LinkedIn is crowded, and playing it safe and putting out boring content will not help your brand stand out and win opportunities on LinkedIn. What will work? I asked expert guest and LinkedIn insider - Robin O Connell to share what's working and what isn't for brands as we head into 2025.
Today's episode is sponsored by Metricool. Make sure to register for a FREE Metricool account today. Use Code MICHELLE30 to try any Premium Plan FREE for 30 days. https://i.mtr.cool/NEDXVZ
Key moments in this episode:
00:00 LinkedIn Marketing Challenges for 2025
00:48 LinkedIn Insider: Robin O Connell
02:08 The Growing LinkedIn Demographic
07:13 Breaking Free from Boring: Creative Strategies for B2B Brands
13:35 Balancing Brand Consistency and Creativity
20:06 The Power of Branding and Creativity
20:57 Sales and Marketing on LinkedIn
21:51 The Risks of Focusing Solely on Lead Generation
22:37 Balancing Short-Term and Long-Term Marketing Strategies
26:51 Practical Tips for Differentiating Your Brand
29:38 Injecting Creativity and Emotion into B2B Content
33:28 Final Thoughts and Actionable Tips
Connect with Robin O Connell LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/robinoconnellin/
ABOUT MICHELLE J RAYMOND
Michelle J Raymond is an international LinkedIn™️ B2B Growth Coach. To continue the conversation, connect with Michelle on LinkedIn™️ and let her know you are part of the community of podcast listeners.
Connect with Michelle J Raymond on LinkedIn™️ - https://www.linkedin.com/in/michellejraymond/
B2B Growth Co offers LinkedIn™️ Training for teams to build personal and business brands and a LinkedIn™️ Profile Recharge service for Founders/CEOs.
Book a free intro call to learn more - https://calendly.com/michelle-j-raymond/book-an-intro-call-15mins
Social Media for B2B Growth Podcast is a fully accessible podcast. Audio, Video, Transcript and guest details are available on our podcast website - https://socialmediaforb2bgrowthpodcast.com/
Subscribe to our YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/@MichelleJRaymond
#LinkedIn #ContentMarketing #LinkedInForBusiness
00:00:00
Michelle J Raymond: If your reach and engagement are tanking as we come into the
00:00:03
end of the year, I've got some bad news.
00:00:05
LinkedIn is crowded and growing in popularity.
00:00:08
So going into 2025, this is going to get even worse.
00:00:14
But how good would it be if we got a LinkedIn insider to share their tips
00:00:18
on how brands can win on LinkedIn?
00:00:20
Well, guess what listeners, that is exactly what we have in today's episode.
00:00:25
So if you are planning your LinkedIn marketing for 2025, you do not want to miss this.
00:00:48
G'day everyone.
00:00:48
It is coach Michelle J Raymond back to continue with our series of how
00:00:53
can marketers get planning for 2025.
00:00:57
And when I was thinking about what would make a great episode, I was thinking, what does
00:01:02
LinkedIn think we should be doing in 2025?
00:01:04
And lucky for me, one of my connections, Robin O Connell, who's based here and works for LinkedIn,
00:01:10
in Australia, he's been there for nearly 10 years, has agreed to come on and share some insights.
00:01:15
So Robin, I really appreciate you joining me.
00:01:19
Robin O Connell: Of course.
00:01:20
Happy to be here.
00:01:21
Michelle J Raymond: Now, one of the things that I'm going to go into first, which I
00:01:25
think is causing a bit of grief for people out there is the fact that we've gone over
00:01:29
a billion members, we're coming up to 70 million company pages, the platform is pretty
00:01:36
crowded and trying to get attention seems to be harder and harder as the year goes on.
00:01:41
And I'm thinking it's going to be that way in 2025.
00:01:45
What do you think we can expect going into the new year?
00:01:49
Robin O Connell: Yeah, for sure.
00:01:50
And you're right.
00:01:51
It definitely feels like LinkedIn is getting busier and busier.
00:01:55
So more than a billion members now on the platform, which is crazy to think about when
00:02:00
I started in LinkedIn in Dublin, I think we had just about 200 million members, so there's
00:02:05
been crazy growth in the past 10 years or so.
00:02:08
And I think, one of the surprises might be, with over a billion members now that LinkedIn audience
00:02:14
is pretty different than what it used to be.
00:02:16
So maybe a question for you, Michelle is any idea what the fastest growing part
00:02:21
of the LinkedIn audience is globally?
00:02:23
What do you think that might be?
00:02:24
Michelle J Raymond: Before I answer.
00:02:26
Here's a quick word about our sponsors Metricool.
00:04:20
I'm going to guess it's Gen Z.
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Robin O Connell: Oh, you nailed it.
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Michelle J Raymond: And this is only because I do some work with a client where we've been
00:04:28
talking about the changing workforce and given LinkedIn is the professional platform I was
00:04:34
thinking this has got to be aligned with that.
00:04:37
And sometimes I'm not going to lie.
00:04:38
I feel a bit old on the platform.
00:04:40
I feel like there's so many new younger generations coming through.
00:04:43
So tell me, how does that impact the platform?
00:04:46
Robin O Connell: Yeah you've ruined my big surprise.
00:04:47
You got it in one, but you're exactly right.
00:04:49
It is, Gen Z is that fastest growing cohort.
00:04:52
And that in itself brings a whole new layer to the platform.
00:04:57
And so there are really interesting trends associated.
00:05:00
With that, such as growth in video as a huge one you've seen, the Linkedin investment in
00:05:05
vertical video, and some of you might have spotted that video tab now on the mobile that's
00:05:10
ramped to a certain amount of our members.
00:05:13
That is because of the the growth and the popularity of that content.
00:05:17
So video is a cornerstone of the LinkedIn strategy going forward.
00:05:21
And there's going to be more and more investment there.
00:05:23
The breadth of that audience is really interesting.
00:05:25
Another thing I found out recently when doing a little bit of research for a government
00:05:29
clients was that if you look at nurses and healthcare professionals on the platform in
00:05:34
Australia there's now more than a million nurses and healthcare professionals on LinkedIn,
00:05:39
which is mind blowing to think about, right?
00:05:41
Because we tend to think of LinkedIn as this suit and tie network for professionals with desk
00:05:46
jobs, but it really has grown way beyond that.
00:05:50
You're right.
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I think in saying, with that growth in audience comes a growth in competition, and there's
00:05:55
more than 2 million advertisers on the platform trying to reach essentially the same audience.
00:05:59
And so you have a lot of people that are trying to break through with a very valuable audience.
00:06:05
And I think with that increase in competition, yes, it can be more difficult to reach an
00:06:11
audience, but the good news, I think for anyone listening is that there's still
00:06:14
a huge amount of white space, because so many brands do the same thing on LinkedIn.
00:06:20
They play it safe, right?
00:06:22
And I think as a marketer, as a business owner, as a brand, when you're thinking about reaching
00:06:27
the professional audience on LinkedIn, you think, okay how can I adapt my message and how
00:06:32
should I sound and look and feel on LinkedIn?
00:06:35
And you start to adopt a more professional tone.
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And then suddenly everyone starts to sound like each other.
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When you're thinking of, 2025 and what to expect, yes, a bigger audience, yes, more
00:06:47
brands competing, but also huge white space and opportunity to stand out on the platform.
00:06:54
Michelle J Raymond: I really get a bit concerned when some of my clients that I start working
00:06:58
with say we've done a lot of competitor research and then by accident, I don't think that
00:07:02
they do it intentionally, but what they do is they end up almost copying their competitors
00:07:08
because they think they've been doing it.
00:07:09
It's working for them and it absolutely crushes their performance.
00:07:13
And today's episode is all about how do we break free from boring and how
00:07:17
can B2B brands really win on LinkedIn?
00:07:21
I want to help as many people as we can, because as you said, the more that we end up just looking
00:07:28
and sounding like everyone else, we're just blending into the crowd, which is the complete and
00:07:32
utter opposite to what we want, but this can be easily fixed and we're going to talk about that.
00:07:37
So stick around to the end because we've got lots of solutions to the
00:07:41
most common problems coming up.
00:07:42
One of the problems that I think happens is a lot of the B2B brands that have
00:07:47
come across are really playing things safe with their content, like so safe.
00:07:53
I'm going to throw it out there and you had this in an article that sparked us having this
00:07:57
conversation is that it is so dull that it puts you to sleep and pretty much, yes, they're safe.
00:08:05
No one's interested.
00:08:07
They certainly don't get any engagement, but how do we get brands beyond safe?
00:08:12
What can we do here?
00:08:14
Robin O Connell: Yeah it's such a great question.
00:08:15
And I think it should be at the forefront of any marketer or business owners mind
00:08:21
coming into 2025 is how do you stick out?
00:08:24
And there is a, definitely a cost associated to it.
00:08:27
And so System One who are a fantastic ad research company who published some amazing
00:08:33
research papers they have published a white paper called the extraordinary cost of dull.
00:08:39
And I think it's such a clever framing for this actually thinking about.
00:08:43
What are the costs associated with being boring or with just not standing out?
00:08:48
And because you have to pay more in terms of paid media to reach enough people to
00:08:55
make an impact when your content isn't as good, there's a pretty scary cost attached
00:09:00
to creating dull or uninteresting content.
00:09:03
And as part of that research that they did, they actually looked at, how many
00:09:06
brands were sticking out or how many brands were creating Ads and content that was
00:09:13
likely to create large business effects.
00:09:16
And the scary thing here is that they found that about 75 percent of B2B ads were unlikely
00:09:21
to drive, positive long term business outcomes.
00:09:25
But if you really think about That's three in every four B2B ads that are
00:09:30
created are going to have no impact.
00:09:32
Yeah.
00:09:33
And that's, it's really scary.
00:09:35
It is a scary thing.
00:09:36
And I think it's really important to think about why that is and then how
00:09:39
we can start to, to potentially fix it.
00:09:41
And if you think about the why, like it's cause it's the logical approach,
00:09:45
like if we're selling finance solutions or consulting services or maybe trucking
00:09:51
solutions, it's a serious business, right?
00:09:54
So we have to be seen as thought leaders and we should publish research and we'll
00:09:59
count how many people download our reports and we'll pass those people on through the
00:10:02
funnel to salespeople who will convert them.
00:10:05
But there's a big problem, I think, with that approach.
00:10:08
Number one is that you start to look and sound like everyone else, right?
00:10:12
Because you are taking yourself very seriously.
00:10:15
You're very focused on your product or solution.
00:10:18
You're very focused on the logical, rational B2B buying decision.
00:10:22
All B2B buyers are people.
00:10:24
They're emotional and they take shortcuts.
00:10:27
And one of the biggest shortcuts they're going to take is in order to be, you know, to take on
00:10:32
less risk, they'll go for brands that are known.
00:10:35
And they will try and choose brands that they perceive as big, safe brands.
00:10:41
And if we're not putting ourself into that space, if we're not becoming known, and we're
00:10:45
not making our brand as big as possible, we're just not likely to be successful.
00:10:50
And that is really important.
00:10:53
Just thinking about the fact that the brand that gets remembered is the brand that gets bought and
00:10:59
thinking about instead of trying to get people to download our white papers and take action, think
00:11:04
about how can we drive memories of our brand?
00:11:07
How can we grow our brand by reaching more people and sticking out to them?
00:11:13
And I think that is the golden rule.
00:11:15
When we think about strategy for B2B marketing is really thinking about building lasting memories.
00:11:21
So we're top of mind when people are purchasing.
00:11:24
Michelle J Raymond: Can we make t shirts that say the brand that gets
00:11:27
remembered is the brand that gets bought?
00:11:29
I think everyone should have one.
00:11:31
If you haven't trademarked that already, I'm going to steal it because that is absolutely it.
00:11:36
And it comes back to, again, not blending into the background of, with all your
00:11:40
competition, like what is the thing that distinguishes you that makes you stand out.
00:11:45
I've read a lot of the research that the B2B Institute and other LinkedIn partners
00:11:50
have put out and being able to recall.
00:11:53
Is so important because we are getting bombarded with information and it's easy
00:11:57
just to say, Oh, it's just LinkedIn.
00:11:59
How much information are people really getting bombarded with, but it's not just on LinkedIn.
00:12:04
It's all day, every day, email, inboxes, news, ads, radio, whatever
00:12:09
people are watching or listening to.
00:12:11
We're competing with that at the end of the day, not just what's happening in
00:12:15
this little tiny slice of somebody's life.
00:12:17
So I love that idea.
00:12:19
And I think I'm going to put it on a t shirt just because I want people to remember that there is so
00:12:25
much of a reward for taking a different approach.
00:12:29
Like you said and I'm still back at honest to God, 75 percent of those ads,
00:12:37
your money's just going down the drain.
00:12:39
And I know that nobody sets out to do that intentionally.
00:12:42
Like I know that people are diligently trying to do things and I was having a look for a client
00:12:47
the other day and I went through the ads library that you can look at on LinkedIn to see what is it
00:12:52
that people are putting out there inspired by one of your posts around B2B brands getting creative.
00:12:58
And honestly, I'm surprised that stats not a little bit higher because I'm going to say it's
00:13:05
pretty much everything was same, but different.
00:13:07
Please sign up here, download our stuff.
00:13:10
And everything just looked like a template.
00:13:13
Which, there's pros and cons for everything, but I think templates are you know, definitely
00:13:18
killing content, whether it's paid or organic and how can we work around that?
00:13:23
I have empathy for people that work in businesses and especially the bigger, the
00:13:27
corporate, it seems to be the more rules and more layers that there can often be.
00:13:31
So it might start with branding guidelines, and then we work our way through.
00:13:35
How do you think brands can find that balance between building a consistent
00:13:39
brand in line with those brand guidelines and really that creative storytelling?
00:13:45
I genuinely think they're stuck in a tug of war and I think we need to address this
00:13:50
before we can move on to some other ideas.
00:13:53
Robin O Connell: Yeah hundred percent.
00:13:54
And I think it's such an important question.
00:13:57
On this t shirt business that we're starting with the brand that gets remembered is the brand
00:14:00
that gets bought, as much as I would love to claim that phrase, it definitely isn't mine.
00:14:04
I've heard her from the B2B Institute, the amazing think tank here at LinkedIn,
00:14:08
and I'm sure it came from someone else.
00:14:10
So I'll put that caveat in there.
00:14:11
I love the phrase haven't coined it..
00:14:13
But we'll gladly profit off the t shirts uh, in terms of this question.
00:14:17
Michelle, around, you know, uh, like the template versus kind of the license to be creative.
00:14:22
I think it is genuinely the million dollar question.
00:14:25
Probably the multimillion dollar question is how do we balance that?
00:14:29
And it's two really important opposing sides here, right?
00:14:32
Because on one end you have the consultants and the experts and the marketers who
00:14:37
will point at stats and it's something crazy 70 or 80 percent of ads don't get
00:14:44
recognised from being from the correct brand.
00:14:47
That is a major issue.
00:14:49
And let me tell you, honestly, if you create a perfect piece of content, perfectly targeted,
00:14:54
tells an amazing story, and it's not remembered about being from you or being from your company
00:15:01
or your brand then it's been a pointless exercise.
00:15:04
So it is so important, that you get that brand recognition.
00:15:08
Otherwise you're just advertising for your competitors, which is,
00:15:11
the cardinal sin in marketing.
00:15:13
So it's really important to, to have the brand fluency and the brand recognition.
00:15:18
I once asked my partner what her favourite ad was and she described to me in great
00:15:23
detail, this brilliant ad for beer that I posted about on LinkedIn yesterday, right?
00:15:28
And it had this song that she was able to sing to me about it being a big ad
00:15:33
with this epic music and this epic video.
00:15:37
And she said it was her favourite ad.
00:15:38
And I asked her what brand created the ad.
00:15:40
And she said, she had no idea it was an Australian beer ad.
00:15:44
And so even the greatest ads, the best ads struggle with this, right?
00:15:48
They create amazing beer ads, but do they do enough?
00:15:52
To be remembered as the brand that created it or the brand that kind of got this message across.
00:15:57
So it is really important.
00:15:59
And then on the other side of this debate and the other side of the coin here is around creativity.
00:16:05
And if you talk to creatives, the running joke will be you gather a bunch of people in a room
00:16:10
and you show them a piece of content and the first thing they'll say is make the logo bigger.
00:16:15
It's like the classic piece of feedback that a creative gets is just make the brand bigger,
00:16:19
make the logo bigger, put in a jingle and they think it gets in the way of creativity.
00:16:23
And so these are the two sides of the debate, right?
00:16:26
There's the need for recognition, and then there's the license to be creative.
00:16:30
And the balancing act between those two is absolutely critical.
00:16:35
And so the question is, what is the balance?
00:16:38
And I think there's no perfect formula here, but at the end of the day,
00:16:43
there has to be guidelines, right?
00:16:45
If you're a tiny brand, if you're a one man band, if you're a 50 person company, or if
00:16:50
you're a multi billion dollar company, you need to have a list of your brand assets, right?
00:16:56
Your brand assets that get you recognised.
00:16:59
You need to make a top three and you need to invest in those over and over
00:17:03
again, it can be your logo, your tagline, your colours, maybe your founder, right?
00:17:09
Maybe the person behind the brand, but they need to be featured consistently.
00:17:14
But you need to do that in as creative a way as possible and to borrow another
00:17:19
term from a B2B Institute research.
00:17:23
We often talk about story arcs.
00:17:25
Next time you think about branding, especially in a video, think about branding ercs, right?
00:17:30
E R C.
00:17:31
Because you want to get your brand in early.
00:17:33
It's really important regularly, so not just once.
00:17:36
You have to do it throughout the content and then creatively, how do
00:17:40
you creatively get your asset in there?
00:17:43
And that's a really important question.
00:17:45
And I think there's a few brands that are doing this in a really interesting
00:17:48
way and when I came across this morning.
00:17:50
I'm a big fan of MailChimp and what MailChimp do on LinkedIn.
00:17:55
So go check out their company page, check out some of their content.
00:17:59
But what they're starting to do is they're trying to use MailChimp as a verb.
00:18:03
They're creating pieces of content where marketers MailChimp the solution, or they
00:18:08
MailChimp their marketing efforts to make it more simple, to make it more effective.
00:18:12
So Uber or Google, right?
00:18:14
We use those as verbs all the time.
00:18:15
MailChimp are trying to get MailChimp recognised as a verb.
00:18:19
So you can MailChimp something.
00:18:21
And that for me is a great way of using a brand asset, right?
00:18:25
Using the brand name really creatively.
00:18:27
And I think that is the solution between creativity and template is we
00:18:32
need to have our list of brand assets.
00:18:34
We need to use them all of the time, but we have to allow license for creativity and we
00:18:40
should be thinking about how do we creatively tell the story where we get the brand assets in
00:18:45
and we have the brand us at front and center, but not necessarily in a template way, not
00:18:50
in a way that it's the exact same every time.
00:18:52
So the brand asset is the same every time, the way you introduce it or use it may be different
00:18:57
and it's difficult, but if you can get that right.
00:19:00
That I think is the sweet spot.
00:19:02
Michelle J Raymond: I love it.
00:19:02
And if you're really new to this podcast and you haven't been listening for a while.
00:19:07
There was an episode that I did towards the end of last year with Professor Jenni Romaniuk who
00:19:12
has written a book and done a lot of research into distinctive brand assets, which is a must
00:19:18
read for any marketers, especially starting out in this space to really understand what makes
00:19:23
something distinct and also the importance like because these things are generating
00:19:29
a return and this is what I want people to understand is that it's not risk for risk sake.
00:19:35
It's not being creative for creative sake.
00:19:37
This is how we're growing your business.
00:19:39
This is how we're attracting the right types of customers and these little distinctive
00:19:45
assets, I remember she was saying to me.
00:19:47
This is why a lot of brands now that have mascots or some kind of character attached
00:19:52
to them, whether it's Salesforce or whether it, that Duolingo owl owns LinkedIn.
00:19:58
When the owl comments on a post comment is getting 400 likes, so for people
00:20:04
that say, Company pages don't work.
00:20:06
I'm like, yeah, I think they're just so boring.
00:20:08
Like it's the power of brand, which is what we're creating here to stand out and be memorable.
00:20:14
So absolutely love the ideas of having these little characters and mascots around
00:20:18
the place to really plant that seed.
00:20:21
I don't think you need to have a huge budget to be creative and think, how else can you do this?
00:20:26
And I use a simple example when I was speaking at Social Media Marketing World I
00:20:31
met a brand who comes from an industry where they make perfumes and, sell all the
00:20:37
ingredients that go into fragrances and things.
00:20:39
So manufacturing company, family owned business.
00:20:43
But what they created was a character sticker of the owner who has a peculiar
00:20:48
look about him that really stands out and they were handing out stickers.
00:20:52
So he became the character, and there's so many tools these days that
00:20:56
can help you with things like that.
00:20:57
I want to talk about something slightly different because I have a sales heart.
00:21:03
I spent 20 years in B2B sales.
00:21:05
So when it comes to marketing, that's something that I probably learned
00:21:09
more over the last four or five years.
00:21:12
And it's a really interesting thing to see how marketers go around
00:21:16
selling, especially on LinkedIn.
00:21:18
So I think with a lot of the clients that I speak to in the B2B marketing space is that they
00:21:24
see LinkedIn purely as a lead gen platform, i.
00:21:28
e.
00:21:28
you've got all the right buyers there, the decision makers, you have the amazing ability to
00:21:34
target these people and quite often the content that they're creating is just sign up, download,
00:21:41
go to our website, here's our white paper, anything to get that coveted little email address.
00:21:47
So you can go in, as you said, to the funnel and go down, that process.
00:21:51
But what are the risks if we're creating content just with lead gen in mind?
00:21:56
Because I feel like this is almost the cost of dull.
00:22:00
I think the cost of purely focusing on lead gen would be even higher.
00:22:05
Robin O Connell: Yeah, a hundred percent.
00:22:06
So yeah, you're absolutely right and it's a mistake that I see brands make kind of time
00:22:11
and time again but there's there's a lot of issues with just focusing on lead generation.
00:22:12
And I get why we do it it's because it's easy to quantify, right?
00:22:23
You can go back to you know the sales meeting, the board meeting whatever it is and say
00:22:23
my efforts resulted in X revenue, right?
00:22:26
Or I've created this amount of pipeline.
00:22:28
And so I'm not discounting that approach that is important.
00:22:31
And I would say that you need to keep doing that.
00:22:33
You need to keep having that mentality with your lead generation activities.
00:22:37
But if you only do lead generation and you don't focus on building memories of your
00:22:42
brand and optimising towards memory, there's a lot of different issues will start to pop
00:22:47
up and you might recognise some of these.
00:22:48
So the first is that.
00:22:50
Over time, your lead generation efforts are going to start to decline, right?
00:22:55
And that is because we're losing out on future customers when we're only focusing on
00:23:01
customers that are in the market right now.
00:23:03
So Professor John Dawes at the Ehrenberg Bass Institute has done incredible
00:23:08
research here around the 95 5 rule.
00:23:12
And that rule basically tells you that if you look at your audience, so your total
00:23:16
audience who can buy from you in a given quarter, only about 5 percent of that
00:23:21
audience will buy in the category, right?
00:23:24
From you and competitors, only 5 percent of your audience will buy in a quarter.
00:23:27
So 95 percent of your audience are out of market.
00:23:30
They're not going to buy today, tomorrow, or this quarter, but they are future customers.
00:23:37
They will buy from the category in the future, just not this quarter.
00:23:41
And what that means is that the 95 percent majority, they are not going to notice
00:23:49
the lead generation activities or pay attention to them or act on them because
00:23:54
they're not in market they don't care.
00:23:55
They don't care about your product specs.
00:23:57
They don't care about your webinar because they're not currently in market for that solution.
00:24:00
And you felt this yourself.
00:24:02
Okay.
00:24:02
If your washing machine breaks and you need to buy a new washing machine, You'll start
00:24:06
to see washing machine ads everywhere because you're in market and you're caring about that.
00:24:11
And then for the rest of the year, maybe the rest of your life depends when you buy your next
00:24:14
washing machine, but you're just not going to notice those ads because you're not in market.
00:24:18
And so it's two very different approaches, right?
00:24:21
So for lead generation, we focus on rational proof points.
00:24:25
My washing machine has the best features.
00:24:27
It's at the best price point, you can get a deal.
00:24:31
You can talk to a dealer today and you can buy it this quarter.
00:24:34
For those that aren't in market, when you're talking about building your brand and kind
00:24:38
of focusing on long term marketing solutions, you're not optimising towards action today you're
00:24:44
talking about a broad brand message told in a really creative way with a story behind it.
00:24:51
So that person remembers you next time they're in market, they're doing the research and
00:24:55
they're building a list of brands they want to buy from, you're going to be on that list.
00:24:59
So that's really important.
00:25:00
We don't want to alienate these future customers.
00:25:03
We want to warm them up.
00:25:04
So our lead generation activity is more effective next quarter and the quarter beyond.
00:25:09
And so that's the first thing is you'll lose out on future customers and you won't optimise
00:25:14
towards better lead generation over time.
00:25:17
If you just focus on customers today, the second issue is that we don't differentiate
00:25:22
and we've already covered this, right?
00:25:24
There are so many brands focused on trying to win that 5 percent today.
00:25:28
And if we only talk to the 5%, like every other brand is doing, it's really
00:25:32
crowded and it's really hard to stand out.
00:25:34
And so that is another big issue is that we can't really differentiate ourselves.
00:25:40
And then the third and the final issue there is that I think we stifle our own creativity
00:25:47
when we focus on the 5 percent in market constantly, because it's rational ,product
00:25:52
orientated proof points, talking to the customer about why they should take an action today.
00:25:57
And it's not thinking big about our, strategic storytelling around pain points
00:26:02
that a customer has and why we're the right brand to meet those pain points.
00:26:06
And so if you only focus on lead generation your results over time will start to decline.
00:26:12
And it's because number one, you're not focusing on future customers.
00:26:15
Number two, you sound like all of your competitors.
00:26:18
And then number three, you're not actually allowing yourself to be very creative.
00:26:22
And so my advice is on LinkedIn, or to be honest, on any other platform,
00:26:27
you got to be thinking with two minds.
00:26:29
The short term customers of today who we're trying to capture, and then the longterm customers of
00:26:35
tomorrow who we're trying to build memories with.
00:26:37
And if you can do both of those things at once, that's when you see great longterm results.
00:26:43
And so that I think is the optimal strategy and that balance is far more
00:26:48
important than just lead generation today.
00:26:50
Michelle J Raymond: I love it.
00:26:51
Now I'm very confident that listeners can now see possibly the error of their ways but I always
00:26:59
like to finish with how they can take action.
00:27:01
Like, how are we going to flip the script on this and really give people results?
00:27:06
Because I think that's the important piece.
00:27:08
It's all well and good to understand that there's a cost to being dull.
00:27:12
We don't want to focus on lead gen content specifically.
00:27:15
We're going to not be memorable.
00:27:16
We're going to blend in.
00:27:18
But Robin, can you share with me, what are three ways that you think that we can
00:27:22
really flip the script on these risks?
00:27:25
And, get focused on those that are out of market right now or differentiate, as you said.
00:27:31
Robin O Connell: I could talk about this all day, so I'll try and condense it down.
00:27:33
But there's a few different things that we could do.
00:27:35
And to give you one really practical tip, what I would do is make a
00:27:40
list of your competitors, right?
00:27:41
Your top competitors.
00:27:43
I would go to the LinkedIn ads library.
00:27:46
I would punch in the competitor name and the country you're operating in.
00:27:50
And then I would check and see what your competitors are doing.
00:27:53
Do that for each brand and see what your competitors are doing.
00:27:56
And instead of thinking, Oh, we should do this like they're doing, or we should try this
00:28:00
like they're doing think about if everyone is going left, what is going right look like?
00:28:04
uh, and if we can do that, I think that's a great mentality to have to
00:28:08
stick out and to capture attention.
00:28:09
What aren't they doing?
00:28:10
Are they not using videos to tell stories?
00:28:13
Are they all focused on lead gen?
00:28:15
Can we focus on something a bit broader, a bit more strategic?
00:28:19
Think about what your competitors are doing, and then think about what you can do differently.
00:28:24
I think that is a really good step to make.
00:28:26
Look at what everyone else is doing and then try and go the other way.
00:28:30
I think the second thing that I would think about doing here is when it comes to the content itself.
00:28:37
If we're thinking about optimising for memories and trying to get our brand remembered, keep
00:28:43
in mind that if I tell you that my solution is the best price point and it has AI
00:28:48
capabilities and your finance team are going to love it and it has a really good warranty
00:28:52
and the specs, it gets lost really quickly.
00:28:55
Okay.
00:28:56
So challenge yourself to get down to one key message.
00:29:00
What is one sentence?
00:29:02
One phrase that you want your customer to, to take away?
00:29:05
And make that phrase be the building block for your content and really try and invest
00:29:12
in that phrase or that one sentiment.
00:29:14
And it's difficult, especially if you have a good product or if you're selling consulting services
00:29:18
or you're selling, yourself as a consultant, even it's really hard to narrow it down to one thing.
00:29:24
Because your product does amazing things.
00:29:25
Your consultants do amazing things.
00:29:27
Your solution does amazing things for your customers, but you have to try and narrow it
00:29:31
down to one thing so that it is remembered.
00:29:35
And so I think that is really important as well.
00:29:38
And then finally, I would think about injecting creativity.
00:29:43
And the way that, that I see that kind of done in B2B right now is using emotion.
00:29:48
I think in so much B2B content that I see today, it's so rational.
00:29:55
It's so proof point orientated.
00:29:58
It doesn't really surface emotion.
00:30:00
And I think study after study will show you that emotion is more likely to be remembered.
00:30:05
If you can create that emotional connection, it's going to be remembered.
00:30:09
People remember stories and they remember how something made them feel.
00:30:13
And so if you can bring emotion to the fore, you're also much more likely to be successful.
00:30:18
I think the easiest way to do that is humour.
00:30:20
I think the easiest way is to inject humour into your content.
00:30:24
I'm talking about memes.
00:30:25
I'm talking about funny short videos.
00:30:27
I'm talking about ways that you can not take yourself so seriously as a B2B brand.
00:30:32
I think that breaks through time and time again.
00:30:34
And to give you an example here, and there's so many examples I can share right
00:30:37
now but in that article that we discussed Michelle that I wrote around brands that
00:30:41
are doing this really well on LinkedIn.
00:30:43
The three I highlighted were number one is Google ads in Australia right now.
00:30:47
There using Sharon Strzelecki.
00:30:49
I hope you've seen the campaign.
00:30:50
It is brilliant, really funny video.
00:30:54
Really funny piece of content and one that I think we can share with everyone to
00:30:58
check out or even just give it a Google.
00:31:00
Ah the second is canva.
00:31:02
I think canva are doing this really well in a few different spots, particularly in Japan.
00:31:07
So they have a great brand campaign running in Japan right now, where they flip the
00:31:14
concept of design on its head a little bit.
00:31:16
They have a gangster boss and his employee talking about this design that the boss has made.
00:31:22
And the employee simply doesn't believe that the boss could have made it so easily and
00:31:26
it gets them into a pretty sticky situation.
00:31:28
But of course, the boss has made it that easily.
00:31:30
Because he's using Canva.
00:31:31
And so it's a really funny story, really well told and resonates really well with that audience.
00:31:37
And then finally, I would say MailChimp.
00:31:40
I really like what MailChimp are doing.
00:31:41
And if you're looking for a brand that gets the longterm and the short term just have
00:31:45
a look at their content on the ads library.
00:31:47
You'll see the short videos optimised to create in a memory, and then you'll see the static ads
00:31:52
with the proof points, 75 percent faster, 80 percent more efficiency, whatever it is, but
00:31:57
it's the balance of those two things that work really well for kind of a pretty robust strategy.
00:32:02
So three brands that you can take away Google ads Canva and MailChimp.
00:32:07
If you need more examples, message me, I'm happy to provide them.
00:32:10
There is a lot right now, especially in Australia.
00:32:12
I think we're doing it really well in certain spots, but overall I would say, focus on
00:32:17
creativity, focus on emotion, try and use humour and ultimately balance your strategy
00:32:22
for the long term and the short term.
00:32:24
That's when you see real success.
00:32:26
Michelle J Raymond: I love it.
00:32:27
And Aussie, Aussie, Aussie like, cause there are some cool things that are going on here
00:32:31
and Robin, I appreciate everything that you have shared with all of these great insights.
00:32:36
I will put links to your article and how people can reach out and
00:32:39
contact you in the show notes as well.
00:32:42
As I tell all of my clients, it is okay to have a little bit of fun with your content on LinkedIn.
00:32:48
You will never break a brand by doing one post and trying something.
00:32:52
So going in with the experimenting mindset to figure out what will work,
00:32:57
what is current, and have a look at what's not working for you right now.
00:33:01
Maybe as you said, try the opposite.
00:33:04
Could be that simple.
00:33:05
The answer could be, right there in front of your eyes.
00:33:08
And think about if the platform is now, over 65 percent of Gen Z, we've got them coming through,
00:33:14
like they're going to be your decision makers.
00:33:16
Are you creating content that resonates with that audience as well?
00:33:19
So, you know, Today's episode is exactly what I'd hope for the audience.
00:33:24
This is what you need to start planning for success in 2025.
00:33:28
So Robin, is there any last actionable tip that you want to leave the listeners that you can
00:33:32
think, you know what, go away and try this.
00:33:35
Robin O Connell: Yeah, have fun with it.
00:33:36
Honestly just have fun with it.
00:33:39
Be your authentic self in your content.
00:33:41
Again, yeah, that's something I see time and time again, is people come to me and ask
00:33:44
me what works on LinkedIn from a personal perspective, being yourself is a big part of it.
00:33:50
Being authentic.
00:33:51
Anyone can use AI to create a post, by the way, that this is the first time we've
00:33:55
mentioned AI, I think Michelle, in this podcast, which is maybe a record for 2024.
00:34:00
It took us 34 minutes to mention AI.
00:34:02
That's crazy.
00:34:02
So I'm pretty proud of that one.
00:34:04
But as I said, look, anyone can use AI to create a generic piece of content.
00:34:08
Only you can create content that is authentic to you.
00:34:11
So have fun, be yourself, test it out, put it out there.
00:34:15
I know it can be hard to do, but I guarantee you once you see the results and once you start to
00:34:19
get it right it's just going to be an absolute game changer for you, your personal brand
00:34:23
and ultimately your company's growth as well.
00:34:25
So that is my takeaway tip is be yourself and have fun with us.
00:34:30
Michelle J Raymond: And that is a huge ditto for me.
00:34:31
And I think the perfect place to wrap this up.
00:34:34
So until you and I, have our successful business selling t shirts on the side, thank you so much.
00:34:39
We'll still be sharing all of our knowledge around how to get the most
00:34:43
out of LinkedIn for business growth.
00:34:44
So thanks again for coming on the show.
00:34:46
Until next week listeners.
00:34:48
Cheers.
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