MARKETING
Do LinkedIn Newsletters Actually Get Results for Brands?
The notifications keep popping up in the My Network section of my LinkedIn account. But they’re not the usual request to connect. Instead, they’re invitations from people asking me to subscribe to their newsletters.
I received six click-to-subscribe requests on one recent day. I’d already subscribed to a newsletter or two through the platform. Why the sudden onslaught of requests? Did everybody realize the power of newsletters at the same time?
The answer was simple: LinkedIn expanded its newsletter creation feature to more people recently (and will continue to roll it out to even more in the coming months.)
I started to wonder: Do (personal and corporate) brands find these newsletters beneficial? How hard are they to create?
To answer these questions (and more), I turned to brands and agencies who use the LinkedIn newsletter, one of the people who worked on the newsletter feature, and LinkedIn’s published guidance.
Connect through conversations and ideas
The LinkedIn newsletter capability grew naturally from the platform’s articles feature, according to Lorraine K. Lee, who served as editorial lead for the LinkedIn newsletter product launch.
The idea is to help the LinkedIn audience stay up to date on topics and conversations important to them through content created by the people they’ve connected with and brands they follow. It also gives brands and other newsletter creators the opportunity to connect with their followers on topics they are (or want to be) known for.
Lorraine advises any brand or individual to focus on content that’s genuine and open. “A company that’s writing a newsletter each week sharing high-level policies or updates isn’t going to get a lot of traction.
A company that shares employee stories or struggles the HR team faced when implementing remote work policies is.”
“Any time you can tell a story and show what’s behind the curtain — that’s what will help you engage and grow your audience,” says Lorraine, who now heads editorial at Prezi.
Tell a story and show what’s behind the curtain to engage and grow your @LinkedIn newsletter audience, says @lorraineklee via @AnnGynn and @CMIContent. Click To Tweet
Get results with repurposed content
Andy Crestodina, co-founder of Orbit Media, created Digital Marketing Tips on LinkedIn when LinkedIn made the newsletter option available by invitation only. The results have been crazy, he says. In the first 10 months, he gained over 100,000 subscribers. Today, more than 118,000 people subscribe to the weekly LinkedIn newsletter.
His motivation was simple – he wanted to get more value from older blog posts. “Virtually all of our content is evergreen, so I had a virtual assistant start moving old articles into LinkedIn to give them exposure to a new audience. They required very little adaptation, so it was a near-zero effort,” Andy says.
Each LinkedIn newsletter article is about half or two-thirds of the original, with a call to action to read the rest on the Orbit Media website.
The strategy paid off in increased traffic to the Orbit Media website. Since introducing the LinkedIn newsletter in early 2021, more than 10,056 visitors have come to his site from LinkedIn, and almost 90% of them were new visitors.
“For years, we warned against building on rented land,” Andy says, “but when the location of that rented land is amazing and the cost is low, you should go ahead and rent.”
A @LinkedIn #newsletter strategy based on repurposed #content worked for @Orbiteers. So go ahead and rent if the location is amazing and the cost is low, says @Crestodina via @AnnGynn and @CMIContent. Click To Tweet
Tweak content for the platform to earn subscribers and leads
Christina Daves, president of CastMedicDesigns, launched the Get PR Famous newsletter on LinkedIn and now has over 2,500 subscribers. (Get PR Famous is also the name of a course and live event she created.)
“I am repurposing content by taking old articles or blog posts and updating them. I also include YouTube videos I’ve done in the past that will help with that particular topic,” she says. “I’m a huge proponent of reusing your content and not always reinventing the wheel. You just need to tweak it specifically for this audience and the topic you’ve chosen.”
Christina says she’s been blown away by the results. She publishes twice a week and averages 1,500 to 2,000 views per newsletter – about 10 to 20 times more than she gets on regular posts. Each newsletter also nets her one or two consultations with prospects.
“More and more people are jumping on board, which will dilute the excitement and newness of this type of content. (But) provide great content, and people will stay with you,” Christina says.
More people are creating LinkedIn newsletters, which could dilute excitement. But if you provide great #content, people will stay with you, advises @PRforAnyone via @AnnGynn and @CMIContent. Click To Tweet
Test which format readers prefer
VEM Tooling made LinkedIn its primary newsletter distribution platform based on the surge of readers and positive reactions it received, according to Sales Director David Reid. He says subscribers find the LinkedIn newsletter format more comfortable and enjoyable than traditional email newsletters, though both formats feature the same content.
As far as a marketing tool, David says, VEM has found more success with its LinkedIn newsletters because it reaches a broader audience and allows them to see reactions from readers who click on like and other emojis or write comments. (LinkedIn newsletters also are less likely to get stopped by spam filters than traditional email newsletters, he says.)
How to get started
The first step in creating a LinkedIn newsletter is to see if the option is available to you. To find out, go to the Creator hub by visiting the Resources section of your LinkedIn profile page. Here you will see if the newsletter feature is available:
According to LinkedIn, the newsletter creator access is available to members (and brand pages) that have:
- At least 150 followers or connections
- Recently shared original content
- Agreed to adhere to its professional community policies
(Note: Creator mode will affect your profile appearance, moving the Activity and Featured sections before the About section. It also allows you to use hashtags underneath your title.)
From there, the process is simple. At the top of your LinkedIn home page, click “Write an article.” Create the content and then click “create a newsletter.”
LinkedIn offers these tips as best practices:
- Choose a name that clearly describes your newsletter’s content focus.
- Make sure to include your logo in the newsletter and a cover photo for each article.
- Be direct in your article headlines.
- Engage subscribers by adding a few lines of commentary or asking a question when you share the newsletter.
Once you publish your first newsletter, LinkedIn automatically sends a newsletter invitation that includes your name and newsletter title to your connections and followers. You also receive a dedicated newsletter page link you can share on LinkedIn and other social media platforms.
Another tool for your content kit
LinkedIn newsletters offer an option for delivering content to and interacting with a community that may not want another email newsletter popping up in their inboxes.
Even if you aren’t the earliest bird to the LinkedIn Newsletter feature, you can still test the tactic to see if it helps your content fly further and attract a wider audience.
Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute
MARKETING
Trends in Content Localization – Moz
Multinational fast food chains are one of the best-known examples of recognizing that product menus may sometimes have to change significantly to serve distinct audiences. The above video is just a short run-through of the same business selling smokehouse burgers, kofta, paneer, and rice bowls in an effort to appeal to people in a variety of places. I can’t personally judge the validity of these representations, but what I can see is that, in such cases, you don’t merely localize your content but the products on which your content is founded.
Sometimes, even the branding of businesses is different around the world; what we call Burger King in America is Hungry Jack’s in Australia, Lays potato chips here are Sabritas in Mexico, and DiGiorno frozen pizza is familiar in the US, but Canada knows it as Delissio.
Tales of product tailoring failures often become famous, likely because some of them may seem humorous from a distance, but cultural sensitivity should always be taken seriously. If a brand you are marketing is on its way to becoming a large global seller, the best insurance against reputation damage and revenue loss as a result of cultural insensitivity is to employ regional and cultural experts whose first-hand and lived experiences can steward the organization in acting with awareness and respect.
MARKETING
How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy
MARKETING
More promotions and more layoffs
For martech professionals salaries are good and promotions are coming faster, unfortunately, layoffs are coming faster, too. That’s according to the just-released 2024 Martech Salary and Career Survey. Another very unfortunate finding: The median salary of women below the C-suite level is 35% less than what men earn.
The last year saw many different economic trends, some at odds with each other. Although unemployment remained very low overall and the economy grew, some businesses — especially those in technology and media — cut both jobs and spending. Reasons cited for the cuts include during the early years of the pandemic, higher interest rates and corporate greed.
Dig deeper: How to overcome marketing budget cuts and hiring freezes
Be that as it may, for the employed it remains a good time to be a martech professional. Salaries remain lucrative compared to many other professions, with an overall median salary of $128,643.
Here are the median salaries by role:
- Senior management $199,653
- Director $157,776
- Manager $99,510
- Staff $89,126
Senior managers make more than twice what staff make. Directors and up had a $163,395 median salary compared to manager/staff roles, where the median was $94,818.
One-third of those surveyed said they were promoted in the last 12 months, a finding that was nearly equal among director+ (32%) and managers and staff (30%).
Extend the time frame to two years, and nearly three-quarters of director+ respondents say they received a promotion, while the same can be said for two-thirds of manager and staff respondents.
Dig deeper: Skills-based hiring for modern marketing teams
Employee turnover
In 2023, we asked survey respondents if they noticed an increase in employee churn and whether they would classify that churn as a “moderate” or “significant” increase. For 2024, given the attention on cost reductions and layoffs, we asked if the churn they witnessed was “voluntary” (e.g., people leaving for another role) or “involuntary” (e.g., a layoff or dismissal). More than half of the marketing technology professionals said churn increased in the last year. Nearly one-third classified most of the churn as “involuntary.”
Men and Women
This year, instead of using average salary figures, we used the median figures to lessen the impact of outliers in the salary data. As a result, the gap between salaries for men and women is even more glaring than it was previously.
In last year’s report, men earned an average of 24% more than women. This year the median salary of men is 35% more than the median salary of women. That is until you get to the upper echelons. Women at director and up earned 5% more than men.
Methodology
The 2024 MarTech Salary and Career Survey is a joint project of MarTech.org and chiefmartec.com. We surveyed 305 marketers between December 2023 and February 2024; 297 of those provided salary information. Nearly 63% (191) of respondents live in North America; 16% (50) live in Western Europe. The conclusions in this report are limited to responses from those individuals only. Other regions were excluded due to the limited number of respondents.
Download your copy of the 2024 MarTech Salary and Career Survey here. No registration is required.
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