LinkedIn is adding some new tools to help marketers maximize their lead generation and brand building efforts, including a new Business Manager dashboard, new aligned, LinkedIn-native B2B consulting, and updated CRM and API integrations.
The most important update is its new Business Manager platform, which provides a central dashboard for managing “people, accounts, pages” and associated marketing processes.
As illustrated in the video overview above, Business Manager provides a simplified management platform for all LinkedIn business activities.
The new platform includes dedicated tabs for managing people, partners, ad accounts and company pages, along with matched audiences.
It’s essentially a stripped-down version of LinkedIn’s paid Sales Navigator tool, with the idea that by attracting more businesses with its core brand management tools, this will lead to more marketers signing up for a Sales Navigator subscription.
But even in its basic form, here are some useful tools, with the ability to more centrally manage all of your various LinkedIn activities from one place.
You can learn more about the new Business Manager platform and its various functions here.
For brands that want to go even further, LinkedIn is also launching a new consultancy, called “B2B Edge,” which will provide dedicated marketing and brand building consultancy based on academic research and proprietary data.
According to LinkedIn:
“This new service will provide resources and intelligence to improve segmentation, targeting and market position, as well as to optimize creative and media investments. From Oracle to SAS to Workhuman, we’re helping some of the most respected corporate brands in B2B think about how brand and performance advertising, together, produces the most impactful marketing campaigns. “
The main benefit, of course, will be that this consultancy is owned and operated by LinkedIn itself, which will offer you significant benefits in terms of platform insight and knowledge. Which will no doubt be a welcome support option for many brands – you can learn more about B2B Edge here.
Finally, LinkedIn is also expanding access to its new updated content and marketing APIs, while also rolling out a new CRM data validation feature and integration with Gong.
Do you like updating your CRM? We did not think❌
Would you like to update the details quickly and easily? We thought so✔️
Enter our new #Sales Navigator CRM integration ???? It helps you cut down on wasted time by reporting and updating old information in a couple of clicks, all within LinkedIn pic.twitter.com/p3g1y1GMH1
– LinkedIn for sales (@linkedinselling) June 9, 2022
“Powered by our more than 830 million members, Sales Navigator provides real-time information on prospects and accounts. With our latest CRM features, your sales teams can easily verify that the data in their CRM (often seen as the only source of truth) is up to date. And when it comes time to talk to a buyer on the phone, our new integration with Gong is there to make the feedback loop as easy as possible so your sales team can be the trusted advisor buyers want. ” .
Gong enables advanced revenue tracking and projection, providing more ways to dig into sales data. The insights added by LinkedIn will complement those charts and notes and facilitate more opportunities to connect with relevant buyers and contacts.
These are some interesting updates – nothing groundbreaking, as much of this functionality has been available in different forms for some time. But they are interesting, additional considerations for your strategic approach that could improve your sales and marketing process.