For the fourth Marketing Theatre session of Day 1 at International Confex 2021, 1 September, Eleanor Bougie-Smith, head of digital at SocialB, spoke about how to harness the power of LinkedIn ads to attract target audiences to events.
Bougie-Smith said LinkedIn provided great audience targeting and was useful for breaking down audience demographics. This targeting can include location, company name, size, followers and fields of study.
Bougie-Smith also covered how to use budgets effectively when attracting people to events. “It’s not about attracting the masses, it’s about attracting the right audiences,” she said.
She added that the more information you add to the targeting, the more LinkedIn can guide you on what your average spend and CPC (cost-per-click) will be. “Really think about how you will allocate you costs across multiple campaigns,” she said. “Think about what you really want your audience to do in terms of engagement,” she said.
As for creating engaging content, Bougie-Smith said it is always about targeting and personalisation. She encouraged to use wording that gets the audience’s attention and resonates with them, as well as an image or video that catches their eye. A strong call to action that focuses on one main area is also an effective technique, she said.
“There’s no bad thing about looking at your competitors to see what they are doing,” she said. “Don’t just copy them but take some inspiration.”
Bougie-Smith concluded the session by stressing the importance of tracking and reporting on KPIs (key performance indicators) and measuring success. She said this would help continually improve approaches and strategies for attracting audiences to events.
