May 25, 2023
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Show Transcript
AJ Wilcox
Are you using influencer marketing community and thought leadership
as part of your LinkedIn Ads strategy? We dive into these topics
and more on this week's episode of the LinkedIn Ads Show.
Welcome to the LinkedIn Ads Show. Here's your host, AJ Wilcox.
AJ Wilcox
Hey there LinkedIn Ads fanatics. Today I have a special treat for
you. Lee Odden has specialized in B2B marketing for his almost
entire career. And I'm grateful to call him a friend. He and I have
spoken at many of the same B2B events. Although I have to admit
he's oftentimes the keynote, while I'm one of the breakout
speakers. But, I've always looked up to him as a mentor and a
thought leader and a friend. Today, we have a wide ranging
conversation covering everywhere from thought leadership to
influencer marketing and building communities in B2B, and I promise
as a B2B marketer, you'll get a lot out of this. I wanted to
highlight a review here by Alessia Negro. She's a senior sales and
marketing executive in the hospitality industry out of Dublin,
Ireland. Alessia says, "Absolutely great podcast. I have learned a
lot about LinkedIn from this podcast. I think whoever wants to
learn LinkedIn ads should follow it." Alessia, thanks so much for
the kind words. And I do agree. Although I realized I'm a bit
biased. And if you're a regular listener, I want to feature you so
make sure to leave a review. And I'll shout you out live here. All
right. Without further ado, let's hit it.
Alright, we've got Lee Odden, co founder of TopRank Marketing. Lee, thanks so much for joining us. We're super excited to have you here.
Lee Odden
It's great to be here, AJ. Good to see you.
AJ Wilcox
Alright, so first off, tell us a little bit more about yourself.
Anything that I didn't cover in that rather short and sweet
intro.
Lee Odden
I started in marketing, and basically the late 90s. I was actually
got into the website sales game selling websites over the phone to
small businesses, believe it or not, people would fax us their
brochures and we'd make a website out of that. And then of course,
people started asking how are we going to get traffic to these
websites that you're making us? And that's where I learned about
SEO, you know, about creating doorway pages and, you know, creating
different web pages for different search engines AltaVista excite
Lycos hotpot, you know, no one has heard of those. But then Google
came on the scene and linking, and content became more important
blogging, social media, and really, over the last 10 years really
leaned into the whole idea of CO creating content with influencers.
So ultimately, what we tried to do is help customers be the best
answer help our clients, b2b tech companies mostly be the best
answer for their customers. And it's worked out really well. And,
you know, it's kind of funny, on the path from being a really small
agency to serving small customers to now serving large enterprise
brands. I took that advice myself, right. So I started blogging,
and I started doing the kinds of things to make myself known in the
industry as a magnet to the agency. You know what I mean by
speaking at events and being active on social and connecting with
people who were influential to make myself influential, you know,
and it's been a fun ride. And when I'm not doing marketing stuff,
I'm usually running running is kind of been my thing during COVID.
Basically, when I'm actually training for my first marathon, which
is going to happen in four weeks. So I'm pretty excited about that.
Oh, that's so
AJ Wilcox
Exciting! Alright, so what's your preparation for the marathon look
like right now? I know, you start to do a lot more mileage as you
go. Are you doing like low high mileage right now?
Lee Odden
Yeah, my highest mileage will be tomorrow. But I did 23 miles last
Saturday. And I'll probably do 23.5 or something like that
tomorrow. I don't need to do much more. Because the whole race is
26. Yes. So yeah, I've been running more than 13 miles for the last
seven weeks or so. I've even run a couple of half marathon races
just as a workout, which is kind of a crazy idea. Because a year
ago, I was wondering whether I could even run 13 miles, let alone
run one quickly. And quickly is subjective quickly to me. Not
quickly, compared to a lot of friends of mine that I have out there
that are runners that are just smoking it, but it's a great way to
get out. It's a disciplined thing. It's a lifestyle thing. Now for
me, I feel odd if I haven't run that day. And so it's good for your
health. And it's great to have goals, right? Yes, it's great to
work towards a goal and having a commitment to a thing that takes a
long time is incredibly rewarding when you've been able to reach
those milestones, right? And also you connect with a community of
other like minded people. And now I'm starting to get all these
Instagram posts from running communities with these inside jokes
about running and it's like, oh my god, this is so funny, but
nobody else cares, nobody else cares. It's fun.
AJ Wilcox
Well, It's so fulfilling, I think to accomplish something
physically, that is hard that you know, other people can't. Before
a knee surgery, I used to be a runner. And so I do a half marathon
every year and an Olympic trial. And I love those kinds of things.
I loved accomplishing something physically, that's awesome. Plus,
it gives you insight, because you're already community minded,
which we'll talk into more, but it gives you something to compare
and think about, as you're developing communities around an
interest that people have, you can mentally I think, compare it to
like, oh, for me, this is running. But for someone else this is
whatever the community is.
Lee Odden
You know, that's really important insight. There's a lot of value
in metaphor analogy, when trying to break down new or complex ideas
into something familiar for people. Because in order for those
ideas to be adopted, they have to be communicated in a way that
people will be willing to receive. And so yeah, that's a great
point running as metaphor, or, you know, overcoming challenges. A
lot of people, I'm inspired by our fitness people, but what I'm
inspired by them about isn't so much about the fitness it's about
overcoming challenges and worldview, and, you know, being resilient
and those sorts of things.
AJ Wilcox
Perfect. So jumping back here into B2B, how did you originally get
interested in b2b? How did you land? Because my understanding is
you're exclusively B2B with your clients, or do you have some
VC?
Lee Odden
Exactly. So my agency top rank marketing did start as SEO and PR
firm, I had previously mostly consumer experience in marketing
doing SEO for consumer websites. And my partner, though, had been
working mostly with B2B tech companies as a director of marketing,
VP of marketing. And so over time, well, through her knowledge and
experience, I learned a lot more about B2B. And the market was
responding in terms of inbound interest in our services from B2B
companies. And I have a fun story about the big leap early in our
business, we were working remotely. And I was working in my
unfinished basement, right. And I had a desk down there. And I got
a call and someone asked me if I would come speak at their
conference, this company was fortune 15 company. So I had been
blogging, I spoke a little bit, people knew about me being able to
talk about SEO and public relations. So that was a unique
intersection. And they wanted me to come speak at their event. And
I spoke one morning to their marketing people. And then they said,
Come back tomorrow and talk to all of our PR people. So they were a
company that was so big, they brought all their different
businesses, all the marketers from their all their different
businesses and had a little mini conference. And so the second day,
I talked to all the PR people. And my contact said, Hey, one of our
senior executives was in the room yesterday. And we wanted to know
if we could engage your agency on an ongoing basis. So this is the
fortune 15 company was a b2b business unit that wanted to hire us.
And we were only four people I'm working out of my unfinished
basement. Wow. So of course, I said, yes, absolutely, we can help
you out. And we figured it out. And that was a fast track to
learning about b2b and learning the language of large, complex
organizations, because obviously, that's very different than
working with a small or medium sized business. And that laid the
groundwork for me and the people that I had to competently be able
to serve other b2b companies. Right. So now, Adobe, and you know,
we've had experience with companies like SAP and Oracle, I've done
work for Microsoft, and a really large telecom that I cannot
mention, ever, but you know, biggest one, and so on and so forth.
So and LinkedIn, my God, what am I saying, we've been working with
LinkedIn for gosh, almost 10 years now, providing content and SEO
services. So it's been an interesting ride, and b2b is a great
space, because there's so much opportunity to raise the bar, it
doesn't have to mean boring, boring, there's a lot of exciting
things you can do. And there's so much room for us to be able to do
it with because of the longer sales cycles, emphasis on content and
education and that sort of thing.
AJ Wilcox
Well, I'm glad you shared someof them, I get the feeling that a lot
of the kinds of clients that you were with are the kind that don't
want you saying that you work with them. So it's really good to
understand, and from my understanding a lot of the community and
many of the thought leaders within LinkedIn that we hear from, I
won't say created by you that you're the one behind them, but
you're kind of the inspiration there. Do you have any comment or
anything to share on that?
Lee Odden
Well, certainly, it's one thing to make a decision that people
within your company should have greater visibility that you want to
grow their influence, that you want to facilitate social
interaction. But it's another thing to do that with intent with
intent in a way that will achieve a particular outcome. So that
requires doing some homework developing a strategy and architecting
Okay, exactly how are we going to execute this in a way that is
best going to accomplish the goal that we're after? So it's not
just about tweeting more, or doing a LinkedIn live every once in a
while. It's like, okay, what's the topic? And what is the anchor
topic? What are the derivative topics? What are the conversations
that we can repurpose from that? Who are the content collaborators
or influencers on that topic that we can connect with, not only for
co creation, but distribution, and so architecting all that stuff
is really where the most magic comes from. And then for some
companies, we do write content for them. But like I said, a lot of
the magic comes in through the strategy and the architecture of the
all that, and then of course, the ongoing optimization of
performance. And then of course, yeah, and then some content here
and there.
AJ Wilcox
Beautiful. I love it. Alright, so talking about thought leadership,
specifically, tell us about why B2B marketers should be investing
in being seen as a thought leader.
Lee Odden
So if you mean is, like B2B marketer, as an executive at a company
or B2B marketer, like you and me are B2B marketers.
AJ Wilcox
Yeah, I think a little bit of everything. I think, executives, I
think the frontline workers, everyone in between, like, what's the
value?
Lee Odden
Absolutely. So there's a lot of value in that. We all are familiar
with the idea, I think Nielsen came out with this research about
how people don't trust brands, and they don't trust advertising.
And of course, that's been repeated, by different folks since and
it still is a challenge in combination with the overwhelming amount
of information available to us. I don't know about you, but my
email inbox is more of a monster now than it ever was. I mean, just
keeping up is crazy. The social channels and people that I follow,
I made a lot of effort to craft who I curate, and listen to, but
it's just overwhelming amounts of information. I can only imagine
what it might be for other folks who haven't had expertise in
curation, right. So being a thought leader being a source of truth,
for people who are in need, and let's face it, if you're in
marketing, you're in need of up to date information every day,
right? Ours is a dynamic industry. And so it's super important and
to be competent in our industry, it's really very important that we
connect with people that are on the forefront of what's new, what's
trending, what's relevant. And so being a thought leader helps you
as a person who is capable of original thought, who has something
to offer, because that's kind of a prerequisite here, and being
able to provide value to others in the industry. So that manifests
as community building. It manifests as, you know, customers coming
to you saying, hey, AJ, I've been listening to your podcast, and
I've heard you talk about LinkedIn ads in this way or that way.
It's like, you know, we're actually now in a position to get some
help. I'm sure that happens all the time. Natalie, I can tell you
from personal perspective, I've had it happen. A million times, it
feels like where people say, Haley, I saw you speak last week, I
saw you speak 10 years ago. And this is people who want to hire my
agency, because I'm when I speak, I tell stories about the work the
agency does, as well as just best practices, but also people who
want to work for me will say, Yeah, you know, I saw you speak, I've
been following your blog. And I'm just wondering if there's an
opening, oh, my goodness, this person's amazing. And they're coming
to us, you know. So for other folks, if you're an executive at a
company, if you want to be listened to, if you want to be relevant,
it's not enough for your own brands marketing, to go and put out
information you think your customers need to know, buyers are
looking for sources of truth. buyers are looking for people, humans
that they can relate to, that they can subscribe to, so to speak.
And if you have subject matter experts, if you are a subject matter
expert, and you have something to offer, then it makes sense for
you to go down that thought leadership path and make a connection
and create value for those folks out in the industry because you
know what they desperately need it. And they're overwhelmed with
other information. And so you can actually provide them a service.
And guess what, what's going to come back to you is new business.
What's going to come back to you is community what's going to come
back to you is connection with people who can make things happen.
And
AJ Wilcox
What I hear from you is you actually have to have something to say
in order to be a thought leader. So don't strive to be a thought
leader for thought leader sake. But strive to be a great business
professional, a skilled expert in your field, and then take that to
share with others.
Lee Odden
Yeah, and so there's two things I'd say too, if you don't have that
yet, if you're not there yet. I feel like if you're Junior in New
York career and you feel like thought leadership is in your future.
Two things. One, if you don't have a lot of resources, you could
document your journey towards thought leadership. And that actually
could help you be a thought leader, as a junior person, you could
connect with others who are already thought leaders, they could do
things like interviews, you could do things like, get quotes from
them, or whatever. And so you can document that journey as you are
learning more and more about a particular subject matter. And, you
know, hey, I experimented with this. And I found this as an
outcome, or I talked to this person. And here's some insight that
they shared, I noticed in the news, they're talking about this. And
here's what I think about that. documenting that journey can
actually help you become a thought leader. The other thing is, if
you do have resources, you're at a brand. And you don't know how to
do this, you can certainly hire an expert, like an agency, or a PR
firm or someone like us who can help you develop a plan for thought
leadership, maybe even provide some of the content. And that
doesn't happen that often. But it can.
AJ Wilcox
That's a great point. All right. So we've talked about thought
leadership as individuals, what about getting your B2B brand to be
seen as a thought leadership brand? Do you have any thoughts?
Lee Odden
Yeah, absolutely. You know, for companies, it's a huge
differentiator in a crowded marketplace to be thought of first,
when companies have a problem, and they're thinking of solution
providers, right. And thought leadership is something especially in
B2B. But you know, in general, it's useful from a marketing PR
perspective. But in B2B, especially, these are large considered
purchases. So you're not just looking for the best solution, you're
looking for a solution that you know, is going to be relevant, and
maybe innovative and important for you in the long run. So if a
brand invest in thought leadership, and what that means is you're
articulating a point of view, and it's validated by third parties.
So that means that industry publications and industry influencers
that are validating the ideas that you're putting forth, you're
putting out original research, you're pointing out points of view,
you're creating opportunities for other people who are important
voices and trusted voices in the industry to have conversations
with your executives with people that represent your brand. And
that kind of combination of information, helps people subscribe to
your religion, so to speak, they subscribe to your point of view.
And they start to rely in trust on you as the source of truth. So a
great example is Edelman puts out the trust research. Edelman is a
huge, huge agency, obviously, they have a lot of resources. But
it's like, you know, you can rely on Edelman's research about how
people trust brands or not, year after year, because they continue
to put out that research and they have other marketing
conversations around that. For our small part. You know, we put out
a report on B2B influencer marketing. And it's really been a great
way for people to know that there is data, thoughtfulness and
expertise behind the fact that we're a source of solution when it
comes to working with influencers or content in the B2B marketing
space, because we are connecting with third party entities
influencers and media to corroborate those ideas, right? So brands
is thought leaders super important. If someone's got a problem,
don't you want them to think of you first, as a solution? I totally
agree.
AJ Wilcox
I think especially in a crowded marketplace, where you have 15
vendors that you can go to for a CRM and information security
service, of course, you're gonna gravitate towards the one that you
feel like you have the best relationship with. And I think that
comes from the thought leadership that comes from community that
comes from being a voice that people want to hear. Absolutely. So I
think you've touched a little bit here on parts of the strategy.
But if someone wanted to start becoming a thought leader, or having
their company be seen as a thought leader, what are the steps, the
components that you would tell them? Like, here's the strategy for
how you actually start to implement this?
Lee Odden
That can be a really big answer. So I'll be succinct. If I can, I
think the first thing you got to do is, you know, specify what is
it that you want to be a thought leader about? There's got to be
topic specificity. You can't be a thought leader about all things,
right? That's just not resource practical. But you've got to
identify that thing that sits at the intersection of how you want
to be known and what customers are most interested in. And so be a
thought leader about that thing, right? Because that represents
what's in demand and relevant to your solutions. And as you make
that determination, then all things flow from that. What kind of
content will you create? What kind of connections will you make?
What kind of cadence will you publish and interact at right? So you
get an idea about the resources that are needed in order to put
something like that into action, right? There's got to be some
consistency and continuity of message from thought leader. So in
other words, if I talk about 10 Different things over a period of
time, it's like, well, yeah, he talks about a lot of stuff like I
guess marketing. But if I'm talking about, you know, B2B content,
B2B content marketing, b2b content marketing, I mean, I'm talking
about derivative ideas around that concept. But really, it's like,
wow, B2B content marketing or B2B influencer marketing, people will
come to know you as that very specific thing. So you've got to have
some choices made about the topic derivative topics, you've got to
think about the publishing platform or platforms, you know, is it
the company website, the blog, or social channel? As the center of
your hub? And the spokes? Are your distribution channels? Okay,
where am I going to amplify this? Am I going to amplify through
email? Am I going to pull people in through ads? Am I going to do
some media relations and talk about these stories with journalists
in the industry? Am I going to connect with industry experts? Am I
going to partner with them and collaborate with any of them on
initiatives? We have what we like to call best answer strategies,
how to be the best answer is really kind of a thought leadership
play. And you can do things like this is a practical tactic things.
Okay, so let's say you want to be the best answer for a particular
thing. It's like, okay, Fast Track way to get on the radar of the
most important people in the industry, about that topic is to do
what we call an honoring post, right? So it's like a list where the
25 top cybersecurity experts, right, I'm a cybersecurity provider
of some kind and finance, right. And so here are the top finance
cybersecurity experts. I don't even know if I could find 25 of
those, but I'll do my best. And then I reach out to them. And I
start to create a relationship with those folks. And I'll
simultaneous to that, I might do a small version research, what are
the trends, what's happening, and I'll invite those folks to be a
part of that research. I'll start a podcast. And as I gain
momentum, I might do something like, you know, a list of disparate
resources like books, conferences, communities, and so on, and so
forth. So I become like this destination around the topic. And that
seems like a lot of work. But guess what, there's a lot of
competition. And to be the best answer, guess what you've kind of
have to be the best source of information, I would just say, as far
as a thought leadership strategy, whether it's just you, or whether
it's your brand, you don't go it alone, that would be one of the
biggest mistakes. And that's why I suggest the idea of connecting
with other industry experts, and finding opportunities to
collaborate with them, you can start a podcast and become a thought
leader on the thing that the podcast is about, that's cool. But if
you involve other people, that are also well known about that idea,
and you can create collaboration opportunities that create mutual
value for you and your collaborators, then everybody wins out true,
not just you and the person or people you're collaborating with,
but especially the audience that you're trying to attract and
engage.
AJ Wilcox
Oh, so true. I think it's so easy. If you're, let's say scrolling
through your LinkedIn feed, and you're saying, I want to be a
thought leader, let me see what other people are doing. You see
someone is running a live stream, and you're like, oh, maybe I need
to run a weekly live stream, and then someone else is running a
podcast, and then someone else is recording videos, screenshare and
posting them to YouTube, you're like, oh, I have to have a YouTube
channel. And when you start taking from all of these ideas, you
overextend yourself, because yeah, there isn't a strategy. So what
I appreciate so much about what you shared is like this actually is
a specific strategy where you can put the blinders on and ignore
some of the other methods that other people are doing work on your
own. And then you won't overextend yourself, like you can actually
do this.
Lee Odden
Something I learned a long time ago about, you know, being known
about a thing is one element, one leg of the stool is document your
success, and then duplicate. So be specific, like you're saying, be
specific on a particular or very specific channel, grow community
on that channel. And you'll get to a point where it's like, wow,
now it makes sense for me to extend into some other channels,
right. And you can duplicate what you learned in that one channel
into others. And that way, you can manage resources appropriately.
And you create that continuity of message. And you'll be putting
forward the most effective tactics for communication, as opposed to
being in a constant state of experimentation.
AJ Wilcox
Yes. And when you look at what everyone else is doing, a lot of
times they have a team that's helping them. And so I think that you
can do this all yourself, you know, by the time you've done what
you've talked about, which is really building a community around
one channel or one thing, by the time it's ready to start expanding
into other channels and taking on more things. By that time. You've
probably built up more of a team and it's a She realistic, you
Lee Odden
could do that. Yeah. And then just thinking of myself, I started
blogging, my only thing was I just started blogging, I could not
write. And I started blogging in that blogging. You know, I always
made mention of other people, I was just a way to have a
conversation. And then social media came on. And people that read
the blog started following me on Twitter, and then LinkedIn. And
then I started speaking, and then I wrote a book and you know, just
grew organically 100% organically. I did have help with the book.
But with the rest, I publish all my own social stuff, I do all my
own speaking stuff. And so it does make sense, at least in my case
to branch out, you can get help to facilitate and expedite that
stuff. But as an individual person, I think topics specificity
specific channel is a great thing to get started with and expand
from there.
AJ Wilcox
Oh, amen to that. Here's a quick sponsor break, and then we'll dive
back into the interview.
The LinkedIn Ads Show is proudly brought to you by B2Linked.com, the LinkedIn Ads experts.
AJ Wilcox
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work with you. All right, let's jump back into the interview with
Leo. Alright, so let's shift gears now talking about influencer
marketing, because I know you've done a lot with influencers. We
probably see a lot of influencers in b2c we have for a long time,
hate actors and celebrity involvement. But in B2B, I think this is
a little fresher. And I think a little bit more new. What can you
tell us about how B2B marketers should be thinking about leveraging
influencers in B2B?
Lee Odden
We're kind of in a do more with less age, right? There's a lot of
marketers pulling back right now B2B tech especially. And, you
know, a lot of folks are looking for what are the most effective
things I can be doing? Because the demands on delivering on mid to
end to funnel KPIs, you know, forget about brand, right, are really
high on people's lists. Well, the B2B Institute at LinkedIn did
some research. And they found that at any given time, 95% of buyers
are not in market, they're out market, right for any solution and
only 5% are in a position like, yeah, we need a solution. And so
that's not changed. Well, why influencers? Well, here's the thing,
you know, you've got factors that are working against you, as a
marketer, in this environment where you got to do more with less,
we've got to produce, we've got to get results, we've got to react
to this economic environment that we're in. And people are as
buyers, you know, they are confronted with this information
overload that we talked about before they are struggling to find
single sources of truth. Who do they trust, they don't trust
advertising. They don't trust brands a lot of the time, but they do
trust people, they trust people that they follow. And so the idea
of what would happen if you're able to connect with the most
trusted voices in your industry? What if you're able to collaborate
with them on creating content that was super targeted, super
valuable to your buyers, and you're able to build a community of
subscribers to a regular cadence of that kind of content, imagine
how much more effective you'd be at reaching buyers that are
actually going to pay attention, versus, you know, singularly
relying on interruptive types of communications, right. And so
influencers can play a very important role, not for everybody, but
for a lot of companies that want to break through and want to
attract and engage with buyers, that are really relying on industry
experts that are influenced by people who are the thought leaders
in the industry, right? And so there are very effective ways in
which marketing programs can be put forward, that are creating
content of value, of course, but our collaborations with these
industry experts, so it's not just like every influencer is the
same. It's not like I'm gonna think of a B2B marketing influencer
and handling right? And Haley's, a wonderful, wonderful human
being. But just because an Hanley is in a piece of ebook that we
make or a video we make doesn't mean that's going to solve all
problems. And handle is really broadly known as a very unique
individual. She has both broad popularity, and she's actually super
competent about her discipline. And so she's a unicorn in that way.
So she's actually going to help satisfy bringing people in that
don't haven't even heard of you, and actually start to consider you
because she has that discipline, competency, about copywriting
about content marketing, and that sort of stuff. But not all
influencers are like that. So it's not just about working with
influencers, it's about okay, how do we pair the right kinds of
influencers for different stages of the buying cycle, for example,
you know, the most popular influencers, those, you know, the pro
influencers, they're doing keynotes. They're publishing books all
the time. They're professionally famous in the B2B world, in their
respective industry. Those are people you use to attract top of
funnel types of outcomes. But then you work with people who are
actual practitioners in an area, they can actually speak
authoritatively on the discipline. So whether they're super user,
whether they're a customer, or whatever, for those middle end to
funnel types of content, assets, right. So you kind of line things
up. So influencers are important, because everyone is influential,
but everyone is influenced on a daily basis in some way. And you
can architect programs that not only make your brand more relevant,
and more credible, and can reach people that you're not reaching
with your ads. But over time, you can build relationships with
these most trusted voices in your industry in a way that they are
starting to organically advocate for you. And that's priceless,
right most valuable form of advertising word of mouth, if you can
facilitate that as priceless. Oh, totally true.
AJ Wilcox
I have noticed in B2C influencers, usually they're paid off in some
way. But in B2B, I see a lot of influencers, gotten through
collaboration opportunities, and a lot of times money doesn't even
have to exchange hands, you're doing something that's mutually
beneficial to both of these companies are influencers audiences.
Yeah, and you know, that's becoming more of an art to achieve
that.
Lee Odden
So we started doing influencer marketing for B2B brands back in
2012. So back then, yes, it was true that the vast majority of
influencer engagements were what we call organic. In the case of
B2B influencer marketing, most of the influencers are contributing
to content that lives on the brand channels. So if a person who's
really well known in their particular subject matter area, could be
seen in combination with a major brand, that's really credibility
building for them, right. So they're creating influence for each
other in that way. And so they'd be happy to do it for free, so to
speak, obviously, it has to do with the ask too, if I ask someone
for a quote, you know, no problem. But if I asked someone to write
me 1000 word article, these days, that's probably going to cost
something if I want them to write an article every month, that's
gonna cost something. So it used to be maybe 90%, were organic 10%
were paid way back in the day. Nowadays, it's like 60/40 60% might
be organic activations, and 40% are paid. And that paid number is
going up and up and up, as more people who are influential in the
B2B space are creating media properties for themselves, right,
they've got a really established podcast, they're part of a network
of podcasts, you know, they're a blogger, or increasingly video
assets of some kind, right? And so they're able to not only just
say one nice thing about the brand, but they're actually able to
put together a package of social distribution and content assets
and this and that we're even, you know, do reports, and so on and
so forth. So it's great, though, to have that mutual value, it's
important to find something that you have in common with the
influencer. And in some cases, they may want to contribute, because
it's an easy Ask, and it aligns with what they want to do, and it
doesn't cost you anything. And it could be that's the first thing
you do. But then you might follow up and say, Wow, that was
amazing. We'd really like to do to do this more robust thing, how
much would that cost? And they're going to appreciate that. And
trust me, when you pay an influencer. It's awesome, of course, for
the influencer, but it's awesome for your brand, because now you've
hired them. They are accountable to delivering to a specification.
Whereas if you engage with people organically, and they say, Yeah,
sure, I'll give you that thing by next Thursday. And if they don't,
you have no recourse. You can't count on it. Right. They're not
signing an agreement. So paying influencers is actually a really
good thing. It's up to you to negotiate and to do your due
diligence as far as who they are and their ability to deliver and
have impact.
AJ Wilcox
Beautiful. I want to switch gears to talking about community
because we've mentioned community several times. Yeah, you've put a
lot of value and community over your career here in B2B, what role
do you see communities playing in B2B.
Lee Odden
community is hugely important, I think because so many buyers are
going to rely on their peers for recommendations. I mean, think
you've probably had it happen I know I have. It's like, we go to
remote work, and we need a new phone system that we can work, you
know, so I don't know who to go to. So I asked a friend of mine, I
go to a group community that I'm part of, and I say, Hey, does
anybody know what's a good phone system? And this isn't real. But
you know, I'm thinking of a silly example. And this happens every
day. Right? And so being present with a community is important for
b2b because it helps make you relevant, right? I talked about that
expression being the best answer, right? Being a thought leader,
being first choice means being where your customers are. And
certainly your customers are part of different communities. So you
have a couple of choices. You can be present in communities where
your customers are, and you can exchange value, you can be a
participant and you know, answer questions and interact or whatever
your salespeople can or whoever, or you could create communities,
right, you could say, Look, you know, we see that there's a common
interest here, there's something that we can solve for. And it's
not something we can do by ourselves. Why don't you join us at
helping solve this problem together? Or why don't you join us on
this journey to making our industry a better place, we actually are
at the beginning of building a community around elevate b2b, right,
elevate b2b marketing. And you know, we want to make b2b marketing
a better place. And there are different messaging pillars that go
along with that marketing, that is more experiential marketing,
that is more inclusive, marketing that is more focused on
connection, right community building, that sort of thing. So
community is super important, I think, to be relevant, to be
relevant. And first choice to customers in spaces where they're
actually spending time. And where there can be a value exchange,
right? It's one thing to provide useful content or utility to your
customers through content marketing. It's another thing for you to
create a place where as a brand, where your customers can connect
with you, but also they can connect with each other. And there's a
lot of momentum that can come from that. So I think community is
super important. And when it comes to influencer marketing, same
thing, you can engage with influencers on an individual basis, and
that's fine. But when you can create a community of influencers
that can connect with each other, in the context of your brand is
solving Wow, now you have something really powerful right, that you
can go to market with. And that can have a much bigger impact than
these little one off campaigns, people are kind of dipping their
toe in the water with here and there. Perfect.
AJ Wilcox
Alright, so lead, tell us what are those components to creating a
community, especially as we're thinking about it for b2b?
Lee Odden
So as I mentioned, with, you know, thought leadership, I think that
idea of topics specificity? Well, it's around the problems that
you're trying to solve for, or the things that you stand for, that
would be best served by the community. Right? So what's the glue
that's going to hold this community together? What is the common
interest that they have that aligns with that intersection of what
it is that you stand for as a brand? And what's interesting to your
customers, right? You also have to define who's going to be part of
this community? How is the community get a function? There are
other practical questions to be answered? Like, what platform are
you going to use? And who are going to be your champions and your
moderators? And what are the goals that you have for the community
in terms of messaging penetration, in terms of size, in terms of
engagement, and ultimately, you have to be accountable to some sort
of ROI, right? And with any marketing initiative, those things all
need to be defined, right? So sometimes community can start very
intentionally. Yeah, there's communities is starting all the time
where people just start in a LinkedIn, LinkedIn group or Facebook
group or something like that. And it's just like, hey, and they
invite a couple of other people who have a common interest. And it
just starts organically and they start inviting, who do you know,
that we can invite into this community and so on and so forth, or
community could be an extension of an event? I think about
marketing profs, and their marketing community, right, or Content
Marketing Institute, has a whole community, but they also have an
event, right? There's a marketing conference called PubCon that's
been around. It's an SEO conference been around forever. And
there's absolutely a community, you know, that is tied to that
event where people you know, get to actually meet in person. So,
you have to make choices about what is the purpose of the
community, what are the topics that You're gonna cover what
problems you're going to try and solve. And then you gotta identify
some champions, some people who are going to help facilitate
conversations, there's technology choices to make. And then
obviously, you got to set up what kind of goals you're trying to
achieve, not just for yourself, but the goals for the community
itself. Well, selfishly, this
AJ Wilcox
is an awesome conversation, because we're actually just getting
ready to launch our LinkedIn ads, courses and community all
together. And so I'm paying special attention here. So thanks for
the free advice. What are some of the phases that you'd actually go
through in building and then scaling the community app? What should
we keep in mind as we actually go to build this?
Lee Odden
Well, you know, again, you've got to think about some sort of
milestone goals. Maybe the first phase is simply, you know,
creating the architecture of the community. And as it relates to
the major topics, the subtopics, and getting people involved that
represent relevance and interest around those topics, inviting them
to be actually be a part and then you've got to decide, okay, what
are we going to offer them, right? You're so you're offering
courses? Or you're offering opportunities for roundtables or
discussions? Are you giving them visibility opportunities, and, you
know, set some goals for that first milestone of having a certain
level of participation. Maybe your first phase is very private. And
no one knows about it, except, you know, those early invitees. And
we've seen this demonstrated by the social networks that have all
popped up all over the place over the last 20 years, or 15 years.
And then maybe once you get to a certain threshold or milestone of
participation, then you open it up, you know, more publicly as a
phase out. And this is what I've observed being successful. One
thing though, that, I think what happens is, there's a lot of
excitement about anything new. And it's going to be really
important to keep that excitement alive. And so you've got to
allocate resources to a community manager, or managers that are not
only going to be moderating stuff, but are going to be paying
attention to what's the ebb and flow from a topic interest
standpoint, from a content format standpoint, and adjusting and
optimizing. Because if you do the same stuff, six months or a year
into your community, it's probably going to peter out, right? If
you're not responsive to where the community is growing and showing
interest, you're, you're going to lose them probably. So hopefully,
I think that's something to look forward to. That's something to
anticipate from a face standpoint, maybe, you know, not every
community has to start as an exclusive thing. That seems to work
really well, though. And then it evolves into an inclusive thing,
as there's something of more substance for people to experience,
once you open the doors to all. I love it.
AJ Wilcox
Haley, just kind of off the wall question here for you specifically
about LinkedIn ads. I mean, we've talked about communities, we've
talked about thought leadership and influencers. One of the new
features that's going to be coming out here in the next I would
estimate one to three months that LinkedIn has are these thought
leadership ads, where we're going to be able to boost personal
posts, rather than rely on boosting or creating posts that come
from the company for something like this coming out. What role do
you see this playing? Do you have any feedback or thoughts or
advice for us marketers? In thinking about the new ad format?
Lee Odden
I'm super excited about that. Because we know that things can get
lost in the stream, but not so much about being able to put money
behind a thought leadership posts for an individual. It's just
like, you know, the targeting, how can we make sure how can we
increase our ability for people that we want to see this thought
leadership content? Well, other than through a feature like this,
right. So I think that's super, super important. And, you know,
we've already talked about the importance of individual thought
leadership. And by the way, we did some research in our influencer
marketing report about the value of executive influence and
executive thought leadership at 65% of the companies that were
engaging with building their executives, as thought leaders, said
that that effort elevated the influence of the brand itself, right.
So something like this being able to augment organic content at the
individual level with LinkedIn thought leadership ads. Excellent,
excellent opportunity. And, again, it'll really help people be able
to be a little more intentional and targeted about what's showing
up to who, and I think will really give those advertisers a big
advantage over those who are relying on just the organic visibility
that happens when you post normally I
AJ Wilcox
love that. All right, so final switch of gears here. What are you
most excited about professionally right now? I'd love to ask the
same question about what are you most excited about personally?
Lee Odden
Well, professionally, you know, we are celebrating our 22nd year in
business this year. So that's amazing. That is amazing. Wow. And,
you know, we made some strategic hires recently in marketing and
sales. And we're launching a fresh brand fresh brand new website
and blog will be launching with hundreds and hundreds of articles
on content, search and influence, and a lot of really cool
features, but a really well architected brand, and messaging and
all that stuff. So I'm super excited about it. We haven't launched
a new website in 10, fit 12 years, and we haven't really had a
professional brand engagement with like a branding agency ever,
never ever. So I'm super excited about that. Launching for
influencer marketing here, late summer, and lots of other things
happening. So I'm super excited about that great team. Yeah, an
even bigger things plan that can't even talk about later on this
year. So I'm super excited about that. I'd say at the intersection
of personal and professional, I get to speak at a conference, the
biggest conference for b2b in France, next month in Paris. Wow. And
then a week later, I get to speak at the largest b2b conference in
the UK, in London. So I'm super excited about that. And then I get
to visit a client of ours in Geneva in between. So you know, that's
pretty awesome. Get to do a little travel, get to do a little
business abroad. And there you go.
AJ Wilcox
That's a lot to be excited about. All right. So I've caught a
couple of the resources that you've kind of mentioned here. You
talked about the Elevate b2b marketing community, you've talked
about your influencer marketing report, I will put the links to
those down below in the show notes for anyone. But as for
resources, what would you like this LinkedIn ads audience to do
what you want them to come follow you contact you in some way? Join
the community, download a report, like, what do you have that we
should be paying attention to?
Lee Odden
Absolutely check out top rank marketing.com. Our blog is there as
well. With those actually, it's more than hundreds, it's 1000s of
articles. But it's probably in the hundreds of those that are most
recent and relevant. Yeah, toprank marketing.com, people obviously
can connect with me on the socials, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram,
to see all the crazy food that I eat and all the running that I'm
doing and other thing and travel especially, that's always fun, le
e o d, d, e n. Yeah. And that's where we're going to announce our
report. And we've got a enterprise brand, influencer marketing
report coming out very, very quickly, we have a search intent
report that's out already. So lots of fun resources there. And
also, I have to say, if you're in the LinkedIn ads audience, if
you're not already, you've got to be subscribing to the LinkedIn
marketing blog. The LinkedIn ads blog, for sure. Also, in the
LinkedIn Collective is another great resource over at LinkedIn.
That's a great example of LinkedIn, own thought leadership. And of
course, the b2b Institute is another great resource at LinkedIn.
And you know, my disclaimer is that yes, LinkedIn is a client. But
these are resources I, myself personally, rely on quite a bit.
AJ Wilcox
Perfect. Well, Lee, thank you so much for sharing your mountain of
knowledge here. I'm grateful to get to hear it. Everyone, please go
follow Lea, check out the resources that he and his company have
come up with Lee, thanks again so much. And we'd love to have you
on for around two sometime down the road. Super. Thanks, AJ, I
appreciate it. I've got the episode resources for you coming right
up. So stick around.
Thank you for listening to the LinkedIn Ads Show. Hungry for more? AJ Wilcox, take it away.
AJ Wilcox
All right, like we talked about with Lee, if you go to his site,
top rank marketing.com. And we have links to that down in the show
notes. You can get access to everything, all the reports and
everything he was talking about. You'll also see his three social
media handles there in the show notes, his LinkedIn, his Twitter
and his Instagram links. So go follow him stay caught up on what
he's doing. He's constantly sharing gold. I'm telling you, if you
or anyone you know, is looking to learn more about LinkedIn ads,
check out the course that I did on LinkedIn learning all about
LinkedIn ads. It's by far the lowest cost and the highest
production value course that there is out there. If this is your
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