The Digital Leadership Summit 2019 held at Bangalore was a massive success, to say the least. With insights shared by leaders of the industry. Mr. Ishan Gupta - Agency Lead, New Business at LinkedIn shed light on how companies and B2C brands can use LinkedIn as a platform to grow their business and how leveraging on the LinkedIn network can help businesses. Let’s have a look at some of the key insights of the session.
New Customer Experiences
The linear supply models have become outdated in recent years. Customers today want a new and fresh experience while on the internet. According to recent statistics, almost 73% of members on the platform are ready to accept content which is consumer-centric. These users are keen to accept content that is B2C which also lifts the tag that LinkedIn is only a B2B platform or focuses only on B2B. This acceptance of B2C also makes the platform become the perfect environment for consumer brands to reach out to an audience with whom they can engage with while on the platform. Almost 98% of the existing advertisers believe that the platform is a great place to be on for engagement with consumers.
There is a significant amount of investment being made towards enhancing digital capabilities by brands. This includes creating a space for the brand within the digital ecosystem and making the brand visible to the consumers on various platforms. However, the most important part of the digitization of brands and businesses is customer experience. Good customer experience is very important for the brand and especially the in the digital space the digital customer experience is key to the success of the brand and as a result, almost 70% of the investments towards digitization of a brand or business goes towards creating a good customer experience.
Spending Capacity
LinkedIn is the largest platform with a global reach for professionals and it is with no doubt that the members of the platform are among the highest paid executives. One-fourth of the userbase of the platform belongs to the highest tax bracket. This also means that the spending capacity of one-fourth of the users is high enough for consumer brands and even luxury brands to target. Good digital customer experience is very important for a business and if the customer is satisfied with the digital experience more than 85% of the customers are willing to pay a premium of almost 16%. All this is possible only because of the good customer experience provided to a customer on a digital platform or marketplace.
Planning for the future
With almost a fourth of the user base being of the highest tax bracket, it is no surprise that the users will be planning for their future. This planning will also include investments of different kinds including investment in the securities market. One in seven users of the LinkedIn platform have invested their money in the market in the form of mutual funds. This makes for some very useful data for the mutual fund companies, and also gives them a clearer idea of their target group.
Meaningful Data
The data that is collected on the platform with the help of the userbase can help the B2C business. This data can be used for tailoring new products which can focus on a specific target group. The data helps in curating a buyer persona which makes it easier for companies to work on consumer products which can better suit the needs of the consumer. The average user of LinkedIn is on the platform for a specific reason and not just to browse or while away time which makes the platform different from social media platforms.
Targeting options
The best part of having an audience from a platform like LinkedIn is that audience engagement is really good. These audiences have been bucketed into various segments with the help of the new advertising platform.
Mass Affluent: There are more than 3 million mass affluent users on the platform. How the categorization of mass affluent works? Any individual having investible assets worth more than seventy lakh rupees is considered to be a mass affluent. This is the extent to which data can be narrowed down to for categorization purposes.
High Networth Individuals: This again is a very niche segment that can be used to target a certain category of individuals within the platform. The targetting of high net-worth individuals or HNI’s can be done by brands or businesses looking for clientele with a market offering that targets the niche markets.
Young and mobile: Brands, businesses and even jobs that target young and mobile people with the help of the new advertising platform. The target audience can be reached out to directly with the help of filtering in order to be target specific. This again helps in target specific marketing campaigns, this makes the campaign's cost effective as well as direct.
Function and Industry: With the help of the new platform it becomes easier to narrow down on a person or target group working at a specific function or hierarchy within a specific industry. Making the options to target consumers even more specific and enhancing the interaction with the targetted audience much faster and more effective. This then helps in getting a better return on investment making the initial investment purposeful for the business.
The tool for the platform is effective to the extent where a person or a group of potential consumers can be targetted based on the basis of the school attended by them. Making the search and targetting of consumers more effective to say the least.
With a rapid global shift towards digitization the digital customer experience of utmost importance for a business or a brand. A good digital experience for a customer helps the brand in attracting more customers while also having loyal customers. Engaging with the customers is important to help the brands understand their customers and the requirements in order to cater to the specific customer groups and their requirements.