Welcome to Episode 301. Our first episode since Episode 300, and the live show. If you missed the live show, well where have you been? You can catch it over at thestaceyharris.com/episode300. You can also see the sneak preview into the new website for Hit the Mic Backstage and all of that good stuff. Today, I’m so excited as a little celebratory gift to myself I upgraded the microphone. We are on the new Rode Podcaster mic today. This will be the mic moving forward on the show. Really, really excited about it, just got it earlier today. I’m really amped. It’s going to be a lot of fun upgrading this new one because I’m kind of into the gear stuff. As much as I say you guys don’t have to have fancy gear, it’s fun to have it.
We’re going to talk about LinkedIn Ads today. Let us jump into that.
Because it’s Friday I’ve got three things that you must know. Today it is three things you must know about LinkedIn Ads. Here’s the deal.LinkedIn Ads are well awesome, however, they don’t tend to get as much attention as say Facebook Ads. For a lot of you, you’re leaving some money on the table by glossing over LinkedIn Ads, especially for those of you who are working business to business, especially those of you who are looking for consulting with high-level clients off corporate speaking gigs, things like that. Health coaches who want to be a part of some of the corporate wellness plans, LinkedIn can be a great way to get in front of those types of people. I want you to pay attention to LinkedIn ads, especially this time of year we’re getting ready to go into October at the end of next week. In fact, a week from today is the last day of September.
Quarter four is very much upon us. When that happens and I talked about this recently in another episode, Facebook Ads can get a little spendy and you just want more competition. Linkedin Ads, however, are not that way. When Facebook gets crowded, Linkedin is a great place to go. Again, especially if you’re in the B to B space. If you’re selling coaching or consulting or corporate speaking or you want to be part of a corporate wellness plan, you’re trying out marketing stuff or social media stuff, whatever it is you teach and you speak about and you coach and you provide information, you provide services. I know we have a lot of freelancers who listen to this show. This is a good way to get in front of those peeps. There’s a couple of things I want you to pay attention to but the first thing I want you to know this can be a really great alternative Facebook ad. One bit of pushback before I move into the second thing I get from people is that sometimes their LinkedIn Ads are a little more expensive and I’m not going to dispute that.
Sometimes Linkedin Ads you will see a higher cost per click, however, I find that those clicks convert at a higher frequency. I may be paying a little bit more for the click but when I get the click it converts. That’s worth it to me. I end up making more on the back end even if I’m paying a little bit more on the front end. That’s something to consider.
Number two thing I want you guys to know about Linkedin ads, just like Facebook, just like Pinterest, just like Instagram, just like Twitter, just like any kind of marketing period you need to know who you’re talking to and you need to target those people from the perspective of that’s going to influence what your copy is to the perspective of that is what’s going to influence what your graphics are. To the perspective of literally who are you going to put these ad in front of?
Your targeting matters. If you see that your ads aren’t getting in front of anybody, double check who you’re targeting. Make sure that it’s wide enough that there are actually people in that window and make sure it’s tight enough that it’s actually going to only in front of the people who are in the window you want to be talking to in the niche or niche or whatever you want to call it. Make sure you’re targeting those ideal clients. Going back to an example I kind of blew past earlier, especially this time of year, if you are a health coach and you’re looking to expand your business, maybe you want to open up some corporate space in your business, corporations are reevaluating their benefits packages and things like that right now. Maybe as you go into quarter one of next year they’d like to up their wellness package to their clients and that involves maybe bringing in some speakers or making a nutritionist available or a fitness expert or a meditation expert.
You might know a great way to serve those clients. Know who your clients are, target them, target ads and copy to them and do it right now because that’s when they’re paying attention to that. Knowing your targeting, knowing who you’re talking to, and then execute on that plan. Execute to that specific client and copy that connects to them and graphics that catch their eye. This is how ads happen and it’s not any different on LinkedIn than it is Facebook or anywhere else. Okay. Your targeting really is critical no matter what ads form you’re talking about. Again, you don’t want it to be too narrow. We also don’t want it to be too wide. You’ve got to find that sweet spot. Figure that out and you will be golden. But every ad you create before you figure that out is going to be frustrating because they’re not going to get the results you want. You’re not going to see the action, conversion, clicking, engagement, anything until you get that target down.
Figure that target out and execute on it over and over and over again. Realize that maybe different targets are going to need slightly different ads and so target those to them. Maybe you want to speak to entrepreneurs who are burned out coming to the end of this year and you want to pitch to them how to plan for a year without burnout next year, and then maybe another set of your clients is also about burnout but they’re employees. Maybe you’re talking to from a corporate wellness, you want to talk to corporation or maybe you want to talk to the employees themselves. Again, that’s three targets there. Pretty much the same place you’re trying to get them as far as information but you’re going to speak to each of those groups differently. All right. Your targeting matters. I really can’t overemphasis that enough. Targeting matters. All right.
We talked about how it’s a great alternative to Facebook ads, especially going into Q4. I’ll touch with targeting. I want to wrap it up with your goals. Here’s the deal. A lot of people tell me that Linkedin ads don’t work or Facebook ads don’t work. Then I ask them what they were trying to do. They’re like, “Oh, I created an ad and then I sent them to this opt in and now I won’t be able to sign up.” Okay. There’s a lot of pieces in there. I don’t think your ultimate goal is to just get someone to sign up. What is the goal beyond that? What is the point of them signing up? Are you working on list growth for an upcoming launch? Are you looking to straight up sell them something? Are you looking for higher engagement on your list? What is your specific goal with growing your list? Let’s say for me my list growth right now is all about straight up sales. It’s all about getting more people into the Hit the Mic Backstage community.
Full transparency here. You guys know how I roll. If I’m trying to get more people into Backstage, then that’s the goal. Now I’m not using an ad to Backstage. I’m using an ad to content with an opt in or I’m using an ad straight to an opt in which then is going to sell them Backstage. Okay. The goal here is still Backstage. We need to work backwards on those steps. We need to say the opt in. We need to say the piece of content if we’re pushing them to free content. Then we need to go to the ad copy and the ad targeting and the graphics. Figure out what your goal is and then work it backwards. Again, this is true for a Linkedin Ad; this is true for Facebook Ads; this is true for Twitter Ads; this is true for every part of your marketing.
These are basic marketing tactics, basic marketing standards as far as rules are. Figure out what the real goal is, not just I want to grow my list. Well, why do you want to grow your list? Because growing your list for the sake of growing your list is a colossal waste of time and money. What I want you to tell me is what your real goal is. I want to launch a program on January 1st and so I want to have XYZ people on my list to launch that program. Great. If you’re spending the next three months growing your list for a program launch in January, I want your content and opt in to support that program. To support the people who are going to be interested in that program in January. That way you’re not just growing your list, you’re growing your list with people who are going to be ready to say, “Oh my God, your talking to me. I cannot wait to get my hands on this program. Thank you, sweet heavens.” Now I don’t know if anyone actually says ‘thank you sweet heavens’ but they might if you target your list well enough.
Again, know what that big goal is and then work backwards from there. That’s going to be who you speak to. Your copy, that’s going to be who you target. That’s what the graphics are going to be targeted to, but it’s also going to impact what your landing page says what your freebie offer is. What your follow up sequence looks like. Work backwards from that goal. Okay. Whether that’s straight up selling somebody into something now or that list grows for an upcoming program. Whether that’s community engagement, it can mean overall community growth. Whatever that big goal is that you’re working towards work backwards from there. That’s going to be critical. If you don’t know your goal, it’s going to be really, really hard to get there. When I say hard, read impossible because if you don’t know where you’re going, you’re not going to show up at the right place. You’re going to end up someplace completely different and you’ll probably be pissed. I don’t know why but I’m always mad when I end up in the wrong place.
Okay. All right. If you want to know more aboutLinkedIn Ads or Facebook Ads or Twitter Ads, but specificallyLinkedIn Ads, we have aLinkedIn Ad training inside of Hit the Mic Backstage so come check it out because it’s going to walk you through the process of the hows literally on screen, on video, in front of you. I’m going to show you from start to finish the process of creating yourLinkedIn Ads so that you know exactly how to do this, exactly how to execute this plan and exactly how to make these work for you and your business.
It’s just that easy and as a very cool sort of opportunity you also can come into the private Facebook group for Hit the Mic Backstage and ask me any questions you have. You come and I’m there to answer them which is, for most people, the coolest part of Hit the Mic Backstage. Make sure you’ve got Backstage access with us too.
Join us right now. It’s $40 a month. Killer, killer deal and it’s so cool. All right. Thank you for being a part of this. If you didn’t watch or listen to Episode 300, I spent a lot of time thanking you guys for being a part of this community.
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