As the only purely professional social media platform, LinkedIn is a great place for business-to-business companies, like building materials suppliers, to market and source leads. With over 810 million members there are plenty of opportunities to reach quality potential customers through a variety of media and post types. Company pages, status posts, and published articles allow brands to reach their market without any additional costs. If desired, paid advertisements can be used to boost posts and ensure that your audience sees your message.
If your building materials company isn’t using LinkedIn to market to potential customers, here are some reasons you should add it to your marketing plan.
Building relationships
LinkedIn users visit the platform to gain professional connections and advance their careers. The basis of its success lies in creating and growing relationships. Whether they are with individuals or companies, materials suppliers can find a variety of contacts on the platform. Prospective clients, such as architects, general contractors, and building owners, are easily found through the platform’s search function to make direct connections. In fact, as of late 2021, there were 65 million decision-makers on the platform. From there, it’s easy to reach out by asking them to connect or sending a message through InMail (LinkedIn’s internal messaging system). 73% of buyers said they were more likely to consider a brand if they receive a message through LinkedIn. Once a relationship is established, you can converse one-on-one through messages in the app, follow each other’s feeds for general updates, or move the conversation out of LinkedIn and into email, phone, or video.
Another great source of information is other building materials manufacturers and suppliers. You can exchange referrals or share information about best practices, industry news, and trends. You can also find out about new products or information about existing products by following the manufacturer’s feed.
Because it’s a business networking site, LinkedIn can also help with new employee recruitment. Each week 49 million users are actively looking for work on LinkedIn. Every minute, six people are hired from the platform. With statistics like this it’s easy to see why it is highly touted as a site for finding work. Companies can post job ads directly to the platform, allowing users to search for opportunities that meet their skills and experience.
Learn something new
With a variety of post types available on the platform, you’re bound to learn something new about your industry just by scrolling through your feed. LinkedIn allows you to post status updates, publish articles, and provide video content for your followers. Brands use it to educate their customers and publish industry trends.
By following your direct competitors, you can stay up to date with their messaging and advertising. Using this information, you can target your own marketing to address the same issues.
Listening to customers and potential customers allows you to learn what their pain points are and potentially offer new ways that your product can address those problems.
Some companies use the platform to educate their followers about industry trends. This can be done using status posts, webinars, videos, live feeds, or other media. Keeping up on industry trends let you know about things that may impact your business, such as cost increases or increased demand.
Be a resource
While listening can be a good way to attract customers, one of the best things you can do is create regular content. Companies that post weekly have increased engagement with their audience (up to 2x). Among marketers, 94% use it as their first channel to distribute content to their potential business customers. There are many ways that you dip your toe into the content pool, including comments, posts, and articles.
Commenting on posts from other companies or individuals helps show your expertise and assist potential customers. You should be polite and make sure that your comment contributes to the conversation. Don’t show off, be aggressive, or point out the poster’s shortcomings. Good comments include saying congratulations for an achievement or asking a question. Liking and/or sharing others’ posts is also a great way to engage with them.
Posting your own original content is the best way to increase your engagement on LinkedIn. Status posts, as they are called, are a way to share information or media with your followers and connections. They can be used to provide product information, event information, comment on an industry trend, or share information from another source. If your company has a blog, it’s a great place to share a link to the article to drive readership. Blogs and websites get 90% of their social media traffic from Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, with half the traffic coming from LinkedIn.
Finally, you can post articles directly to LinkedIn. These posts will show on your feed, as well as your profile page. Articles can be used to increase discussion on industry trends, provide thought leadership, or to discuss product alternatives or new releases. There is no limit to the length of the articles, and they will stay on your profile page, instead of getting buried in your feed.
An effective way to reach your audience
Business-to-business marketers who want to reach out for new leads use LinkedIn; 40% said it was the most effective channel for high quality leads. Whether you use it for active networking or providing information, suppliers should include this platform in their marketing plans. It allows you to reach the audience you’re looking for at little to no additional cost. The key to success is providing quality content and engaging with followers and connections.
