LinkedIn is on a mission to prove that B2B marketing is just as important – and can be just as sexy – as B2C marketing.
Professional networking platform LinkedIn today launched a new campaign touting its B2B marketing tools.
The brand has also launched a range of products and tools designed to help B2B marketers and sales professionals. These include new certifications that hone users’ marketing skills on LinkedIn as well as new features within the company’s Sales Navigator sales platform that make it easier for users to manage deals and update deals. account information.
This new effort comes at a critical time for B2B marketing and sales teams. “B2B marketers operate differently, but they work in a world that was built for B2C,” said Jim Habig, vice president of marketing at LinkedIn.
In fact, according to recent data from LinkedIn, nearly 90% of marketers agree that brand building is as important for B2B brands as it is for B2C brands when it comes to ensuring long-term growth. . “It was about time they had a set of marketing tools designed to their specifications,” says Habig. That’s why LinkedIn is increasingly focused on creating tools that, according to Habig, “make it easier for B2B marketers to manage a relationship-rich and inherently complex buyer journey, while empowering them to unleash their creativity to produce the most inspired campaigns”.
This is a change that has been seen in marketing and advertising in recent months; an increasing number of B2B players spend their marketing budget like B2C players. Squarespace, ClickUp, Intuit and Salesforce made waves at Super Bowl LVI in February when they bought ads that would sell for $6 million and more. In general, B2B brands are launching more big-budget spots on mainstream channels and forgoing traditional B2B rigidity in favor of more accessible and often comedic messaging – something that has always been the domain of B2C brands.
“Historically, B2B marketing has been rational, serious and even unemotional. In other words, business has been all business,” says Kevin Frank, Executive Creative Director at LinkedIn. “But businessmen are people. And it’s time people see B2B for all it can be: creative, bold, imaginative and memorable. B2B brands power much of the global economy, and creativity is an economic multiplier.
Frank makes a crucial point here: creativity – and the emotional implications it brings – is a growing concern for B2B brands, the latest data from LinkedIn indicates that more than two-thirds (69%) of B2B marketers consider B2B purchasing decisions as being driven by emotion. than B2C decisions, 39% of these marketers say they are increasingly focusing on the emotion and humor that land traditional B2C campaigns.
“B2B marketers are increasingly leaning into empathy and emotion,” Frank says. “There will always be a place for rational messaging, but storytelling that elicits an emotional response is what can really make B2B campaigns stand out.”
With its new B2B marketing campaign, LinkedIn wants to strengthen the engagement of its community of users and creators. The brand encourages users to share B2B campaigns that resonate with them alongside the #B2Brilliant hashtag and suggests marketers follow the hashtag to “see how LinkedIn helps brands present themselves and show their unique value to customers.” , according to Habig.