It is important to set up basics before launching any marketing campaign. When it comes to LinkedIn it is no different, irrespective if you are a B2B or B2C brand, you must know what you are promoting, to who, why and how.

At BrandRefer we have supported and executed countless LinkedIn marketing campaigns for leading B2B brands, therefore we wanted to share our go-to checklist of questions when planning your own first LinkedIn influencer marketing campaign.

​

Also interesting: 6 Reasons why to run a LinkedIn B2B influencer campaign

​

There are many important aspects that impact campaign performance and outcome. Let’s go through them one by one:

​

1. What is my target audience and what are its key characteristics?

 

One of the most important questions is to know who you are planning to talk to. Who is your target audience, what are they looking for, what is on top of their minds? It is good if you already know their preferred platforms for gathering the latest product and solution information. On which platforms they spend the most time on and are most engaged. Knowing who is your target audience helps to narrow and improve the focus on your LinkedIn marketing campaign.

​

2. What markets I am targeting?

 

For any campaign, it is important to know the geographical location of the target audience. There are many reasons why, for example, talking to the audience you can actually offer your services. Not to mention, picking the most appropriate time of the campaign activation and even selecting the day can vary based on the market you target.

​

3. What is the goal of my LinkedIn marketing campaign?

 

It is pointless to start a marketing campaign if you don’t know what you are trying to achieve with it. Define what is the expected outcome in order to plan the right approach and methods to achieve that. Are you expecting new signups and new demo requests? Then you might consider a lead generation campaign. Or perhaps, your primary goal is to increase marketing content engagement and drive higher traffic from LinkedIn to your website? Then shift towards brand awareness campaign.

​

4. What exactly do I want to promote?

 

Be clear of what you are promoting so your audience also knows it straight away. For example, is it a brand new product line, new feature, online event? Perhaps you want to emphasize the diverse culture of your team, the latest company’s milestone, or a brand new website? Try to keep your message focused on 1 main thing you are promoting. Let that topic be the main theme of the campaign, instead of trying to fit all your gems into one box.

​

5. What content should I use for my campaign?

 

Would your audience like to do detailed research and immerse into a full-length report? Are your readers looking to grasp information quickly and are more likely to engage with an infographic? Whatever type of content you pick when it is posted on LinkedIn the post has to communicate a message very clearly. A good exercise is to think, what people are typically seeing on their LinkedIn feeds every day, and how your campaign could stand out?

​

6. Who is the ideal influencer who has the right network for my campaign?

 

It all goes back to knowing your target audience and market. When you know those 2 elements it is way easier to spot a perfect influencer. First of all, you want to see your target audience within their direct network. In most cases, influencer’s location will already determine where the majority of their network is based. What’s left to do is to check the influencer’s style of communication with their audience and look closer at the engagement of their posts to see who are the typical personas they engage with.

​

7. How can I encourage other LinkedIn members to join the conversation?

 

It is also important to think about ways to encourage conversation within each post influencers will make. Perhaps ask an influencer to introduce your campaign with an interesting statement and ask their followers to share thoughts. You can also consider tagging people when it is appropriate. Not to mention, that your team could also kick-off the conversation.

​

8. How can I track the effectiveness of the campaign?

 

It all comes down to being able to analyze and tell if the campaign was a success. Even better if you can pin down the reasons behind the success or failure. It is definitely worth setting up a UTM link to see the exact engagement, traffic and conversions from the campaign. Typically we engage with influencers to gather data from their side as well, looking directly at the post-engagement behind the likes, comments and shares. It also helps if you have a previous campaign that you could compare to as a benchmark.

​

9. How can my team support the LinkedIn marketing campaign?

 

When your LinkedIn influencer campaign is launched it is important to engage your own community as well to support the campaign. For example, let your team know that such a campaign is going live and encourage them to support it as well. They can like it, contribute to the conversation and leave comments, as well as re-share the post with their own network of followers.

​

10. How can I reuse my campaign’s results in any other way?

 

Very often influencer marketing campaigns create new content by default. You have a new LinkedIn post to share on your company LinkedIn feed. Perhaps you have some fantastic endorsements you can reuse on your website or LinkedIn company page. Look closer at the comments, as often valuable feedback is hidden between lines and perhaps some new ideas for the next campaign.

​

Continue reading: Key questions to ask before investing in your first Influencer Marketing campaign

​

_ _ _

This article was prepared by BrandRefer, your trusted full service influencer marketing agency for LinkedIn.