The sophisticated marketer issue

THE CONTENT HERO
WHO SAVED DISNEY
OSCAR-WORTHY B2B
VIDEO STRATEGIES
ARE WE UNDERVALUING
THOUGHT LEADERSHIP?
QUARTERLYI s s u e 5 Q u a r t e r 1 2 0 1 9
THE
M A R K E T E R
ADVICE FROM
CONTENT PIONEER
ANN HANDLEY
Need-to-know
SEO trends
THE MAESTRO
ON THE METRO:
A MARKETING
MYSTERY
How to build
your ABM
strategy on
LinkedIn
sales and
marketing
orchestration
The ultimate
guide to

5 S o p h i s t i c a t e d M a r k e t e r
linkedin.com/videoads
Raise brand
awareness
Captivate your
target audience
Fuel demand
generation
INTRODUCING
VIDEO ADS

S o p h i s t i c a t e d M a r k e t e r 3
CreamPublishing
Cream Publishing, Adur Business Centre, Little High Street, Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex BN43 5EG.
lnkd.in/US-Blog
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A
ligning sales and marketing tops the
prioritylistforeveryB2Bmarketer.We
know that it will drive growth, boost
morale, increase lead quality and
demonstrateourcontributiontothebottomline.
Thebigquestionis:howcanwemakeithappen?
In our latest issue, we’re setting out to
answer it.
We’re exploring every aspect of the critical
art of Marketing and Sales Orchestration, from
a planning framework for Account-Based
Marketing (ABM) strategies to aligning around
a shared view of your target audience. We ask
why sales teams get more excited about events
than other marketing tactics, how to build
the right kind of chemistry with your sales
colleagues, and how to leverage video at every
stage of the buyer journey.
In between you’ll find plenty of exclusive
research and insights to help develop B2B
marketing that the whole business values:
more advice on content marketing dilemmas
from Ann Handley, our latest state of sales
research, key SEO trends that you need to know
about, and new data that shows the real value
of thought leadership.
This is an issue packed with inspiration
for marketers who care about working more
closely with sales.
We hope you enjoy it!
FROM THE TEAM
A NOTE TO SOPHISTICATED MARKETERS
THE TEAM: EDITORS Jane Fleming IGrace MacDonald I Megan Golden I
Alex Rynne ISean Callahan I Steve Kearns I Kate Mallord I Amanda Bulat
CONTRIBUTORS Ann Handley IKeith Browning I Meghan Brockmeyer I Keith Richey I
Penry Price I Justin Shriber I Siobhan Waters I Pallavi Sharma I Liam Halpin
FOR CREAM PUBLISHING: CONSULTANT EDITOR Matthew Cowen I
ART DIRECTOR Tim Mapleston I PUBLISHER Victoria Furness

38C O N T E N T S
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Coverillustration:TimMapleston
CONTENT OR CONTEXT
A mysterious musical experiment
proves why marketers should
value context.
ASTONISHING TALES:
How Blendtec created a media
empire by pulverizing top tech.
THE TROUBLE WITH:
PERSONAS
If you’re serious about customer-
centricity, they need more data.
THE RISE OF B2B
PRODUCT REVIEWS
Why customer voices matter—
and how to manage them.
THE TROUBLE WITH:
BEST PRACTICE
Marketers can’t afford to follow
overly restrictive rules.
THE SMALL BUSINESS
MARKETING ROUNDTABLE
Four SMB marketing experts on
the opportunities ahead.
DEFINING ACCOUNT
BASED MARKETING
What does the buzziest of B2B
buzzwords really mean?
TOOLBOX
Trends, top tips, insights
and inspiration.
THE UNDERVALUED
POWER OF THOUGHT
LEADERSHIP
Sales and marketing are both
missing its real impact.
ASKING FOR A FRIEND
Our superb advice column from
content pioneer Ann Handley.
THE SECRETS OF SALES AND
MARKETING ORCHESTRATION
Justin Shriber explains why Sales
and Marketing Orchestration is
now essential business strategy.
WHAT EVENTS CAN TEACH
DIGITAL MARKETERS
Why do salespeople love events so
much? And how can we spread that
love to digital marketing?
THE TRUTH ABOUT SMARKETING
The best attempts at alignment
won’t work without the right
chemistry experiments.
ALIGNING TARGETING FOR
MARKETING AND SALES
A shared view of the target
audience is the essential
starting point for effective
sales and marketing.
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10
50
THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO
ABM ON LINKEDIN
How LinkedIn makes a difference
at the seven key stages for ABM
programmes.
SEO TRENDS FOR 2019
The search changes that matter
for B2B marketers.
THE SUPER BOWL PLAYBOOK
Inspiration for B2B brand
strategies from this year’s big
game ad breaks.
STATE OF SALES REPORT
Which sales tactics are
landing with buyers?
OPTIMIZING FOR
‘SALES CLOSES’
AdStage’s Pallavi Sharma
on how to make it happen.
COULD SMARKETING
HAVE SAVED WILLY LOMAN?
Could sales and marketing
alignment have meant a different
ending for Death of a Salesman?
SALES HASN’T CHANGED BUT
WHAT IT TAKES TO WIN HAS
Liam Halpin on blending
traditional techniques with
modern tools.
HOW TO CREATE AN
OSCAR-WORTHY B2B VIDEO
STRATEGY ON LINKEDIN
Your guide to video content that
works throughout the funnel.
BRAND SAFETY OR AD
PERFORMANCE? WHY IT’S
A FALSE CHOICE
Are the metrics you take brand
safety risks for really worth it?
WHAT GETS CMOS
CLICKING?
Exclusive LinkedIn data
on the content setting senior
marketers’ agendas.
THE SAIGON KICK
SECRET TO LIVING A
FACE-MELTING
CREATIVE LIFE, DESPITE
THE SETBACKS
Former rock god Jason Bieler
explains how he’s built one of the
most irreverent brands in music.
WHAT’S IN YOUR BAG
LinkedIn’s Keith Richey
spills his satchel contents.
CONTENT HEROES:
HOWARD ASHMAN
The tragically short story of the
content genius that saved Disney.
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W0RDS BY KEITH BROWNING
CONTENT
CONTEXT:
OR What a violin maestro playing on
the Washington Metro should teach
us about advertising strategy
which matters more?
At 7.51am on Friday January 12, 2007, a man in an ill-fitting jumper and baseball
cap made his nondescript way to a grimy corner of the L’Enfant Plaza metro station
in Washington D.C. He positioned himself against a wall, next to a garbage bin,
unpacked a violin and bow, opened his case ready to take donations, and started
to play. He played for 43 minutes. During that time, over 1,000 commuters passed
within a couple of feet of him. People having their shoes shined or in line to buy
a Lotto ticket listened to him perform entire pieces. In all of that time, only seven
people stopped to listen, and only twenty more paused to give him money. The lady
running the shoe shine stand considered complaining to the police about the noise.
A woman passing by wondered why people bothered busking in this way. The violin
player made just over $32.
Two weeks earlier, that same man had stood on a stage at Symphony Hall in
Boston. There was no jumper and no baseball cap. He wore a sharp black suit and
was surrounded by supporting musicians in white tie and tails. An expectant crowd,
decked in their finest, strained to hear every sound that he would make. After all,
they had paid a minimum of $100 each to hear him perform.
This was Joshua Bell. A man considered by many to be the greatest violinist alive.
A man whose playing has been described as doing “nothing less than tell human
beings why they bother to live.” In both locations, he had played the same beautiful
T H E B R I E F

classical music on the same
insanely expensive violin.
And yet the response from his
audiences could not have been
more different.
CONTEXT VS CONTENT:
A HARD REALITY TO COME
TO TERMS WITH
Joshua Bell’s twin perfor-
mances had been arranged
by The Washington Post as
an experiment into the influ-
ence of context on human
perceptions—and the findings
shocked plenty of people at
the time. Heads of National
Symphony Orchestras, in
particular, found it difficult to
come to terms with the fact that
no crowd of people formed in
response to Bell’s playing; that
people couldn’t recognize the
beauty; that, between 1,000
of them, they could detect no
more than $32 in value.
The response of music lovers
is understandable. In fact, it’s
eerily similar to the reaction of
many marketers when you try to
convince them that the context
in which their ad appears might
be more important than the ad
itself. When you are so invest-
ed in your message, it’s difficult
to come to terms with the idea
that the message itself might
not matter—or at least, that it
might matter a lot less than you
thought. More than a decade
after Bell’s DC metro gig, plenty
of advertising strategies still
assume that, provided you’re
reaching the right audience
with the right content, it doesn’t
matter where you reach them.
Advertisers’ early use of
programmatic buying was often
based on the assumption that targeting trumped context.
Being able to target people wherever you wanted allowed
you to reach them far more efficiently. Since ignoring context
lowered costs, it must be an improvement. Many strategies still
apply the same logic, especially when it comes to response. If
you can get enough people to click on an ad for a low enough
cost then it doesn’t matter where your ad appeared, or how
many other people saw it, in order to get that response. It’s
tempting to use ever more advanced analytics to optimize
marketing ever more efficiently around these outcomes.
However, that would be a huge mistake—and the Joshua Bell
experiment helps to explain why.
HOW CONTEXT DOMINATES OUR RESPONSE
TO ADVERTISING
Contextinfluencesourresponsetoadvertisinginpowerfulways,
on several different levels. It’s not just an instinctive response
or a conscious judgment. It’s both. Human beings use context
T H E B R I E F

in sophisticated ways to make extremely quick decisions about
the value and credibility of what’s being presented to them. As
a result, it’s impossible to consider an ad objectively, without
being influenced by where you’re seeing it. The context in
which people see your brand will have a big influence on their
judgment of your brand, both in the moment and in the future,
and this applies whether they click on it or not.
It’stemptingtowriteoffthepeopleinthesubwaystationthat
morning as snobs, unable to see quality if it wasn’t dressed up to
the nines, but that would be unfair. The commuters were using
a rule of thumb that reliably told them the violinist wasn’t worth
stopping to listen to. It’s the same rule of thumb that marketing
audiences have relied on for over a century, to determine what
a brand’s advertising really says about the brand.
CONTEXT AND QUALITY
Bob Hoffman, author of the fantastic blog The Ad Contrarian,
explains this superbly. He draws a distinction between what
marketers communicate in an ad (the “message”) and what
the ad actually says about them (the “signal”). According to
Hoffman, the type of ad format you are using and the place
where that ad appears contribute far more to the signal of
what your brand is really about than the content of the ad
itself. When audiences decide which brands to trust with their
time, interest and money, they automatically use context to
make the assessment. In the same way, commuters assume
with confidence that musicians who play on the subway aren’t
the best musicians in the world—but musicians who play in
expensive concert halls might be.
As Rory Sutherland, the Vice Chairman of Ogilvy Group has
long argued, this was the real value for brands in advertising
on TV in the 1980s, and it’s still the real value in Super Bowl
ads today. Audiences know the ad slots are expensive. A brand
that pays to use them must intend to be around for a while,
in order to recoup the investment. This signals credibility and
trustworthiness far more effectively than the message of the ad
itself. Contrast this with a direct response ad that follows you
around the internet and clearly cares only about persuading
you to click as cheaply as possible. It sends a very different
signal about what the brand stands for.
CONTEXT AND RELEVANCE
Besides signalling whether a brand has quality and credibility,
context also signals whether it’s relevant. There may well
have been some classical music fans in the metro station
that morning, but they didn’t give Bell attention enough
to appreciate his playing because they were focusing on
something else: getting to work. They weren’t in the relevant
context to engage with the kind of content Bell was creating—
and therefore they didn’t engage with it.
Recent research from the University of Michigan’s Ross
School of Business confirms that the same signals of relevance
control how audiences respond to digital marketing.
Placement is an important part of how people interpret
what they encounter online, and marketers who ignore
context when planning their campaigns suffer as a result. An
insightful piece of in-depth B2B content looks more relevant,
interesting and valuable on the website of The Economist than
on The Daily Mail, in a professional environment than in a
non-professional one. I’d argue that the same applies to the
environment of different social platforms too. “We often focus
on the piece of art, but that piece of art and how we interpret
that piece of art will be influenced greatly by how it is framed,”
says Michigan Ross Professor John Branch. “In marketing, we
often focus on the message, whereas the framing, the context,
can also play a huge role.”
HOW CONTEXT CHANGES THE BRAIN —
AND THE EXPERIENCE
Signals of quality and relevance were definitely mixed in with
the sounds of Bell’s violin on that morning in the subway
station. However, it’s possible that something even more
influential was happening too; something that didn’t involve
any conscious or unconscious judgment on the part of the
passers-by at all. Researchers from the INSEAD Business
School and the University of Bonn recently discovered that a
higher price for a bottle of wine actually changes how drink-
ers experience the taste of that wine. Once they are primed
to expect to drink something of superior quality, the regions
of their brain associated with pleasure and enjoyment spark
up in advance, predis-
posing them to enjoy
and appreciate it more.
Researchers admit that
a lot more studies are
needed in this area,
but it offers a fascinat-
ing insight as to just
why the influence of
context is so powerful.
We don’t just expect to
enjoy things more in
certain situations. We actually do enjoythem more! Something
very similar might well happen when we encounter ads and
content in different environments online.
The idea that context matters in advertising is nothing new.
Marshall McLuhan first argued as much over 50 years ago in
his famous phrase, “The Medium is the Message”. If anything,
McLuhan understated his case. Research now shows that the
environment in which somebody encounters an ad doesn’t
just influence how they experience it. In fact, it can completely
rewrite its meaning, and signal something very different to
what the advertiser intends.
Digital channels provide us with a broad range of different
tactics and techniques to choose from when it comes to
targeting advertising and content. We can use these tactics
and techniques to be precise and specific about the contexts
in which we reach audiences—or to ignore that context
altogether. The maestro on the metro should remind us which
is the smarter approach.
Matched Audiences on LinkedIn enable you to reach your
chosen audiences in the most trusted context for professionals.
Find out more at https://lnkd.in/MatchedAudiences
WHERE YOUR AD
APPEARS CAN
SIGNAL MORE
ABOUT YOUR
BRAND THAN
WHAT'S IN THE
AD ITSELF

Come along with us through the mists of time to the
distant past: Specifically, to October 30, 2006. President
Bush is midway through his second term. The most
sought-after cellular phone is the Motorola RAZR, with
its 2.2” screen and fashionable clamshell design. For
the first time, you don’t need to be a college student to
join Facebook. And Blendtec Founder Tom Dickson
uploadsthefirstvideoinwhatwillbecomeaseriesof
viral hits on an up-and-coming site called YouTube
(which launched less than a year before).
THE FIRST VIDEO: LOSING HIS MARBLES
The first Blendtec video instantly establishes the
feel of the series. It has the on-the-cheap look of
a late night infomercial, with deliberately cheesy
titles and game-show quality music. But instead of
a slick, polished pitchman, the star of the video is Dickson
himself, looking slightly uncomfortable to be on camera.
“Will it blend? That is the question,” Dickson says, and pours
50 glass marbles into a Blendtec blender, reducing them to
powder in under a minute. When he peels off the blender lid,
finely pulverized particles swirl up like smoke. “Glass dust.
Don’t breathe this,” he deadpans.
This first video set the template for the more than 180 that have
followed. The series is remarkable for what it doesn’t have, almost
more than for what it does: There is no product pitch, no mention
of model numbers or prices. There’s no touting the benefits and
T H E B R I E F
features of the blender, no indication of
what you might more usefully use it for, nobody
evenpointingoutthattheblenderispowerful.
There’s not even a call to action. An
unconventional item goes into the blend-
er, Dickson smiles at the camera while it
blends. Then he pours out the pulverized
remains, points out that the object did in
fact blend, and scene.
That first video currently has over 6.5
million views on YouTube. Blendtec’s
more conventional promotional videos
average around 50,000–60,000 views.
MARKETING GOLD:
BLENDING APPLE PRODUCTS
Apple’s announcement of the iPhone in 2007 captured the
public’s imagination. People lined up for blocks to get their
hands on one. The iPhone was hard to find in stock, and was
amazingly expensive for a cell phone. So for some, it seemed
like an act of sacrilege for Dickson to drop it into a Blendtec
and turn it into powder and smoke. “iSmoke. Don’t breathe
this,” he quips at the end of the video, before revealing he
has a backup iPhone to keep for himself. Tech bloggers were
amused and angered in equal proportions, and the video
quickly climbed to over 12 million views.
Three years later, Blendtec scored even bigger with an
BLENDTEC
How do you make your
kitchen device famous?
Show it churning
out yoghurts and
smoothies? Discuss its
contribution to healthy
living? Or set about
pulverizing some of the
most sought-after tech
on the planet?
Astonishing
Tales of Content
Marketing:

even more coveted Apple product: the original iPad. Again,
the blogosphere exploded and the video racked up more
than 17 million hits. For anyone who thought the device was
overhyped, or desperately wanted one but couldn’t justify
the expense, there was an odd catharsis in watching Dickson
smash the screen, fold it in half, and blend it into powder.
Since the success of the first two Apple videos, Dickson
has blended every new iPhone and iPad. Recently, he’s taken
to doing side-by-side
blending tests with
Android and Apple
products, to see which
lasts longer in the blend-
er (currently Samsung is
leading by 5 seconds).
EXPANDING THE
EMPIRE
Usually a viral video
is a one-off success. It
comes out of nowhere,
hits hard, then fades into
obscurity. But Dickson
turned the success of the initial videos into a community with
over 800,000 subscribers on YouTube, and a Facebook page
where fans can suggest themes for new episodes. Blendtec
responds to most comments on the Will It Blend? Facebook
page with the dry wit fans expect from the series.
While the videos were initially intended to promote
Blendtec’s product line, they are now a revenue generator in
their own right. Other brands line up to use Will It Blend? as a content marketing platform for their products. Among others,
GoPro sponsored a “blendercam” that featured an inside view
of the blending process, PayPal promoted its Bill Me Later
service with a “Man Cave” themed video, and Ford touted the
durability of boron steel, by showing it wouldn’t blend.
A BLEND OF PRODUCT DEMONSTRATION
AND TOP OF FUNNEL MARKETING
More than 12 years since he blended marbles into powder,
Dickson keeps the YouTube channel going with a new video
every month. The 180-plus videos have a combined total of
over 287 million views. Dickson has become a minor celebri-
ty in his own right, bringing Blendtec blenders to the Tonight
Show and the History Channel’s Modern Marvels series.
“The campaign is all about building top-of-mind aware-
ness,” Dickson explained in a 2007 interview. “We have
definitely felt an impact in sales. Will It Blend? has had an
amazing impact on our commercial and our retail products.”
The Will It Blend? series has been steadily turning out viral
hits for over a decade—or approximately 300 years by the short
attention span of internet fame. By showcasing its product
in a unique and gleefully destructive way, Blendtec gets to
entertainmillionsofpeople,twominutesatatime.That’satruly
astonishing tale of content marketing.
Find more Astonishing Tales of Content Marketing in
our eBook at https://lnkd.in/astonishing-marketing
Have Personality.
Part of what made the series
successful is its irreverent,
purposefully retro-feeling tone,
combined with Dickson’s dry,
folksy humor.
Get Creative.
Blendtec could have created
a series demonstrating how
to make smoothies, yogurt, or
any of the dozen things their
blenders are actually made
for. Instead, they opted for an
over-the-top approach that drew
viewers in.
Build Community.
Blendtec expanded the Will It
Blend? brand fromYouTube to
Facebook to its own microsite
on Blendtec’s website.Blendtec
interacts with the community,
accepting suggestions for videos
and replying to comments with
personality and wit.
Co-create and
Cross-Promote.
Blendtec leveraged the video
series’ success to partner
with other brands, without
compromising the format that
made them famous.
TAKEAWAYS FROM BLENDTEC:
The road to over 287 million
YouTube views (anti-clockwise from
top): the cruelty to marbles that
started it all,the big breakthrough
smashing sought-after iPhones,the
Will it Blend? head-to-heads and
brand partnerships.

To learn more about the death of the
persona, visit our B2B Trends Microsite at
https://lnkd.in/personas
hen it comes to targeting strat-
egy and persona creation, I’m
like most marketers in needing
to take solace now and then
from the famed German philosopher Friedrich
Nietzsche. He argued that “to forget one’s purpose
is the commonest form of stupidity,” and it’s a form
that’s easy to fall into when engaged in building a
customer composite. If you’re not careful, building
a persona can feel like an exercise in, well, building
a persona. Its purpose is its own purpose.
But what are we really building personas for?
When you consider that only 3% of buyers say
advertising is relevant to them, and that rough-
ly three quarters of marketers use personas, well,
that’s quite the gap between practice and theory.
If personas are meant to bring us closer to our
audiences then something is clearly going awry.
WHY CREATE PERSONAS IN THE FIRST PLACE?
The true purpose of persona creation is to
make buyers feel understood, but the numbers
suggest most marketers create personas to make
themselves feel as though they understand buyers.
Does that mean we should steer clear of personas?
Certainly not. But it does mean we need to remind
ourselves of the outcome we’re aiming for.
Personas exist to drive customer-centric behavior.
T H E B R I E F
They’re only fulfilling their purpose if they have the
level of detail that enables businesses to take the
specific actions that customers appreciate. And for
most B2B marketers, they’re not.
“Most personas are built without data and,
when they are built with data, it is highly question-
able, obscurely assembled, third-party data,” says
LinkedIn’s Global Lead for Market Development
and Strategy, Jon Lombardo. “Most marketers
understand that the personas they’ve built don’t
accurately reflect their real customers and don’t
properly inform their marketing. I think that’s why
most marketers tell us—privately—that the perso-
nas they build end up in a desk drawer somewhere
collecting dust. Personas can be valuable, but really
only when they’re built using fresh, first-party data
and that’s just not what happens today.”
ACTIONABLE PERSONAS FROM LINKEDIN DATA
You don’t need a vast lake of data to start creating
more actionable personas. LinkedIn’s free Website
Demographics tool gives you access to anonymized
LinkedIn profile data on members that visit your
site, helping you to segment audiences with a level
of detail that you’ll be confident acting on.
We don’t need to do away with personas. But
it’s time to eliminate those built from hunches
and guesswork that are completely unsuited to the
purpose they’re meant to serve.
W
To forget one’s purpose is the
commonest form of stupidity
The trouble with: Personas
Alex Rynne loses patience with personas built from hunches that go into a drawer never
to be seen again. It’s time to get serious about being a customer-centric business.

THREE PRINCIPLES FOR GENERATING AND LEVERAGING
B2B PRODUCT REVIEWS:
1Actively solicit reviews and ratings from your customers and take the extra
step by freeing up comments so that other customers can establish the au-
thenticity of those reviews, and put negative comments into context. Embed
reviews as part of the installation or customer service process, or encourage
customers to write testimonials.
2Turn any negative reviews into positives by leveraging the engagement
value that they represent. Negative reviews receive nearly two to three
times more views than positive ones, and add substantially to an
audience's perception of your website's credibility. Respond
quickly and clearly, clear up misconceptions, provide further
insights from your brand as a next step,and thank the customer
for their feedback.Once an issue has been addressed,reach out
and grab the opportunity for an updated review.
3Reviews don't have to be posted on your website to pro-
vide a B2B marketing asset. Engage with customers who
are commenting on platforms like LinkedIn,amplifying the con-
versation by replying to what they have to say and sharing
their comments. LinkedIn also provides an effective plat-
form for sharing customer reviews and testimonials with
a relevant target audience, and unlocking the full value
for your business. Use Sponsored Content to
share published reviews and point others to-
wards your review site.
customers care about
Generate case studies from positive reviews
Use reviews as a source of insight for Account
Based Marketing (ABM) strategies
TAKING ADVANTAGE OF B2B PRODUCT REVIEWS
THE RISE OF B2B
PRODUCT REVIEWS
B2B customer feedback can be an asset throughout the process of developing, launching and marketing products. Here are five ways to use it:
Fix flaws in current products and develop
ideas for new ones
Develop a responsive thought-leadership
program by responding to the issues your
Meghan Brockmeyer explores how B2B marketers can leverage customer voices
to drive credibility and help move buyers through the purchase journey.
oday's B2B buyers and end-users have more influence over
B2B brands than ever, with online, influencer, peer and
colleague feedback all impacting the B2B path to purchase.
In Demand Gen Report’s 2018 B2B Buyer’s Survey, 65% of
B2B buyers report that they rely on peer recommendations when researching
new vendors and solutions.
For marketers, the review ecosystem has created a huge opportunity
to drive ROI and reach new customers, but with influence coming from all
directions, it can be tricky to understand exactly how to leverage product
reviews as part of your marketing strategy.
WHY REVIEWS MATTER IN B2B
If anything, product reviews may have even
greater importance to B2B than to B2C
marketers due to the likelihood of higher
consideration purchases being
made. Research in the consumer
space suggests that reviews for
lower-priced products increase
conversion rate by 190%, but
reviews for higher-priced products
double that to 380%. Not all
reviews achieve the same impact,
however. B2B influencers and
decision-makers aren't looking for
a simple, "it's great!". They want
meaningful detail and evidence of
authenticity, ideally from end-users
rather than purchasing managers.
To leverage credible customer voices
effectively, B2B businesses need an
engagement strategy that's both
bold and open.
Use reviews as a sales enablement tool
to help your sales professionals refine their
approach and identify the pain points that
customers are looking to address
Get more insight on leveraging
B2B product reviews in our
eBook at https://lnkd.in/
B2BproductReviews
T H E B R I E F

The trouble with:
Best practice
B
est practice can be a great source of insight when it’s taken in the spirit in
which it’s intended.However,it can also be used to stamp out any deviation
from the orthodox.And when that happens, we’re all in trouble.
The trouble is,it happens all too often.I’m party to lots of conversations
between marketers in my LinkedIn feed when quoting best practice is seen as the ultimate
mike-drop bit of ‘I told you so.’ The implication is that once something has been declared
‘best practice’, it’s a sacred rule, no matter who declared it, when or why. I believe we need
to start thinking seriously about the way that ‘best practice’ is used, in marketing and life.
THE LIMITATIONS OF BEST PRACTICE
FOR MARKETERS
I’d be a complete hypocrite if I argued best practice has no value
at all. I read it, study it and act on it a lot of the time. When I see
clear evidence that a particular way of doing things is effective,I
share it with others. I deal in best practice too.
But just because there’s wisdom and insight in best practice
doesn’tmeanyoucandeployithere,thereandeverywhere.Best
practice is not some gospel-like rulebook of eternal truths that
apply to each and every situation you might encounter. That’s
entirely the wrong approach to take if you want to be a genuine-
ly evidence-based, data-driven marketer.The fact is, every piece
of best practice should have two important limitations.
The first limitation is specificity. Best practice should always
come with a label about the particular context and marketing
objective that it applies to. Best practice for brands posting on
LinkedIn doesn’t necessarily apply to individuals looking to
build their personal brands. Audience expectations and rules
of engagement vary hugely between B2B and B2C marketing.
T H E B R I E F
Jane Fleming explains why marketing loses
out when we start using ‘best practice’ to stamp out
any deviation from an orthodox approach.
Just because a format, style or frequency of content works for
a particular demographic on Facebook doesn’t mean that’s the
way to go when talking to a different demographic on LinkedIn.
When LinkedIn and Buzzsumo conducted in-depth research into
the most influential social media posts across different sectors,
we found significant differences between the posts that most
engaged marketers and those that most engaged lawyers, doc-
tors or engineers. Best practice for a content marketing strategy
needs to reflect this reality. There is simply no one-size-fits-all
formula when it comes to the most effective approach.
Before you start applying best practice, you need to take
the time to study what it’s actually based on: which audiences,
which sectors, which marketing formats or strategies. You also
need to check when it was published, because as we all know,
marketing and audience behavior both change over time.
ASK YOURSELF: IS FOLLOWING THE
STANDARD ENOUGH?
Thesecondlimitatononthevalueof bestpracticeisitsinevitable
standardizaton. As a rule, best practice isn’t written to help you
deliver exceptional marketing. It’s not a strategy designed for
your brand and tailored to your particular needs and objectives.
By definition, when you follow best practice, you’re following a
well-informed crowd of other marketers.There is nothing wrong
with this in as far as it goes, but it only goes so far. By definition,
best practice won’t help you break the rules in order to create
impact and differentiate yourself from others. Rather than be
bound by best practice, treat it as one approach that received
wisdom tells you will work. Then experiment and test to see if
you can find other approaches that work even better.
DON’T CONFUSE BEST PRACTICE AND
DATA-DRIVEN MARKETING
Marketers who follow best practice too slavishly will often
claim that they are being guided by data. In fact though, too
much allegiance to best practice stands in the way of being a
data-driven marketer. When you only operate within a standard
approach, you restrict the scope of meaningful testing that you
can carry out. You also restrict the capacity of data to challenge
received wisdom and move things forward. Truly data-driven
marketers aim to establish best practice rather than just follow
it, discovering for themselves what works best for their particu-
lar business and their particular audience. They are scientists
trying to expand marketing’s understanding rather than be
limited by it.
Best practice has real value for marketers, especially content
marketers who operate across a range of different platforms and
formats.It saves time,gets us up and running quickly,and gives
us a fantastic foundation from which to test, experiment – and
help to evolve that best practice. However, if you refuse to ever
step outside of the best practice comfort zone (or spend your
time criticizing others for doing so) then you’re imprisoning
your brand in the conventional way of doing things and severely
restricting your creative and strategic options. You’re also help-
ing to keep best practice itself imprisoned in the past.That’s the
last thing we need.

T H E B R I E F
THE SMALL
BUSINESS
MARKETING
ROUNDTABLE
Four small business marketers discuss their challenges,
how they’re overcoming them,and how LinkedIn is helping
GLOBAL GROWTH:
W0RDS BY SEAN CALLAHAN
his fall, I interviewed four forward-thinking small business marketers
from around the globe—one each from Brazil, Singapore, the United
Kingdom, and the United States. The result of these conversations is
“Global Growth: The Small Business Marketing Roundtable.” Here are the
seven key takeaways from our panelists’ perspectives on the marketing
challenges and opportunities for SMBs:
“The biggest challenges for small business marketers often
relate to creating effective content with small teams.”
1. GENERATING QUALITY CONTENT
WITH SMALLTEAMS REMAINS A CHALLENGE
Content is the biggest hurdle for our clients.
If you put an ad that just says talk to our sales
rep, no one is going to want to click on that.
So, it’s this conversation where we say what
kind of lead magnet do you have, what
kind of content do you have that’s valuable
enough that someone is willing to give their
e-mail address in exchange for? Generally,
what we recommend is go put on a
webinar using one of your best decks that
maybe you already use with prospective
clients. A. J. Wilcox
The panel:
A.J. Wilcox
Founder, B2Linked
(United States)
Tom Metcalfe
Senior Lead Generation
Executive, In Touch Network
(United Kingdom)
Lauren Stephenson
Marketing Director, Nugit
(Singapore)
Marina
Mendoca Ferreira
Marketing Analyst,
Digital House
(Brazil)
T

“No matter what size business they
work for, marketers always struggle
to balance their spend on building
brand with their spend on driving
leads. At SMBs, the problem can
be magnified by lack of resources,
personnel, and budget.”
While the majority of our panelists
were optimistic that their marketing
budgets would increase in the
coming year, they acknowledged
that budgeting could change
quickly and was, more than ever,
tied to performance.
“SMB marketers use a variety of metrics to measure effectiveness
throughout the funnel. Like their counterparts at larger businesses,
they can measure their influence on revenue generation better than ever.”
“The rise of the digital world, where websites make everyone a
publisher and where social media can connect marketers to their
audiences for little to no cost, has leveled the playing field.”
“All of the marketers on our Roundtable find LinkedIn’s targeting capability a powerful asset.”
3.MARKETERSATSMBsARE
WORKING CLOSERWITH SALES
2. IT’S HARD TO BALANCE
BRANDING AND DEMAND
GENERATION
5.THE SIZE OF THE
MARKETING BUDGET
OFTEN DEPENDS
ON PERFORMANCE
4. MARKETERS RELY MORE ON METRICS THAN EVER BEFORE
6.DIGITAL GIVES SMBs A FIGHTING CHANCE
7.LINKEDIN CAN PLAY A KEY ROLE FOR SMB MARKETERS.
We have weekly meetings with the head of sales and get frequent feedback on
the leads we’ve generated. We listen to feedback from sales calls and with that in
mind, I’ll look through the database and look at the origin of those leads and how
that came from our targeting on LinkedIn or other sources. Tom Metcalfe
AstheHeadofMarketing,IsitrightnexttotheHeadofSales.We’retalkingconstantly
andalignedonthesamesalespipelinegoals.Bothteamsrealizewecan’tlive
withouteachother.Thesalesteamneedsmarketingcontent,assetsandmessaging
tocommunicateviaLinkedIn.MarketingmightuseadifferentpartofLinkedIn,but
it’sthesametool.Weneedtobeworkingtogether,sowhensalesarereachingout,we
knowthatwecantargetthosesamepeoplewithadsorrelevantcontent.
LaurenStephenson
“Sales and marketing alignment is more than a hot term
in the business world: It’s an action item, especially
for marketers at small businesses. All of the Roundtable
panelists said that working closely with sales is a priority.”
(Our biggest challenge) is branding.
We have been in Brazil just a few
months, so nobody knows we exist.
Marina Mendoca Ferreira
ForB2Linked,definitelydemand
generationiswhat95%ofourclientsare
after.Wehaveprobably5%ofourclients
whereitisapurebrandingplay.A.J.Wilcox
Ithinkthemarketingbudgetisalways
upintheair.Idon’tthinkyou’reever
anymoregoingtogeta12-monthbudget
toworkwith—particularlyforSMEs.And
ifyouareastartupandyou’reworking
intech,youareveryreliantonsales
performance.So,ifallofourplansgo
ahead,ifourSalesteamissellingand
closingandourCustomerSuccessteam
areretainingclients,thenabsolutelymy
planistogrowthemarketingbudget.
LaurenStephenson
Our main metrics are CPL (Cost per Lead) and CPS, (Cost per Sale). Those are most
important for us. I look at them every day, but we have a weekly report and monthly
report to show to all the team. Marina Mendoca Ferreira
Our key marketing metric is the return on ad spend. I’ve done a lot of work on
trying to drive the highest volume of leads for the most cost-effective price on a
CPA (Cost per Acquisition) basis. Tom Metcalfe
The thing is, the smaller the team the more agile you can be. What I’ve seen is
we’ve got someverysmallteamsthatareproducingamazingcontent.Paidsocialmedia
providesaformatwhereitdoesn’tmatterwhetheryou’reIBMoratwo-personcompany
thatopened yesterday, you have the same ability to reach people. A. J. Wilcox
One of our key targets is executives, and with LinkedIn, we can know exactly where people are working, what people are doing,
and how long they are working. All this information helps us to find the correct people. Mendoca Ferreira

10 Marketing experts
define Account
Based Marketing
It’s one of the most powerful trends in sales and marketing today,and the key to leveraging ABM for
greater alignment is having a clear idea of what it means.We asked these experts for their views:
“ABM is more targeted and personalized versus spray and pray,
where you’re just trying to capture anyone in your net.
You’re being very specific about who you want to talk with, and
it’s a way for sales and marketing to align on the target.”
MEAGEN EISENBERG,
CMO, MongoDB
T H E B R I E F
“IdefineABMas total
marketing and sales
alignment around who the
target customers are,and the
efforts to go get them.They
align withthesameoutcome
in mind: to get a specific
account as a customer.”
DAVE RIGOTTI,
VP of Marketing,Bizible
“Our definition of ABM is just good
marketing.If youonlyhadoneprospect
to sell and market to,you would treat
them with the same principles.It’s just
aiming at a better defined area of the
funnel,and treating your best buyers
in amuchmorepersonalway.Andwe’re
focusing not only on the lead, but on
the account as a whole.”
JUSTIN GRAY
CMO, LeadMD
“Initspurestform,ABMhas
beenaroundforever.
Itmeansthatinsteadof fishing
withnets,we’refishingwith
spears.Youidentifyexactly
theprospectsyouwanttodo
businesswithandthenyou
marketverypreciselyand
narrowlytothemdirectly.
Ithinkwehavearenewed
interestinABMnow,because
there’sanadvancementin
toolsandtechnologythatmake
italittleeasiertoexecute.
However, theideaof doing
targetaccountsellingand
targetaccountmarketingis
notnew.”
MATT HEINZ,
President,Heinz Marketing

“ABMis thinking of theaccount as a market of one.It’s about being
laser-focused on their needs and deploying themost effective
marketing tactics availableto nurturevalue-added,pervasive
conversations withkey stakeholders.This is theplacewheremarketing
and sales areat their closest,brought together by common goals
and a crystal-clear understanding of what success looks like.”
NICK PANAYI,
VP, Global Brand, Digital Marketing
& Demand Generation, DXC Technology
“ABM to me is treating a single
account as a market of one.
Within that market of one,
we’re looking to customize our
marketing activities and message
in close collaboration with our
sales team, not just down to a
buying center or persona but
right down to the individual.”
DOROTHEA GOSLING,
Director,Marketing Programs,
Pursuits & ABM,
DXCTechnology
“ABM is a strategic
approach that coordinates
personalizedmarketingand
sales efforts to open doors
and deepen engagement
at specific accounts.”
JON MILLER,
CEO and Co-Founder,
Engagio
“ABM is pretty close to a silver
bullet for breaking down walls
between sales and marketing,
in that it aligns programs’ dollars
and focus behind the accounts
that the sales team cares about.
So there’s inherent buy-in.
That said,ABM is only as good as
your visibility into your highest
potential accounts and best-fit
customer segments, which gets
clearer over time. So it’s most
effective when deployed as
part of a comprehensive set of
targeting strategies.”
DAVE KAREL,
Principal,OutLeap Marketing
“Instead of leveraging a set
of broad-reaching programs
designed to touch the largest
possible number of prospective
customers, an ABM strategy
focuses marketing and sales
resources on a defined set of
targeted accounts and employs
personalized campaigns
designed to resonate with each
individual account.With ABM,
your marketing message is based
on the attributes and needs of
the account you’re targeting.”
DAVID CAIN,
CMO,PlanGrid
“ABMis focused B2BSmarketing.Isay “Smarketing”becauseABM is
all about focusing on the right accounts in collaboration with sales.
ABMis not a solo activity.It’s thecombination and rangeof activities
from advertising, direct mail, calls, emails, content, all centered
around the ideal set of accounts that you believe has the need for
your solution. It’s quality over quantity in its most basic form.”
SANGRAMVAJRE,
Co-FounderandChief Evangelist,Terminus

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Pacing & Veriﬁcation
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Reach, consideration,
conversion, sales
Targeting and relevance
Pacing and quality
Quality trafﬁc,
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Press & buzz impact
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and why thousands of leading global agencies and brands choose
Datorama for their marketing intelligence and analytics.
Thousands of Marketers Use Datorama
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The right information. Every
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A successful MPO strategy means having comprehensive, real-time
visibility of all marketing campaigns and programs - from online
advertising to PR buzz - and taking action.

T O O L B O X
The LinkedIn tools, tips and tricks every sophisticated marketer should have
B2B Marketing Hot or Not
Are you dropping the right subjects onto team meeting agendas? Spending time slotting
the right platforms into your strategy? Making the right cultural references? Leveraging the right
LinkedIn tools and techniques? Decorating your office with the right stuff?
It’s tough balancing on the cutting edge of B2B.Our temperature gauge for sophisticated marketers is here to help:
HOT NOT
Content brands
Negroni cocktails
Nike
The elderberry detox
Audio branding
Panel
discussions
Overly 'creative'
spectacles
Siloed learning
Skiing injuries
Dictatorial
best practice
Secret pay
packages
Data-free personas
Hoverboards
Luxury team-building
experiences
Open plan offices
Mulled cider
Outdated
statistics
Biohacking
Corduroy
Sales enablement
strategies
Pets at work
Cryptocurrency
applications
Soft skills
Flexible
working
Audio Books
Flexitarianism
Employer
branding
BMX

T O O L B O X
Putting your
objectives
at the heart
of the LinkedIn
advertising
experience
THE MOST EFFECTIVE CAMPAIGNS HAVE CLEAR OBJECTIVES
FOR DIFFERENT STAGES OF THE MARKETING FUNNEL, whether
that’s building awareness, driving engagement and consideration, or
translating that consideration into leads and conversions. Focusing on
the role a particular piece will play doesn’t just inform your creative
approach. It drives every aspect from the format you choose to the
targeting you leverage and the way that you bid.That’s why we’ve
redesigned the LinkedIn Campaign Manager interface to organize the
experience around the results you want to achieve.
We launched the Objective-Based Advertising experience as a Beta
test in November, and it’s now available whenever you set up a new
campaign through Campaign Manager.When you choose a marketing
objective, Campaign Manager streamlines your options for creative
formats to show those that suit the objective best. Once you’ve defined
your target audience or uploaded your own data through Matched
Audiences, it suggests automated bid amounts to achieve your goals
most efficiently, and forecasts the likely results against the metrics that
are most relevant.
LinkedIn is here to help you deliver on the objectives that matter
to your business.These updates to Campaign Manager will get our
platform working harder on what’s important to you.
NEW WAYS TO
BUILD YOUR
COMMUNITY
WITH LINKEDIN
PAGES
BUSINESSES THRIVE THROUGH COMMUNITIES:
OF CUSTOMERS, EMPLOYEES, PARTNERS AND MORE.
We’ve designed the new LinkedIn Pages to act as the hub of
your professional community on our platform. Here are five
features to help keep you connected to everyone that matters:
1. POST AND RESPOND FROM ANYWHERE
You can now post updates and respond to comments on the go,
using the LinkedIn app on your smartphone.
2. ADD HASHTAGS TO STAY ON TOP
OF THE CONVERSATION
Associate your LinkedIn Page with relevant hashtags and we’ll
keep you informed about the LinkedIn conversations you want to
be a part of.
3. SHARE CONTENT IN ANY FORMAT
In addition to video, copy and images, you can now share
PowerPoint decks,Word documents and PDFs.
4. KNOW WHAT YOUR AUDIENCE WANTS
We’ve built our new Content Suggestions feature to alert you to
the content your target audience is engaging with, so you can
target their hot topics.
5. AMPLIFY YOUR EMPLOYEES’ VOICES
Your employees can be your biggest advocates on LinkedIn.With
the new LinkedIn Pages, you’ll get alerts when they post about
your business, so you can help amplify the conversation.
5

1KEEP REFINING YOUR
CUSTOMER PROFILE
Acloseddealisn’tjustacloseddeal.It’salsoanewpiece
of data.Gobackoveryourbiggestrecentcloses,lookforcommon
characteristics,andfocusonfindingsimilar-lookingprospects.
2NURTURE THE CONNECTORS
IN YOUR NETWORK
Warm introductions can make a big difference
when reaching out to prospects,so take some time to identify
the connections that can introduce you to the highest number of
relevant prospects.Invite them for coffee or find a favor that
you can do for them,and build that relationship.
7 simple tips for
sales reps on
using LinkedIn
SALES TEAMS ARE OFTEN FIRED UP BY AMBITIOUS MILESTONES
AND STRETCHING TARGETS – not just their quotas for the year, but
the commitments they make to themselves to work longer hours, book
more meetings and close bigger deals. In among those big goals, it’s
worth making time for some subtler changes. Here are seven simple
ideas for how sales reps can get more out of LinkedIn:
3BROADEN YOUR RANGE OF
SITUATIONAL TRIGGERS
Scan your newsfeed for relevant signals of opportunity:
not just job title changes but recent funding events, acquisitions, or
evidence that a business might have missed a KPI.
4MAKE A PERSONAL CONNECTION
Do you share an interest with a promising prospect? Is
theresomethinginyoursharedbackgroundthat’srelevanttothe
rolethey’rein?DoyouhaveaviewonLinkedInpoststhey’vecommentedon?
Ahumanconnectionisinvaluable,provideditfeelsauthentic.
5PERSONALIZE YOUR INMAIL
SUBJECT LINES
Personalized email subject lines generate a 58% higher click-
to-open rate, and a similar dynamic plays out on InMail. Don’t just settle
for dropping a name into your greeting. Reference their circumstances, a
recent post or a mutual connection.
6BE MORE DEMANDING OF YOUR DATA
Make 2019 the year you hold your data to a higher
standard. Importing CRM data direct from the Deals feature
in LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a great place to start.
7GET STRATEGIC ABOUT
CONTENT CURATION
Curating content on LinkedIn is a simple, powerful tactic
for signaling your credibility, and commitment to your sector.
In the new Campaign Manager
interface,you’ll be able to choose
your objective first,and then
forecast results against the most
relevant metrics.

T O O L B O X
1TARGETING SALES’ SAVED CONTACTS
THROUGH CAMPAIGN MANAGER
You’llsoonbeabletouseyoursalesteams’SalesNavigatorcontacts
as a target audience segment in Campaign Manager, nurturing
them with relevant marketing messages to help move them
throughtothe close.Whenwepilotedthiscontacttargetingfeature,
it increased InMail response rates by 20%,views of a company’s
LinkedIn Page by 196% and seller profile views by 94%.
2IDENTIFYING DECISION-MAKERS
AND INFLUENCERS WITH THE BUYER
CIRCLE FEATURE
The Buyer’s Circle feature within LinkedIn Sales Navigator
helps sales reps and their managers align on the key people
influencing a buying decision,and co-ordinate outreach efforts.
WE’REROLLINGOUTANEWGENERATIONOFTOOLStohelpconnecttheexperiencesof marketersusingLinkedInCampaignManager
and sales teams using LinkedIn Sales Navigator.Here are some of the highlights to watch out for over the next couple of months:
Your checklist for integrating organic
and paid marketing on LinkedIn
BUILD A COMPELLING
ORGANIC PRESENCE
Start with your LinkedIn Page,posting
regularupdatesthatleveragerichimagery,videoand
PDFsandcallingoutrelevantpartieswith@mentions.
Encourage your experts,Execs and employees
topostcontent in different formats,sharing and
amplifyingfromyourpage.Then build an employee
advocacy program to boost reach further.
BOOST REACH AND
ENGAGEMENT WITH
PAID ADVERTISING
Sponsor the organic content that resonates
with a particular group,and use LinkedIn
targeting to maximize reach and engagement
withinthattargetaudience.SponsoredContent
and Sponsored InMail are both effective
vehiclesforscalingcontent’simpactinthisway.
CLOSE THE LOOP WITH INSIGHTS
TheContentSuggestionsfeaturewillkeepyou
informedaboutthecontentyourtargetaudience
isengagingwith,sothatyoucanplanyourongoingorganic
andpaidcontentwiththosehottopicsinmind.
WITH THE RATE AT WHICH LINKEDIN MEMBERS ENGAGE WITH CONTENT IN THE FEED DOUBLING YEAR-ON-YEAR, there’s never been a better time
to amplify and refine your paid marketing campaigns through a smart, organic strategy.Whether your budgets are limited or not, finding the right balance
between organic and paid will help to make sure you get the most from them. Here’s your quick, three-part checklist to help ensure you’re getting that
balance right, and gearing up your LinkedIn marketing to deliver results as efficiently as possible:
Want more inspiration on balancing paid and organic
on LinkedIn?You’ll find it in our Paid and Organic
Playbook at https://lnkd.in/organicpaid
3QUANTIFYING OPPORTUNITY WITH THE
ACCOUNT READINESS SCORE
Sales Navigator now includes an Account Readiness score that tracks engagement
with marketing content by key teams within a target account, and helps identify the
right moments for sales to engage.
4ALERTS FOR ALL POTENTIAL BUYING TRIGGERS
AlertsinSalesNavigatornowkeepsalesteamsinformedwhenevertheircontactsengage
withmarketingcontent.Italsoalertsthemwhencontactsmoveroles,whenatargetcompany
raisesfunding,orwhentheirprocurementteamstartscheckingyourpricing.
5USING LINKEDIN DATA TO KEEP YOUR CRM UPDATED
LinkedIn Data Validation matches your CRM contacts to LinkedIn profiles and
alerts you when they’ve left the business. It quickly delivers the clean, robust database
you need for more effective sales and marketing orchestration.
Five tools
to help drive
greater sales
and marketing
alignment

Celebrating five years of
Believeitornot,it’sbeenfiveyearssincewefirstintroducedtheB2B
marketingworldtoTheSophisticatedMarketer.
THE SOPHISTICATED MARKETER
IT ALL BEGAN WITH
THE SOPHISTICATED
MARKETER’S GUIDE TO
LINKEDIN, the ultimate
guide to everything marketers in 2013 needed to know about using
LinkedIn to achieve their objectives.We’ve updated The Sophisticated
Marketer’s Guide every year since.We’ve also expanded our
Sophisticated Marketer brand to give advice on every aspect of B2B
marketing through eBooks, podcasts, events, our in-depth Sessions
masterclasses – and this magazine! It’s helped to transform the
visibility of LinkedIn content, but the most satisfying thing about our
Sophisticated Marketer journey is the difference we know it’s been
making to B2B marketers out there.
We’d like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your support,
and to promise that we’ll keep on going all-out to deliver valuable,
original and sophisticated content for you going forward.
Clockwise from top: the
original Sophisticated
Marketer’s Guide to LinkedIn
is updated regularly to keep
it relevant,this magazine
is part of the Sophisticated
Marketer family along with
Guides,Sessions and our
long-runing Podcast.

SURPRISING STATS ABOUT THE
UNDERAPPRECIATED POWER OF
LinkedIn’s VP Marketing Solutions Penry Price introduces the latest research by Edelman and LinkedIn
into the influence of thought leadership on buying decisions. Here’s a clue: it’s greater than you think.
Thought Leadership
T O O L B O X
F
or the second year, LinkedIn and Edelman have partnered
to explore how thought leadership can be leveraged by B2B
businesses to accelerate growth and sustain long-lasting customer
relationships. Our survey of more than 1,200 buyers, marketers
and sales professionals in North America and Europe has a clear finding:
B2B brands continue to underutilize thought leadership, and don’t fully
appreciate the impact it has on driving demand, shaping perceptions,
and closing deals.There’s a gap between B2B buyers and those targeting
them when it comes to the value attached to thought-leadership content,
and if anything, that gap is growing.The bottom line is that buyers often
value this type of content far more than those creating it.
The key findings of the study:
1. Decision-makers are reading more thought leadership.This year’s survey
found that 58% of respondents read one or more hours of thought leadership
per week.That’s eight percentage points higher than last year’s survey.
2. More than half of respondents (55%) said they use thought leadership to
vet organizations they may hire.
3. Thought leadership enables access to high-value decision-makers.
Almost half (47%) of C-suite executives said they have shared their contact
information after reading thought leadership. Ironically, only 39% of sellers
said they believe thought leadership helps with lead generation.
4. Thought leadership generates RFPs (Request for Proposal).Almost half of
decisionmakers(45%)saidtheyinvitedaproducerof thought-leadershipcontent
to bid on a project when they had not previously considered the organization.
5. Thought leadership leads directly to sales.Almost 60% of business
decision makers said that thought leadership directly led to their awarding
of business to an organization.Just 26% of sellers believe that thought
leadership can lead directly to closed-won deals.
6. Thought leadership creates pricing power. More than 60% of the C-suite
said they were more willing to pay a premium to companies that create
thought leadership with a clear vision. However, only 14% of sellers believe
their thought leadership creates pricing power.
7. Thought leadership can also drive growth with existing customers. More
than half (55%) of business decision makers said they had increased the
business they do with an organization based on their thought leadership.
Similarly, 60% of decision makers said thought leadership convinced them
to buy a product or service they were not previously considering.
The trend that we see in the LinkedIn-Edelman study should really settle the
question of whether content can make a tangible contribution to the bottom
line. B2B buyers aren’t just open to thought leadership influencing their
shortlists, RFPs and vendor selection.They crave a standard of content that’s
worthy of doing so.The challenge is to make sure you deliver it.
7

T O O L B O X
ANNOTATED
MARKETING
AND CAREER
ADVICE (WITH THE
OCCASIONAL PUN)
FROM ANN
HANDLEY
ASKING
FOR A FRIEND
Ann is a
Wall Street Journal
bestselling author and
the Chief Content Officer
of MarketingProfs
www.annhandley.com
for more
Punk Block
Big-Org Bottleneck asks (for a friend):
Howdoyouovercomeproblemsgettinggreatcontent
outthedoorinalargeorganization?
Dear Bottleneck
This is a common issue in big companies, where
no one team handles it all from idea to creation
to execution and follow-up. One team builds
a gorgeous piece of content and then hands it
off to another for the final mile of campaign
distribution... only to have priorities change
and that great work be sidelined, abandoned,
cast out. Ugh.
What happened here? The problem comes
down to that dirty four-letter word:
S-I-L-O. And the antidote is to build
better alignment among teams.
It’s easy for me to say, comfort-
ably ensconced as I am within the
perfect-world pages of this column.
But it’s tough to do. I get that.
Here are some steps to get closer to
the holy grail of a cooperative, cross-func-
tional, un-siloed company:
Get buy-in earlier than you think it’s needed.
Share the strategic goals that underpin
your content program early. Frame the
conversation with shared business objec-
tives, not your Marketing-centric point of view:
How does this further our shared company
vision set by leadership?

Want more top tips for getting the most from
LinkedIn targeting? Join our Sophisticated
Marketer’s Session on Finding your Ideal Audience
How early...? Way before a piece of bouncing baby content actually
arrives. And way before it’s a twinkle in your eye.
Build cross-functional relationships BEFORE you need something.
From formal (kickoff meetings; regular check-ins; progress updates) to
informal (coffee in the caf; Thirsty Thursday meetups).
Sincerely seek to understand what challenges they have that you can
help with, too. Or, at the very least, listen. Alliances with other teams are
also useful in tag-team co-managing higher-ups.
Shine light on your process. Seek input. Ask what the other teams need
from you at every step of the way. Doing so invests others in a small way
in your progress.
If you’ve done all this only to be blindsidedly blocked, then you could
always try the following terrible ideas:
A last-ditch attack meeting with the uncooperative team.
Block the door. Bring a dozen donuts. Don’t let
them out until they agree with you.
Go rogue and sneak-release it through a well-chosen
internal influencer. Conjure up mock outrage and
claim no knowledge of release: HOW DID THIS HAPPEN!!!
Okay, maybe not so wise, but some days all you can do
is laugh. Know you didn’t fail: you’re just mired in a
no-win situation. Take comfort. Move along.
Direct Respect
Sick of Being Disrespected asks (for a friend):
As an MBA student who worked in marketing for years,
I keep hearing fellow students telling me that they
found the well-paying position of Finance harder than
they thought, so they’re switching focus to the “easier”
Marketing. What actions can we take to break the
stigma that marketing is easy, not a business necessity,
and deserving of a lower salary?
Dear Disrespected
Marketing has a marketing problem, as my friend and
B2B marketer Michael Brenner says. You get no respect
when you’re seen as just a go-between for pricey
agencies making massive media buys.
How can you counter that, in a cocktail-party-sized
clip? Here’s a script:
“Marketing has changed because the world has.
Technology now provides real-time access and an
overwhelming amount of information about any
company, and what people think of it.
“In the most successful companies, Marketing
owns the relationships with would-be customers
well before Sales gets a whiff of them, which is why
content and storytelling are so critical. Post-sale, it’s
Marketing that drives renewals and retention.
“Marketers change minds and change behavior.
And then Marketers continue to communicate with
customers to align them with a brand, so that they’ll
continue to love us, recommend us, and spend
money with us.”
Say all that. And then get right up in their grill
and drop your voice to a threatening whisper:
“That doesn’t sound like something unimportant
and trivial. Does. It?”
Sweet Wave
Sweet on the C-Suite asks (for a friend): What is
the single best practice that can help B2B brands
(and their content creators) cut through the noise
and reach the C-suite?
Dear Sweetie
First, what doesn’t work: sending email after email
asking for a meeting to tell me about the benefits
of this solution that will change the way my whole
team works and click this Calendly link to schedule
a time. If I don’t hear back, I’ll email you 47 more
times in the next 3 weeks... (No, I don’t want to
meet for coffee. No, I don’t want my brain picked.)
But Sweetie: That’s not you. Which is why you
asked this question. So here’s the answer:
There is no single best practice—just like there’s
never really one size fits all. (Even socks come in
different sizes.) But here are a few ideas:
Are you following your favorite execs on
Twitter? Instagram? LinkedIn?
Are you commenting on and sharing whatever
they produce?
Are you doing it in a genuine, thoughtful way?
Ionceagreedtogoonanobscurepodcastproduced
by a very small vendor only because the host took
time to get to know me as a person. I liked him. I
trusted him. And, in the end, I wanted to help him.
People do business with people they trust. So
cliché. So true. And not heeded nearly enough.
All of us can smell an inauthentic opportunist a
mile away—even those of us in the C-suite.
Sign up for Ann’s newsletter at AnnHandley.
com/Newsletter, and keep an eye on the
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions Page for our
next call for questions at https://lnkd.in/
linkedin-marketing-solutions

L O N G F O R M
THE SOPHISTICATED MARKETER:
Why is MSO so important at the moment?
JUSTIN SHRIBER:
Because, ultimately, it creates a better customer experience
and if customers are happy they’re much more inclined to
do business with you, not just initially but over the long term.
Once a team has come together and said, “These are the
accounts that we’re going to focus on, here are the personas
that comprise the buying committee, and here’s the strategy
that we’re going to execute,” then you actually get into the
process of reaching out to those customers and creating that
experience.
When marketing and sales can completely align on that
process, amazing things happen. On the front end, a marketer
could reach out and send a cold email and that may or may not
get traction. But if the target audience is connected via social
platforms to people at your business, those connections could
send content and information via the feed that’s going to be
relevant. And because there’s already a trusted relationship
there, the impact of that content is going to be much greater.
Now, let’s imagine you progress through the process and
now you’re trying to close a deal. Traditionally, people have
thought, “this is the work of sales, marketing doesn’t need to
engage.” But what if the person I’m talking to in procurement is
also getting content delivered from marketing that says, “Here
What is Marketing and Sales Orchestration?
JUSTIN SHRIBER:
I would say that Marketing and Sales Orchestration (MSO)
is the logical extension of Account-Based Marketing (ABM),
which is a term most of us are familiar with. ABM has definite
strengths, and it’s reshaped thinking around going to market.
However, it’s also got a downside. In the acronym, ‘A’ stands for
‘Account’ and ‘M’ stands for ‘Marketing.’ However, we know
that ultimately, decisions aren’t made at an account level.
They’re made at a buyer committee level. If you’re selling to
General Electric, for example, you could be calling into any
number of different buyer committees to get deals done. We
also know that marketing is only half the equation. Sales is
the other half. With MSO, we’re looking to zero in on who the
decision-makers really are, and create an orchestrated experi-
ence between sales and marketing to deliver the goods.
With ABM, what often happens is that all of the account
prioritization happens with sales. Marketing gets a phone
call: “Hey, here are the accounts in our sales strategy, can you
guys put some ABM against this as well?” And so it’s still a very
separate process, albeit focused on the account.
The key to MSO is that the teams work together to create a
prioritized list of accounts from an integrated data set. Then they
identify the buyer committee and build a strategy to access them.
LinkedIn’s Vice President of Marketing for Sales and Marketing Solutions,
Justin Shriber,shares the latest insights on the techniques bringing the two disciplines
closer together: building sales peoples’ brands,closing deals faster and taking
Account-Based Marketing (ABM) to the next level:
SALES AND
MARKETING
The secrets of
orchestration

L O N G F O R M
are a couple ofcase studies that talk about other
companies like you, and the benefit they’ve
achieved.” You’re reinforcing now what the
salesperson is trying to talk about as they are
negotiating the deal. It all feels very seamless,
with marketing and sales both playing a
part to achieve a greater end. When
you have greater integration at
these touchpoints, you see
sales cycle times reduce, and
conversion rates increase.
THE SOPHISTICATED
MARKETER:
One of the challenges for
sales reps is knowing what
to do once they’ve had the
initial meeting. Is this an area
where Marketing can
contribute more?
JUSTIN SHRIBER:
This is another point where marketing and sales working
together can do things better. A salesperson gets that first
meeting, it goes great, but the classic question is always,
“where do I go from here? How do I continue to engage with
the customer and progress that relationship?” Marketers can
help if they have genuinely data-driven personas, includ-
ing data on the kinds of content that specific personas are
latching onto. They can come to the salesperson with that
next step: some great, relevant content that they can send on.
Salespeople want marketers who don’t just produce content,
but are able to explain when it’s relevant and to whom it’s
relevant. They know that extra piece of sales thinking in
marketing gives them a tremendous advantage.
How can sales reps make sure that they are connecting
on a human level—and how can marketers help?
JUSTIN SHRIBER:
The relationship needs to start even before that first email or
InMailgoesout.It’sgreattopersonalizethatapproach,butwhat
we’re finding is that’s not enough. Increasingly, a buyer checks
out the profile of the salesperson before they decide wheth-
er or not to respond. We always knew that salespeople were
looking at profiles of buyers, but it’s a bit of a surprise to some
people that buyers follow the same strategy. When they check
a seller’s profile, they’re looking for a couple of things. Number
one: is this salesperson demonstrating they have expertise
that’s relevant to
me? Have they
shown over time
that they are willing
to provide service
to their custom-
ers? Can I see, for
example, an ongoing
history of engagement
on key topics that I care
about? Can I see thought-
ful responses? Can I see a set of
resources that are meaningful to me? If, as a sales-
person, I reach out and send a great personal-
ized email to you, but then when you hit my profile
youseethatit’sjustabillboardforhowgreatIam,it’sgame
over. I’ve already disqualified myself.
On the other hand, the reps that view the profile as a
resource center to help customers benefit from this new trend.
When you visit those profiles and see what’s going on, you’re
thinking, “wow this person is legit, they are authentic, they
are really here to serve. And I can see based on this wealth
of content that they’ve built up over time on their profile that
they mean to partner with me.” There’s an important role for
marketing in providing the type of relevant resources and
content that can build these kind of LinkedIn profiles.
We’ve been noticing more sellers making use of video on
LinkedIn. What are the benefits of doing this?
JUSTIN SHRIBER:
There’s a demographic shift happening, in that
the way people consume information is becoming
much more video-centric. And because of that sales
organizations that adopt that platform are going to be in a
much better position to create and build authentic relation-
ships. They can use video to connect with customers and
share value propositions in a way that’s more compelling.
The Head of Sales for our LinkedIn Marketing Solutions
business has a video series that he has called, Walk to Work.
As he’s walking to work he pulls his iPhone out and records
himself sharing things that are top of mind for him. He has
generated a huge follower base through this. He’s not talking
about our solutions and why you should buy them. He’s
talking about things that a salesperson is thinking about and
cares about. Because he’s willing to show that part of himself,
and because people get to know the person behind the ideas,
he’s already generating a relationship that he can build on
when it comes time to do business with a customer.
WHEN MARKETERS
EXPLAIN WHO
CONTENT IS
RELEVANT FOR AND
WHY,THAT’S A BIG
ADVANTAGE

S o p h i s t i c a t e d M a r k e t e r 8S o p h i s t i c a t e d M a r k e t e r 5

WHAT DO EVENTS HAVE THAT DIGITAL MARKETING
STRATEGIES DON’T?
As marketers, it’s important to ask ourselves why this is the
case. Why does a marketer working in events often have a
more positive relationship with sales than one working on
digital marketing campaigns? And what can we learn from
the relationship between events and sales when it comes to
driving closer alignment across the business as a whole?
It’s tempting for marketers to put sales people’s preference
foreventsdowntopersistentstereotypesabouttheircolleagues:
they are extroverts who like the limelight, love entertaining, and
only value marketing when it leads to an obvious and immedi-
ate sales opportunity. However, these stereotypes are wide of
the mark. There are valid reasons why sales teams find it easier
to get enthusiastic about events—and harder to get enthusiastic
about your digital marketing strategy.
WHY INTERNAL MARKETING NEEDS A HIGHER PRIORITY
The first is visibility. Events are high-profile projects and they
make it easy for sales stakeholders to see exactly what you’re
doing for them. As digital marketers, most of our activity
doesn’t have these natural awareness levels.
Selling the concept of an event to sales was easy because I was
always talking about objectives and benefits that had obvious
relevancetothem:aself-selectedaudienceofinterestedprospects,
the opportunity to demonstrate products, have a lot of relevant
conversations in a short space of time, and close deals. Digital
marketing strategies, in contrast, tend to be a few steps removed
from the results that sales are really interested in. That means we
havetoworkthatbithardertotieouractivitytotheirtargets.
CUTTING OUT THE JARGON AND INVITING
COLLABORATION EARLY
The vocabulary of digital marketing doesn’t help. In my first
presentations, sales colleagues would often pull me up for
using jargon that didn’t have a clear meaning and value. They
didn’t want to hear about Google Analytics or my Google
What events
can teach digital
marketers
about
alignment
with
sales
I
Siobhan Waters on how an events approach
can help marketers sell their digital marketing
strategies to sales colleagues more effectively
recently celebrated a year as a digital marketing
manager at LinkedIn—and it’s a role I’ve loved. I’m part
ofagreatteamwithanopportunitytomakearealimpact
to the success of our business. My work is constant-
ly interesting, and it’s helping me to build my hybrid
marketer skills across a range of different areas. But
there’s one thing that I found I missed in my new role compared
to my old one: my relationship with sales.
You see, I spent my first year and a half at LinkedIn working in
eventmarketing.Andthere’snogettingawayfromthefactthatas
an event marketer, you have a very different relationship to sales
than you do as a digital marketer.
When I worked on events, sales team members were close-
ly involved with everything I did: generating ideas, offering to
present at the event, working with me on the invite list. When I
presented our strategy for an event to our reps, their eyes would
light up immediately. It was a great feeling. I remember the
first few occasions when I presented my new online marketing
strategy to my sales colleagues. Things couldn’t have been more
different. I couldn’t make it through a full presentation before
my audience started challenging and pushing back. Sometimes
I would struggle to get past the third slide.
L O N G F O R M

AdWords strategy; they wanted to know what my digital
marketing activity meant to them.
Because events were so closely related to sales objectives,
it was easy to get the sales team involved in the planning of
them. When I moved into digital marketing, I found that this
kind of instinctive collaboration wasn’t there. Because there’s
less shared understanding, digital marketers tend to invite less
input from sales—and sales are less active in making sugges-
tions. As a result, sales feel they are less invested in the digital
marketing strategy and have less control over it.
WHY SALES TEAMS TRUST EVENT MARKETING
LEADS MORE
The final key difference comes down to how different types
of marketing activity flow through into leads. At events, sales
reps on the stand meet people face-to-face, so they can qualify
leads first-hand. This gives them confidence in the leads they
walk away with from an event. Contrast that with the discus-
sions sales and marketing often have about lead quality, and
you understand why sales colleagues value events so highly.
Those are the reasons why I believe that digital marketing
struggles to have the same relationship to sales as events does.
If we want closer alignment between sales and marketing then
we have to address these factors. The question is, how?
TAKING AN EVENTS APPROACH TO SELLING
DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGIES
It starts with a more focused approach to internal market-
ing: developing a strategy for selling my strategy rather than
assuming my colleagues will simply buy into it. I’ve made
more of an effort to seek out opinions, feedback and content
ideas from sales early on in developing a marketing plan. I try
to relate everything I’m doing back to my sales teams’ targets,
and all my presentations now start with an executive summary
that explains why the success of a campaign matters.
We’ve started sharing our digital marketing campaigns
on an internal microsite, pre-launch, to ensure sales have
visibility. And we no longer expect our marketing results
to speak for themselves. Every two weeks, I sit down with
senior sales managers to review our funnel performance and
analyze the impact our activity has on both the quantity and
quality of leads.
Account-based marketing (ABM) represents another big
opportunity to involve sales colleagues in campaign planning.
Because we’re developing a list of target accounts together,
sales can have event-like levels of confidence in the value of
the opportunities we’re working towards.
There’s no point in digital marketers like me resenting sales’
apparent preference for events. It’s on us to identify the reasons
and work to close the gap. If anything, digital marketers can
point to stronger evidence of ROI and a longer and more
regularly flowing pipeline of leads than colleagues working
solely in events. We need to work out how to leverage these
assets more strongly.
If we get it right, then events will no longer stand out for the
enthusiasm they generate among sales. That’s because we’ll be
generating the same level of enthusiasm for everything we do.
SALES COLLEAGUES DIDN’T
WANTTO HEAR ABOUT GOOGLE
ANALYTICS; THEY WANTED TO KNOW
WHAT MY DIGITAL MARKETING
ACTIVITY MEANTTO THEM

You can’t enforce it through policies and procedures alone – if you want real sales
and marketing alignment, you have to work on professional chemistry
here’s one element of my job that fascinates
melikenoother.It’stheelementthatwillhave
the biggest influence over how effective I am
as a B2B marketer, but it’s also the element
whichcanneverbefullywithinmycontrol;it’s
the aspect of my job that’s perhaps the most
difficult to plan for and the most difficult to
measure. Which is why, over the last six months or so, I’ve chosen
tofocusmoreandmoreonsalesandmarketingalignment.
I’m a people person by nature. I love working with differ-
ent types of people, and I pride myself on the types of positive,
creative connections that I’m able to create. I’ve found myself
drawn to an area of the marketing experience where relation-
ships really, really matter. Sales and marketing alignment puts
a definite value on soft skills. The more we understand about it,
the clearer it is that professional chemistry between colleagues
hasadirectimpactonthebottomlineofthebusiness.LinkedIn’s
research shows that businesses with strong sales and marketing
alignment are 67% more effective at closing deals, 58% more
effective at retaining customers, and drive 208% more revenue
as a result of their marketing efforts.
All of which puts a premium on the ability to make that
chemistryhappen.Thenaturalinstinctofanysalesandmarket-
ing organization is to do this through policies and procedures.
You realize how valuable sales and marketing alignment can
be, so you design working practices to enforce it—like telling
two kids at school who have very little in common that they
have to work on a project together, and hoping that they will
instantly become best friends as a result.
L O N G F O R M
SALES AND MARKETING ALIGNMENT NEEDS
TO BE MORE THAN A POLICY
Thisinstinctisn’twrong;itcanbepartofthesolution.Themistake
that people tend to make is thinking that it’s the whole solution.
Telling sales and marketing that they need to play nicely, and
pointingouttherewillbetreatsandrewardsiftheydo,iscertainly
more helpful than leaving
them to go their separate
ways. However, it’s not the
way that authentic, endur-
ing and effective relation-
ships form.
As human beings, we
learn through life experi-
ence that relationships
take almost constant
work. They don’t just
happen once; they need to
keep happening: reinforc-
ing themselves through
common experiences, but also reinventing themselves to
reflect changing circumstances.
That’s why LinkedIn’s research into sales and market-
ing alignment proves there’s no single, foolproof formula for
making it work. There’s no instruction manual you can follow
to produce a perfectly aligned sales and marketing organiza-
tion every time. But, my own experience convinces me that
there are mechanisms you can put in place to enable the
constant evolution that all human relationships need.
The truth about
smarketing
W0RDS BY GRACE MACDONALD
T
There’s no
instruction
manual for
a perfectly
aligned sales
and marketing
organization
THAT THE PLAYBOOKS
WON’T TELL YOU

HOW TO MAKE PROFESSIONAL CHEMISTRY HAPPEN
You can’t take the human factor out of sales and market-
ing alignment, but you can design the moments that enable
people’s capacity for forming relationships. It’s a fine balanc-
ing act between creating an environment where colleagues
can find common ground and discover the value in working
together—and formalizing the whole thing to the extent that it
becomes routine and the spark vanishes.
Here are some of the tactics and techniques I’ve come
across that can contribute most to getting that balance right:
SHARED OBJECTIVES
Let’s start with a principle that most people working on sales
and marketing alignment will agree with: 52% of sales and
marketing professionals report that shared Key Performance
Indicators (KPIs) and objectives contribute to a more effective
working relationship between the two teams. It’s a no-brain-
er really: if you are literally working to the same goals then
the incentive for collaborating is a lot stronger than if you get
rewarded for slightly different results. If you’re serious about
the sales and marketing relationship try to identify the oppor-
tunities to align KPIs in this way. Done right, it’s the founda-
tion for sales and marketing seeing one another as comple-
mentary sets of skills working towards the same purpose. But
when this is missing, everything else is a struggle.
INTRODUCTIONS TO THE MARKETING TEAM FOR
EVERY NEW SALES REP – AND VICE VERSA
The onboarding process for any new hire sends a whole host
of coded signals about how the organization they are joining
really works. If a new sales rep’s experience only involves
meeting their sales colleagues and talking about sales objec-
tives, then they will draw their own conclusions about how
important working with marketing really is. Plan introduc-
tions to colleagues in both sales and marketing within the first
few days of a new hire joining—and make working together a
part of your employees’ experiences from the start.
ACONTENTCREATION PROCESSTHATSTARTSWITH SALES
This is probably one of the most important learnings for me
over the past few months. I’m closely involved in our content
planning and content creation process and I know that we
haven’t always integrated sales as closely into that process as
we would like.
This is a missed opportunity, because working together
on content is one of the most powerful professional bonding
experiences I know. It’s a great framework for sharing differ-
ent ideas and perspectives in a positive way with a valued
outcome. If the process incorporates both sales and market-
ing, it won’t just produce better and more varied content. It
will also deliver closer alignment between the two teams.
How can we integrate sales more fully into B2B content
creation? I’ve come to the conclusion that the best way is
to kick the whole process off with input from sales—and be
really open-minded about what this input might involve.
Sales colleagues spend the most time talking to customers
and prospects, so they’re plugged into the issues that your
audience cares about. Don’t restrict their contribution to ideas
around specific sales-related subjects. Ask them about all of
the potential content they’d like to see, and push them to share
what their contacts are talking to them about. Making this the
start of the content planning process sends a signal that sales’
contribution is valued. It also provides your marketing teams
with some great triggers for their own thinking.
YOUR MISSION: TO MAKE THE SALES TEAM FAMOUS
Making your sales colleagues famous should be a KPI for
any B2B marketing team. How can you increase the number
of posts that they publish, the impact of the comments they
make, and the engagement rate that they generate? How can
you make sure they are an active presence in the feed of their
connections? How can you increase their follower numbers?
This isn’t just about making your sales reps happy
(although that’s a definite side-benefit). It’s also about
recognizing how content flows through into value for the
business. When that
content builds the
profile and expertise
of your sales team,
when it enhances
trust and recogni-
tion, it’s increasing
the opportunity to
turn awareness and
consideration into
conversations that
can actually close a
deal. As a marketer, it
also gives you a real
incentive for under-
standing your sales
colleagues. The more
you can reflect their character, personality and passion in
the content that you help them create, the more original
and impactful that content is likely to be.
A SHARED RESOURCE CENTRE
Sharing the same resources and having access to the same
insights inevitably helps to build a shared view of the custom-
er journey. It puts you on the same page. It’s well worth the
effort of working with IT to remove any siloes and barriers to
making it happen.
L O N G F O R M
Working
together on
content is one
of the most
powerful
professional
bonding
experiences
I know

HAVING FUN TOGETHER
At the end of the day, the relationship between sales and
marketing is a relationship between human beings. It’s profes-
sional and focused on achieving shared outcomes, but that
doesn’t mean there’s no role for emotion in it. Make time for
your sales and marketing teams to have dinner together, go
out for drinks, play sport, explore new activities. It might seem
obvious, but it’s amazing how easy it can be to let these oppor-
tunities slide by.
WALKING IN ONE ANOTHER’S SHOES
I was very surprised when job swaps didn’t score more highly
in our research into sales and marketing alignment—with
only 14% of sales and marketing professionals agreeing that
these improve collaboration. I agree with Seth Godin that any
B2B marketer can benefit enormously from some experience
of working in sales. You’re a lot more considered and careful
with the promises that you make through marketing, when
you’ve had the responsibility of trying to keep those promises.
Walking in one another’s shoes doesn’t just help to improve
understanding between the two departments. It builds a
greater understanding of customers as well.
So why aren’t sales and marketing professionals more enthusi-
astic about job swaps? It’s a question that I think gets to the heart
of the balancing act with sales and marketing alignment. We may
have shared objectives but we don’t have shared skills; we aren’t
interchangeable. Smart marketers and sales people alike value the
differences between the two teams and the complementary roles
that they play. Any relationship depends on this type of mutual
respect. I think the push back against job swaps is, to some extent,
adefenseoftheimportantdifferencesbetweenthetworoles.
Rather than job swaps, I’d suggest job shadowing. It’s far
more collaborative, and puts more emphasis on shared experi-
ences and talking with sales colleagues to understand the
experiences they are going through. Rotating people between
departments won’t magically deliver better collaboration. It’s
only spending meaningful time together working towards
common goals that can do that. When it comes to designing a
framework for better sales and marketing alignment, it’s these
experiences that you need to prioritize.

eallknowyoucan’thityourtargetifyouraimisoff.
Yet many B2B organizations are far from the mark
because their marketing and sales teams are
misalignedwhenitcomestotheirtargetaudience.
In a 2018 survey by InsideView, shared data on
target accounts was tied first as the biggest challenge to
sales and marketing alignment, up from fourth place two years
before,andindicatingarapidlygrowingissue.Only24%oforgan-
izationshaveanagreeddefinitionoftargetsegmentsoraccounts.
Aligning around a target audience is a vital first step in better
attracting, engaging, and converting the accounts and individ-
uals that matter most to your business. If marketing is chasing
down one audience and sales is focused on another, the result
is wasted effort and missed opportunities. It’s also important to
agree on the ideal customer so everyone understands how and
why the target audience chooses to purchase. This understand-
ing ensures everyone is speaking the same language and telling
the same story as they interact with prospective customers.
WHAT GETS IN THE WAY?
This all seems pretty straightforward, right? So why is it so
difficult for sales and marketing to arrive at a shared view of
the target audience?
Most of the time, sales and marketing don’t even speak the
same language in terms of buyer movement. Sales talks about
pipelines, while marketing talks about funnels.
Dig down and the language barriers translate into differ-
ent approaches. Marketing goes for broad groups like “fleet
managers in Germany” or “CIOs in large manufacturing
firms.” Sales thinks in terms of accounts, individuals and
specific geography. So, while sales sees Reinhard from
Leipzig, marketing sees that “fleet manager who lives in a
medium-sized city in Saxony.”
LinkedIn data shows that, for the average B2B organization,
W
there’s just a 23% overlap between the target audiences for sales
and marketing. How can marketing and sales close more deals
faster if they’re not even going after the same people?
Naturally marketing is going to cast a wider net because it’s
charged with generating awareness and leads. But ideally, sales’
targetlistshouldfallsquarelyinthemiddleofmarketing’starget
list. Typically it’s on the outskirts, or even in the next town.
DATA DISCONNECTS
This disconnect can be traced back to the different foundation-
al systems that marketing and sales use to store and manage
critical prospect and customer-related data. Marketing relies
on a marketing automation system while sales relies on a sales
automation system (i.e. CRM).
Organizations invest to integrate these systems. However,
integration often only accelerates the lead handoff from
marketing to sales. It doesn’t make it easier for marketing and
sales to share accurate, complete data about their buyers.
HOW TO ALIGN ON TARGET AUDIENCE
There are four key stages to busting through the roadblocks
that prevent a shared view of target audience:
1. Think Users, Decision Makers and Influencers
First you need to pinpoint the typical stakeholders involved in
purchasing your solution. If you’ve already sold your solution to a
significant number of companies, review your customer database
to identify who influenced the purchase, who made the ultimate
purchase decision, and who is using the solution. Then look for
common denominators like title or role. You can also leverage
analyst reports for these insights, and check competitor press
releasesandcasestudiestoseewho’squoted.
Megan Golden explains how to overcome one
of the most significant barriers to effective
sales and marketing alignment.
ALIGNING SALES
AND MARKETING
AROUND A
TARGET
AUDIENCE
L O N G F O R M

3. Map Solutions to Buyer Pain Points
Next, you need to clarify why the target audience should
choose you. Start by mapping your ideal customer’s most
pressing issues and challenges, then identify how your organ-
ization and product can address them.
Once you’ve gone through this exercise, compare your
product attributes and value to competitive offerings. Ideally
you want to focus on the differentiating features and benefits
that set you apart. Don’t forget that sometimes buyers choose
to stick with the status quo rather than purchase a solution.
Your positioning should address this option, too.
4. Regularly Update Target Audiences
Your target audience might shift as you release new products,
services,andfeatures.Theaudiencemakeupcouldchangeasnew
stakeholders get involved and existing ones drop off. There’s no
hard-and-fast, one-size-fits-all rule for how frequently you should
revisitandupdateyourtargetaudiencedefinitions.Regulardiscus-
sions between marketing and sales should help identify changes.
Otherwise, plan to review your target audience definitions every
sixmonthstomakesureyou’reontherighttrack.
PUTTING A SHARED TARGET
AUDIENCE TO WORK
Imagineinjectingallthattargetaudienceinformationintoyour
planning process, starting with account propensity modeling.
Based on closed deals, sales and marketing know the kinds of
companies that respond. Using lookalike algorithms, they can
identify more of those companies. At the account-planning
phase, they can apply their personas, and plan to engage those
buyer circles in a sophisticated way. A shared view of the target
audience helps marketing and sales understand what will best
influence buyers at various stages, and deliver it.
LinkedIn Website Demographics provide a great starting
point for building data-driven personas. Find out more at
https://lnkd.in/websitedemo
2. Create Buyer Personas
Marketing and sales both gather important details about
prospects as they interact with and observe them. They figure
out who’s responding to awareness campaigns, which roles are
engaging and when they get engaged in the process. They even
see the kind of content each role cares about and how best to
sequence it.
By combining and sharing these insights, both groups get a
more complete, realistic understanding of buyers’ behaviors,
preferences, interests, pains, and even opinions. In turn, both
teamscanbetteridentifyandengagethemostpromisingpotential
customers. You get a view of the Total Addressable Market (TAM),
notjustthosealreadyinyourCRMsystem.
Somekeyquestionstoaskwhenbuildingyourbuyerpersonas:
What are their most pressing issues?
What does their typical workday look like?
What is their decision-making process?
What are their purchase motivators?
What buying signals do they usually give off?
What information do they need at each stage
of the buying cycle?
Where do they get this information?
Who do they consult for advice?
What language do they use to describe
their challenges and goals?
What are their psychographics?
What are their specific demographics?

L O N G F O R M
THE ESSENTIAL
GUiDE TO
How LinkedIn can add value at the seven key stages of an ABM program
1SCORING AND
SELECTING TARGETS
A rigorous, relevant and scientific approach to prioritizing
your target accounts is the foundation of effective ABM.
It depends on an approach to account scoring that both
sales and marketing can believe in. Because ABM can
take different forms, from a completely bespoke 1:1
approach to a more scalable one, there’s value in establishing
different tiers of targets based on the size and immediacy of the
opportunity.A sales intelligence tool like LinkedIn Sales Navigator can
help provide the data to decide which accounts to target with different
levels of marketing attention, and ensure your progam is efficient.
Every B2B marketer has heard of the
value that an Account-Based Marketing
(ABM) program can deliver for their
business. However, the task of aligning
sales and marketing effectively around
the right priority accounts can seem
daunting, potentially something that’s
only within reach of larger businesses with
sophisticated analytics. Here’s why that
assumption is wide of the mark—and how
LinkedIn can add value in helping to get
any ABM program off the ground.
ACCOUNT-BASED
MARKETING
ON LINKEDIN

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