If you want to promote your brand the "LinkedIn way," do it by making connections. The key players of this marketing strategy are your employees.

Encourage them to put information about your company in their personal profiles and post useful educational content. You can also ask them to share company posts, news, updates, and more.

The Takeaway

LinkedIn is one of the top social media platforms that can drive your business forward. By exploiting all available marketing options, you can generate leads, raise brand awareness, increase engagement, and streamline retention.

Marketing on LinkedIn is one of the many strategies a business can implement as part of its marketing engine. If you'd like to learn more about LinkedIn marketing and other effective strategies to build your lead generation engine, grab a copy of our CEO Julie Guest's new book The Client Stampede.