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Introduction

The Internet’s impact on business over the years has been, and continues to be, profound and ubiquitous. It has enabled what were once, local and small industries and businesses owners to reach people around the world. Businesses can no longer define their competition by geographical boundaries or a level playing field where all players are bound by the same rules.

Major market disrupters like Airbnb, Uber, Netflix, and Alibaba are turning what were at a time considered A-grade business models into relics of the past. The impact is set to continue, even more rapidly, over the next several years. For many companies, it will mean an even tougher business environment. There will continue to be more disrupters emerging, which will become agile and nimble businesses that will dominate the markets. There will be more start-ups with savvy entrepreneurial backing that will become overnight successes.

LinkedIn has emerged as one of the main powerhouses on the Internet for business leads and sales and now has more than 500 million users around the world. The business networking platform was started in 2002, by the founder of PayPal, Reid Hoffman. The company has seen steady growth since its official launch in 2003. LinkedIn has earned a reputation as the social media platform that entrepreneurs can use to find the right buyers and quality leads online.

LinkedIn stands out from the other social media platforms, because the majority of LinkedIn members log into LinkedIn with the intention of networking with other like-minded individuals. One of LinkedIn’s greatest benefits is its ability to enable entrepreneurs to connect with small business owners, CEOs, VPs, key decision makers, other entrepreneurs, and potential customers. The professional networking platform gives entrepreneurs an effective digital platform for finding and engaging with their ideal customers and to build a sustainable business relationship with them.

Unlike decades past, LinkedIn allows you to research companies and locate the decision makers without having to resort to spending your days cold calling. LinkedIn allows you to engage with your ideal prospect through groups and recommendations from your first-degree contacts. This new strategy, also known as social selling, hasn’t been fully embraced by the business world yet. However, those businesses that have embraced social selling and integrated those strategies into their sales process have yielded greater benefits.

Understanding how to utilize LinkedIn as a business can create a substantial difference in the number of highly targeted leads that you can generate. If you aren’t already using LinkedIn marketing in your online marketing strategy, the following chapters will show you how you can optimize your LinkedIn profile and use its unique features to generate more targeted leads and dramatically increase sales for your business. The networking opportunities afforded by being a member of LinkedIn are invaluable, and the marketing opportunities are vast.

Chapter 1 – The Current State of LinkedIn

As previously stated, LinkedIn has a network of over 500 million members, of which, 46 million of those users are students that are looking to get a jumpstart on their career search or are recent graduates. This is a huge audience for your business to market to. However, there are many features available to business marketers that narrow down the target audience, even as the network continues to grow.

With that many members, it’s hard to imagine not using LinkedIn in your business marketing strategy. When Microsoft acquired the platform in 2016, it enabled the company to look further into what LinkedIn can do for all of its members. In October of 2018, LinkedIn partnered with Oracle, a software company that specializes in databases, to announce that it has several new integrations working the two businesses together. The most prominent of the integrations is the overhaul of the recruitment tools, which makes maneuvering back and forth between screens easier for recruiter and finding talent easier and more streamlined, among other things.

Recruiter can now use the LinkedIn sourcing with Oracle Recruiting to find more candidates recommended by the “Recommended Matches,” who show candidates based on position fitness. This has allowed Administrators and Recruiters the ability to see the skills of their current employees, any gaps that they might have, and it enables them to compare their workforce with their competitor’s workforce.

Oracle customers also gained access to the LinkedIn Learning feature, which means they can now use the learning catalog offered by LinkedIn, and a centralized location for administrators to view which of their employees have accessed and completed courses. Administrators can also view reports on engagement with the course. Currently there are 30 to 50 new courses offered every month, including courses on how to make work environments more inclusive. Some of the other new features on LinkedIn Learning include the following.

• Insights and recommendations for making the learning more relevant. • Allowing administrators to add their own content, or use third-party created videos. • Upload, manage, and track videos. • Reports showing the progress of learners and the completion of videos. • Tag videos to make searching videos for content based on purpose easier.

Microsoft products are also seeing updates. In Microsoft’s email software, users can now see the profile information on the people in their contacts and in 2019 will add insights into the people you meet with to further personalize interactions. Collaborating with members on LinkedIn will be easier as well since you will now be able to create content in Microsoft Word, Excel, or PowerPoint with your connections even if you don’t have their email address. The “Groups” feature in LinkedIn has also undergone improvements. It is available now in the app, with the ability to manage, post, and edit content as well as accept join requires and all other moderator functions and receive notifications of activity.

Searching for jobs will also be easier. When searching for jobs and entering criteria, the option for “remote jobs” is in the “location” checkbox, and jobs offering telecommuting or working from home will be the posted results. Company information on the right side of the screen now shows quick context for each posted job so users don’t have to leave the search results page. The option for notifications when certain companies and positions open up is also a newly available feature in LinkedIn.

LinkedIn has many new integrations and feature updates planned for the future. It will be more dependent on Artificial Intelligence (AI) to get to know a member’s clients and make minor decisions, including scheduling, accepting or denying connection requests, and facilitating meeting mutually beneficial people. Virtual meetings will allow face to face contact without having to leave the office. Video profiles will replace regular resumes and give opportunities to add personality to your self-promotion.

LinkedIn will start allowing Learning Lounges to be set up as virtual training centers, and will offer resources to current employees and potential candidates to help them improve their current skills or learn new ones. This will be helpful for both recruiters and candidates because it will show a candidate’s willingness to learn new skills as well as their adaptability to changes that may be required in their position.

LinkedIn for Business

Another new feature that businesses should take advantage of is the Campaign Manager feature. This new feature will automatically adjust bids on sponsored content through the automated bidding feature so businesses can gain the optimal outcomes for their advertising budgets. The Campaign Manager feature, allows marketers to put in an objective and the automatic bidding feature will find the best members to fulfill the objective. Advertising will now be allowed on personal pages as well to support the branding of products for smaller businesses.

Customer-centric marketing will start to become more prominent when the AI elements begin to change how we use digital products and how we communicate online.

These days, the business to customer buying cycle is getting much shorter because of recommendations from artificial intelligence compiled data. Customers are starting to rely more on the data compiled by the artificial intelligence. This allows them to make minor purchases on behalf of them, which becomes more passes in their buying cycle. However, the opposite is true of business to business buying cycle. That cycle is getting longer due to more consideration of and deeper examination proffered of the proffered content.

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Don’t Make These Blunders

I finished up Chapter 1 by writing this:

“There’s a lot of money to be made with properly prepared and correctly executed e-mail marketing.”

The key words in that statement are: properly prepared and correctly executed.

It doesn’t matter how good your intentions are and it doesn’t matter how butt-kicking good your offer is. If you blow the basic rules of e-mail marketing, you’re headed for disaster.

Here’s a checklist of what NOT to do when you’re depending on e-mail to boost your revenue:

Top 10 E-Mail Marketing Mistakes To Avoid

- Failing To Obey The CAN-SPAM Act

The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act) was passed into law by the United States Congress to establish rules for companies that use e-mail for marketing or other commercial purposes.

The law affects any U.S.-based company or person that sends e-mail containing advertising that promotes a product or service.

Transactional e-mail, which is e-mail that is used solely to update a customer with information that is relative to his or her account or order, is generally exempt from most provisions of the Act except that it may not use “false or misleading routing information.”

The United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is charged with the responsibility of enforcing the CAN-SPAM Act and the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) is authorized to pursue criminal actions against violators of the Act.

CAN-SPAM Act Overview

You can read the entire Act at the FTC’s web site if you want to. Here’s is an in-depth summary of the provisions:

- No False or Misleading Headings

This means that the “From” and “To” message headers, as well as the routing information that shows the originating mail server address, must accurately represent where the mail was sent from, who sent it, and to whom it is addressed.

- No Deceptive Subject Lines

You are not allowed to create mail subject lines that are deceptive or that mislead the reader as to what the body of the e-mail contains.

- Unsubscribe Link Required

You must provide a mechanism such as a return e-mail address or a clickable link that enables the e-mail recipient to be removed from your mailing list. It is permissible to create a web-based form that provides the recipient with e-mail management options such as the ability to opt out of only certain types of messages as long as there is also an option to be removed from the list entirely. Once you receive an opt-out request you have 10 business days to make sure that no more mail is sent to that address.

The Act also prohibits you from selling or otherwise giving that e-mail address to anyone else for marketing purposes.

- All Commercial E-mail Must Be Identified As Such And It Must Contain The Sender’s Postal Address.

Any commercial e-mail must contain a statement indicating that it is an advertisement as well as instructions on how to opt out from receiving future e-mail. You must also include your complete physical address somewhere in the body of the e-mail message.

Penalties For Violation Of The CAN-SPAM Act

Every violation of the Act, which means every individual e-mail you send that is not in full compliance, makes you subject to a fine of up to $11,000. Certain violations may also make you liable for additional fines and penalties under laws that regulate false or deceptive advertising.

In addition to all of the provisions listed above, the Act provides for additional fines and penalties for anyone who does any of the following:

- Collects or "harvests" e-mail addresses from any Web site containing a notice prohibiting the collection of e-mail addresses from the Web site for the purposes of commercial mailing.

- Automatically generates e-mail addresses using a random or systematic combination of alphanumeric characters designed to eventually “discover” actual e-mail addresses at any domain. This is commonly called a "dictionary attack."

- Uses any automated method to register for multiple e-mail accounts for the purpose of sending commercial e-mail.

- Relays e-mail through any server, network or computer, including the use of open relays or open proxies, without the permission of the owner. Permission from the owner is not a defense against sending e-mail that otherwise violates any provision of the Act.