The Marketers Guide to Successful Marketing on LinkedIn

Transcript lightly edited for spelling and punctuation. The conversation is unabridged.

Mark Evans: My name is Mark Evans. I'd like to welcome you to Marketing Spark, the podcast that delivers small doses of insight, tools, and tips for marketers and entrepreneurs in the trenches. By small doses, it's conversations that are fifteen minutes or less. On today's show, I'm talking with Jason Vana. He runs his own business, Shift Marketing, and he's also the marketing director at Fusion Tech. I connected with Jason on LinkedIn where he publishes a steady stream of posts that offer practical advice on how companies can do better marketing, content, and branding. Welcome to Marketing Spark.

Jason Vanna: Thanks, Mark. I'm really excited to be here.

Mark Evans: Before we jump into all the questions that I have for you, give me a snapshot of your marketing responsibilities and how you balance them.

Jason Vanna: As you said, I am the marketing director at Fusion Tech. We are a company that manufactures and designs food processing equipment. So the kind of equipment you would see in, like, a Tyson plant. There, I basically oversee all of the marketing for the company. When I started, they didn't have a marketing person. They didn't have a graphic designer. They had a, you know, website that looked like it was from the nineteen nineties. Basically, came in, developed the brand, developed a lead-gen system, built a new website, do all the marketing, from magazine ads, which really shocks me, but it works. Social media content, all of it basically falls underneath me. And then in the evenings and at night or in the evenings and on the weekends, I do Shift Marketing where, basically, I take all the experience that I've had from the last eighteen years of marketing and help other businesses with their branding and their marketing needs. I have a handful of clients that I work pretty regularly with, whether it's just developing a brand or, you know, I have some clients where I do all of their marketing for them. It is a balancing act, but what I found is when you have a side hustle like that, especially when it's kind of the same realm as your full-time job, I am able to learn a lot more in Shift, applying marketing principles to different industries and learning how different industries operate. And then I'm actually able to take that and apply what I've learned helping other customers to my full-time job at Fusion Tech. And so I tell people all the time, Fusion Tech has very greatly benefited from me having a side job because there are things that I never would have tried in our industry that I tried because I worked with a financial planner. I worked with a sales trainer. I worked with an IT company, and I tried marketing aspects with their target market. And then I implemented and tried it with Fusion Tech and was like, man, I never would have thought this. But having that side hustle really helps you learn more than you would just working in one industry.

Mark Evans: Let's get to this whole marketing, ever-evolving marketing world that you and I are playing in these days. Maybe you can talk a little bit about what you've seen over the last six months since COVID hit and companies started to take a different approach to marketing. What do you see as some of the most interesting developments or some of the biggest challenges that are facing companies when it comes to marketing these days?

Jason Vanna: I think the biggest thing is learning how to adapt. One of the things I said early on when COVID happened, and this is, I did some posts on this, is that if you're a great marketer, you have a buyer persona, you kind of have that development of this is who my target market is, this is what they like to do. When COVID hit for every single company, your target market changed. I think the not maybe necessarily the industry or the person, but what they're struggling with, what they're dealing with, what their hobbies are, how they spend their time, where they spend their time, all of it changed when everything kind of went in lockdown. And I think the companies that recognize that and adapted quickly to those changes are the ones that are still being fairly successful in the midst of, like, an economic downturn. And so being able to. And I think that's just the truth of marketing as a whole is you need to always have your thumb on the pulse of your target market because we went from for most people, your target market was working in an office. They had a desk. They had a phone at their desk. They had their email to now they're working at home. They also have their pets around them all the time. They're also with their spouse twenty-four/seven. They can't go anywhere. They can't really stress, so they're stressed out. They're agitated. They're spending a lot more time online. Like we saw, if you're regular on LinkedIn, when COVID hit, there's been a massive spike in activity on LinkedIn because people are realizing, well, I'm either out of a job or I'm working from home. I have more time. What should I do with it is I should probably build up my resume. I should probably have a good presence on LinkedIn. And so where maybe prior to COVID, your target market wasn't on LinkedIn, now it is. Or they're using social media differently, like, more people. But since COVID hit, social media usage has gone through the roof. You're seeing more people my age, like, thirties and forties on TikTok. They're actually creating. They're not just scrolling. They're creating. People are looking, like, when restaurants are closed and movie theaters are closed and everything shut down, they're looking for ways to be entertained. And so these brands that recognize, 'Hey, we might not want to focus necessarily on our product. We might want to focus on entertaining people and giving them valuable resources to help them in this time.' Because when you do that, people are going to remember that, 'Hey, when I was stuck at home and I lost my job or I was looking for a new job or, you know, I was frustrated because I'm trying to work or my kid is screaming and stuff, you provided a way to help me.' People remember that kind of stuff.

Mark Evans: No. Sorry. So one of the things that we're sort of dancing around on this is something that you and I talk a lot about on LinkedIn is the idea of brand positioning and being focused on your target audiences. As you say, a lot of companies sort of position themselves pre-COVID based on what they knew about their target audiences. But do you think many of them changed their brand positioning and their overall branding to reflect the new reality?

Jason Vanna: I think a lot of companies are a little late to the game. And the only reason I say that is when COVID first hit, I think a lot of people had this understanding that it was only going to be a month or two because for most states, they shut down for a month and then extended and then extended. And so when it all first hit, I think we all had this idea of it's a month, and everything's going to go back to normal. And so I think a lot of people just kind of hit pause and didn't want to change anything because why would you change anything for four weeks and then change it all back? But I think as people started to realize, yeah, this isn't changing, and this is going a lot longer. That's why some people are a little bit late to the game is they didn't think it was going to last long. They didn't adapt to it as, you know, looking back, I think most brands would have been like, man, when they announced the shutdown, we should have been on that right away, changing our brand, changing our message, trying to change our position, to really understand the transition our target market was going through. And so I think in some of that, okay. Now I'm working from home, and I have to figure out this whole new routine. And how do I do this? And my internet's slower than what it was at work. And you're trying to deal with that, but now you're also trying to deal with the process that you normally would take months, like weeks or months to go through of understanding your target market. It just completely flipped overnight, and now you have to learn how do you contact them, what are they struggling with, is your product even a solution to them anymore. So I think some of it too is just it was a lot thrown at people all at once to not only adjust their brand, but you're also adjusting to a whole new way of working, which adds its own levels of frustration and difficulty to it. Yes. I think brands were most brands were a little late to the game, but, you know, at the same time, I like to give a little bit of grace because it was a global pandemic. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. No one anticipated this.

Mark Evans: So you've been a longtime content creator. You mentioned, before I hit record on this podcast, that going back even to your college days, you were into blogging. And writing is, obviously, in your blood and you like doing it and clearly, you're good at it. Content marketing has always been part of the B2B landscape, but a lot of companies have suddenly doubled down on it or they've embraced it for the first time in a big way. What do you see as some of the keys to success with content marketing? Because I think in my mind, a lot of content is pretty mediocre, and a lot of companies are simply going through the motions to create the appearance that they're creating value-added content. So what's your take on, and I know it's a loaded question

Jason Vanna: Right.

Mark Evans: On how you create content that matters?

Jason Vanna: The very first thing and I say this a lot on LinkedIn. I preach it a lot to my clients. The most important thing, you have to know your target market. That is key one. You cannot create great content. You cannot really reach them and create value if you don't know who they are. You don't know what they're struggling with. You don't know their day-to-day life and what they deal with. First thing, you have to know your target market. You have to know who they are, what they like. You have to be like I tell people, stalk them. Like, you have to be the stalker-level, creepy, know everything about them hiding outside their bushes to see what they're eating for dinner type exaggeration, but you need to know your target market and you need to know them well. Beyond that then, and I actually just put a post out. I don't know when, you know, this podcast is going to air, but I put a post out yesterday that great content comes at the intersection of four areas. Your target market, what the platform allows, your passions, and your expertise. You can find content ideas that hit all four that tends to be much better content. First, most important thing, you have to know your target audience. The second thing, and this is just from my strategy, is to give away your expertise in content. And what I mean by that is if you go to my LinkedIn profile and you scroll through all my content for the last year, you will be able to market yourself and create great content without ever having to talk to me. You won't have to hire me. You can create your brand. You can build your website. You can do all of it. All you have to do is consume my content. Now most people are not going to sit there on LinkedIn and scroll through a year's worth of content. I get that. But the level of content I'm putting out is I'm going to show you everything I do for you. I'm going to give you all my secrets. I'm going to give you I even give out the resources. So, last week and this week, I gave out resources that I use to take my clients through when developing their brands. And I thought, you know what? Instead of hoarding this and keeping it to myself, I'm going to give it to people for free. And they can use it. They cannot use it. Up to them. But you have what I take my clients through. You have it yourself. You can do it yourself. That is the level of what I give away in my content. I show you how to do for yourself what you could pay me to do for you. And what that does and see, I think for a lot of let me back up and say this. I think for a lot of companies, they don't want to do that because they think it's going to cost them money. They think, well, if I give away all those secrets, if I show people how to do this themselves, then they won't hire me. But what I found is when you do that, one or two things happen. People see the process that's required, and they say, 'There is no way I'm going to do that. Like, that's too much work. I don't understand it. I'm just going to hire someone.' Or they start doing it, and partway through, they realize, okay. I came up with an answer. Like, I have a guide to write your own tagline. So you could go through that, and I've had people do this. They go through the guide, and they come up with a tagline, and then they're like, 'I don't like it, and I don't know how to improve it.' So then they message me, and they're like, 'Hey. This is what I came up with. Can I have you just, like, review it and give me some suggestions, or is there a way that you can do it for me?' I make money off of the free guides I give. I give it all away for free, and then people, like, come to me. They message me, they're like, 'I need help with this. I need a consultation. I went through your guide. I don't like what I came up with. Can you help me?' I make money off of the free guides I give out.

Mark Evans: It's easy to consume this content. It's easy to think that you can do it. It's like think about it, if you're hiring a carpenter. Right? You can look at videos on how to saw properly and how to hammer properly and how to do all the cool things that carpenters can do. And you might think, well, this is a do-it-yourself project until you actually try to do it. And then everything doesn't fit and it doesn't look good and your wife's upset with you and then you hire a carpenter. It's the same philosophy, right, which is I find it really interesting. One of the things that I wanted to ask you just going back to LinkedIn is that you've been on LinkedIn for a while. You've got a great profile. Your engagement in terms of comments on your posts and the number of people who like your posts is extremely impressive. So I wanted to get a little context from you about that journey. Like, how do you approach LinkedIn? How do you create content? How much time do you devote to LinkedIn given that it's obviously a great channel for you? You must enjoy using it, and it must drive ROI. So can you provide me with a little bit of color around your LinkedIn world?

Jason Vanna: It's funny because it's a lot less investment than most people think. When I approached LinkedIn, basically, I come at LinkedIn with the idea of I'm putting out content in order to make money. Now building relationships and all that, yes, that's important too. Like, some of the people I am closest to, I met on LinkedIn. Like, I text them almost every day. Yes. I'm never going to say that the relationship side is not important, but I always chuckle when people are like, 'I'm just here for the relationships.' I'm like, 'No.' If you put out content on LinkedIn, even if you're not actively trying to make money, it's benefiting you personally. I come at it from this mindset of this is how I generate leads. This is how I get clients. When I create content, I'm going to give away a little bit of my content creation secrets here. But what I do is I batch create, and I create my content in weekly themes from Monday through Friday. Now I'm actually shifting it up a little bit. I'm posting Sunday night to Thursday nights. I found that over the last few weeks, I found that evenings tend to do a little bit better for me. Basically, what I do is I focus on one theme, overall theme. So, like, this week, it is content. I'm talking all five days on content, and each day is a different aspect of content creation. When you have this strategy of Monday, I post this, and Tuesday, I post this, and Wednesday, I post this, or you don't have a strategy and you just post whatever you feel, that doesn't solidify a brand inside people's minds. If you engage with my content all this week, what's going to be embedded in your head is 'Jason knows content.' So now if you have questions about content, if you want to improve your own content, I have pushed it into your brain for five days in a row, 'Jason knows content.' Same with when I do a weekend branding. Now you know 'Jason knows branding.' And what it allows me to do too is go deeper. What I do is I look at each week. It's almost like a long-form blog post that I break up. Like, I break up into five individual little posts. So, really, I could take my LinkedIn content, throw it together, put it up as a blog post, and be done. That's kind of how I approach it so that when you see my content, I can go deeper into the topic than you could in just one post. What that has done is it's positioned me as an expert. Is, people don't see that, okay. He posts about content one day, and then he posts about a logo another day. I could have read someone else's post about creating a logo and popped it up there, and most people wouldn't know. But if I spend five days talking about logos and going deep into, like, here's what you need to think about with the logo. Here's how you choose the colors for your logo. Like, that shows a level of expertise that you can't see in just one post. And so I do that weekly-type theme. I batch create it all at once so that it all flows together in it. And then the biggest thing when it comes to LinkedIn, putting out great content is very important. But in order to get your content seen, you have to engage, not only on the comments on your own post, but you have to be out there engaging with other people. I have a favorites list. I use Evernote for a lot of my stuff. In Evernote, I have just a list of these are the people that I want to make sure I engage with the content every single day. I copy the link to their post page to make sure that when I click it, I see their most recent post. I can engage right away and then pop off. I typically spend about an hour on LinkedIn a day, but I break that hour up into small bites throughout the day. It looks like I'm always on LinkedIn when in reality, I might spend an hour on the platform a day.

Mark Evans: Yeah. LinkedIn is pretty amazing. I think that's the one thing that probably doesn't get as much attention as it deserves is the fact that it's a great engagement, lead-generation platform. So one final question for you. If you're new to LinkedIn and if you're sort of finally realized that LinkedIn is a pretty interesting place or could be a pretty interesting place, where do you start? Like, what are the first few steps that you should take?

Jason Vanna: The marketer in me and the brander in me wants to say, before you start, figure out what is the benefit that you offer. What are you wanting to use LinkedIn for? Are you trying to do it to get a new job? Are you trying to do it to grow a business? Are you just trying to do it to network with new people? Figure out your goal and then figure out, okay. What is the unique benefit that I bring? How do I communicate that? And then start creating content. You don't need to start having a great strategy. Just get out there, start putting out content, and start engaging. Even before you start putting out your own content, find people on LinkedIn that are in the industry that you want to serve that write on topics that you enjoy and like their posts and leave thoughtful comments on it. So then when you're ready to start producing your own content, you've already seen on other people's content, you're already, like, having conversations with people. So then when you finally hit the publish button, you have that support. In all honesty, when I started on LinkedIn, I didn't even see it as a platform that I could make money on. It wasn't until I was on the platform for about a month or two and seeing what other people were doing that I was like, 'I could actually make money here.' Yeah. You know? Like, and I think for a lot of people, they don't see the full picture of how to do it because you haven't used the platform yet. So stop trying to get it all figured out before you post. Just engage and then post.

Mark Evans: Yeah. Maybe it's like the old Nike analogy. Just do it. Right? Yeah. This has been that's just the way to go, and you'll learn as you go. Jason, this has been terrific insight. I really appreciate it. I want to thank everybody for listening to another episode of Marketing Spark. If you enjoyed the conversation, leave a review and subscribe via iTunes or your favorite podcast app. If you like what you heard, please rate it. For show notes of today's conversation and information about Jason, visit marketingspark.co/blog. If you have questions, feedback, or would like to suggest a guest, send an email to mark@marketingspark.co. And to learn more about how I help B2B companies as a fractional CMO, consultant, and adviser, visit marketingspark.co. Talk to you next time.