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đ”đ»ââïž 05 audiences to influence on LinkedIn
The LinkedIn Ecosystem: 5 Audiences To Influence
Dear Trenchers,
If you're selling 5+ figure deals, you don't need tons of customers. Instead, you need the RIGHT customers with genuine need and interest for your product.
But how do you reach them? With ABM (account-based marketing), a strategic, targeted approach to:
Accelerate pipeline and increase win rates;
Target carefully curated accounts and buyers based on your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP);
Generate opportunities with a large number of your target accounts;
Maximize your reach and influence via four amplification audiences;
Prevent churn and expand your deals (171% higher ACV*).
But to generate all these results, you can't build large LinkedIn account lists solely on the basis of company size, geographic regions, or job titles.
In fact, spreading yourself too thin won't do you much good. Thatâs why in todayâs newsletter, I'll share with you the top 5 audiences you should seek to influence on LinkedIn.
1. Buyers from ICP Accounts
ABM consists of leveraging your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), a list of attributes that your BEST customers from a SPECIFIC market segment have in common.
Your ICP should consist of:
Account firmographics and detailed qualification criteria that help you identify, list, and target accounts that are a good fit and have a need for your product;
Account disqualification criteria that help you filter OUT accounts that are not a good fit;
The buying committee members and their characteristics: this helps you understand who and how to connect to, engage with, and educate.
Look, the more buyers you engage with and influence, the more:
Insights you can get into the priorities, initiatives, and purchase criteria;
Opportunities youâll create and close;
Youâll understand whatâs really going on with your deal;
Account insights youâll have (based on customer research); including the buying triggers, needs, goals and challenges, evaluation criteria, questions and objections, competitive alternatives, the reasons why they choose you, and the value you create for them.
With detailed ICP characteristics and criteria, you will be able to build a highly targeted account and buyer list.
To stack the odds even more in your favor, use engagement and intent data to focus on the accounts who already know, like, and trust you and are showing an interest in your solution.
2. Engagers
âAbout two-thirds of our inbound pipeline mentioned they have heard about us from LinkedIn. Almost all Tier-1 clients were engaged with our LinkedIn content.â
See, engagers are the second key audience you want to build relationships and engage with.
Andrei went on to add: âMost of them say they saw our content in the newsfeed because somebody from their network engaged with it.â
Now, I guess youâre wondering what we mean by âengagersâ.
Easy Peasy.
Well, engagers are people from the industry whoâre active on LinkedIn, connected to your buyers, and engage with your contentâbut are not likely to become your customers. Buyers could discover your content thanks to a like or a comment by an engager theyâre connected to.
Quick example right here đ
Engagers are also important if you or your teammates have just started posting on LinkedIn. They will help with the initial engagement that LinkedInâs algorithm likes to see before showing your post to many other people.
In other words, one of the fastest ways to grow engagement on your posts (other than having relevant content), is to connect to, comment, and build relationships with engagers and industry influencers.
With no transition, this brings us to the next point.
3. Industry Influencers
The fastest way to build an audience and credibility is to become associated with industry influencers. Andrei and Vlad from Fullfunnel.io are impeccable references when it comes to co-creating content (live podcast, summit) with industry influencers.
This strategy has literally helped them reach thousands of buyers during their first year. Best of all, they used it to land 34 qualified opportunities for one of their customers from a single event.
Dear Trencher, industry influencers are the third key audience you want to build trust and engage with. Theyâre vocal people from the industry that your buyers follow and trust.
They can be:
Local or global thought leaders, authors, or speakers in your space;
Respected and outspoken industry leaders who get interviewed, or invited to speak at industry events;
Creators, people from the industry with a large social following (including your target buyers), actively engaging with and consuming their content
The relevance of industry influencers is more important than the size of their audience.
For example, if youâre selling a solution to manage risks of currency fluctuations to manufacturing CFOs, a respected foreign currency hedging consultant known in Illinois could be a very relevant local industry influencer.
4. Partner Brands
Co-marketing with partner brands is another fast way to grow your audience. Both partners get access to the other partnerâs audience.
For example, when FullFunnel.io started, we quickly grew our audience with partnership webinars. We ran a series of webinars with MarTech brands like Sendoso and Chili Piper, adding 5000+ buyers to our audience, and generating 4 new deals.
Thatâs exactly why partner brands are the fourth key audience you want to build and engage with. Partner brands are companies selling non-competitive products to your ICP.
5. Niche Media and Communities
âBeing invited to speak to dozens of events and podcasts, and being published on top websites helped grow the awareness and credibility of our brand.â
Todayâs B2B buyers are asking for recommendations in industry communities. Thatâs one of the reasons why niche media editors and community owners are the fifth key audience you want to build trust and engage with.
Examples include:
Podcast hosts
Conference and event organizers
Owners and highly engaged people in industry communities
Industry association leaders
Editors in industry news sites and magazines
The LinkedIn Profile Of A Trusted Advisor
Here are the two biggest mistakes people make on their LinkedIn profile.
Mistake #1: Lack of clear positioning to a narrow audience.
âYou cannot be everything to everyone. If you decide to go north, you cannot go south at the same time.â â Jeroen De Flander.
You want to get known by a specific audience (e.g. fintech SaaS) for helping them achieve a desirable result (e.g. reduce churn) better than others in the market (e.g. by 20%).
See, for example, how Andreiâs profile is narrowly positioned both in terms of audience (B2B tech companies with high ACV and long sales cycle) and expertise (ABM & full-funnel marketing).
Mistake #2: Treating your LinkedIn profile as a resume, instead of a landing page.
Your LinkedIn profile is your key piece of LinkedIn real estate.
When you become active on Linkedin, thousands of people will see your profile. People will look at your profile to decide if they want to accept your connection request, follow you â or consider working with you.
Thatâs why you need to treat your profile as a high-converting landing page. It should convey your positioning and value proposition, share social proof, demonstrate what you can accomplish for your prospects, and call them to action.
Thatâs not all.
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See you in Trenches đ
Adechina D. ODJO