When it’s time to target your prospects at scale, there is arguably no better platform than LinkedIn. It is well-known that LinkedIn is the best platform for targeting professionals in general, however, there is not a great deal of talk around the scale that LinkedIn provides.
Part of the reason that LinkedIn does not get the attention that it should is due to the convenience of its scaled applications. It is not easy to market at scale with LinkedIn. For instance, if you are trying to reach 1000 CFOs, you cannot simply type “CFO” into the search engine and spam away. You have to incorporate some detailed techniques in order to take full advantage of the features that LinkedIn has to offer.
First of all, job title targeting is perhaps the most inefficient way to market at scale on LinkedIn. It is the most used tactic, which means that marketing this way will increase competition and bring you higher CPC rates. Job title targeting is best used for precise marketing efforts, and this is exactly what scale is not.
If you are looking to market at scale, then you need to start with the Job Function search on LinkedIn. This is the search that will create the largest audience for you, although you will need to streamline and focus this audience in subsequent steps. For instance, if you are looking for digital marketers, you would need to drill down into the Job Function of “marketing.” Leaving your research at this step will potentially show your ad to many unqualified prospects, ballooning your costs with no results.
You may want to cross-reference your Job Function search with a Group Search. The majority of professionals who fill out profiles on LinkedIn do not join any groups. However, those who do are extremely interested in the topic. With these names in tow, you will have your core audience. People who join LinkedIn groups are also usually the most active individuals on the site. You are beginning to drill down into your audience list and find the people who are the most relevant to your marketing efforts.
If you find that Job Function targeting does not give you a good cross-reference after drilling down into groups, you may reverse course and try a Skills targeting campaign. These audiences are large and self-selected, which may actually benefit your campaign in the long run. The stated job title of an individual may not always coincide with the responsibilities of that individual in a company. Using Skills as your target, you will identify people from their real position in the company, not just their job title.
Ideally, you are looking for an audience between 25,000 and 50,000 people. LinkedIn tells companies to go with an audience greater than 300,000, but most case studies have determined that this is too large. Consider also that LinkedIn has a bona fide interest in seeing you advertise to as many people as possible. With a max audience of 50,000 people, you can more easily track the results of your campaign. You will also be able to more easily break up this audience into smaller buyer profiles.
