How to Use LinkedIn Sponsored Updates: Demographically Targeting Franchise Candidates

Is your Franchise Development Department struggling with getting your Franchise Opportunity in front of the ‘Right’ Franchise Candidates?

Are you bleeding away Franchise Development Marketing dollars without transparency?

Do you need a new method of Online Franchise Lead Generation?

In this post I will walk you through a 7 step process for creating LinkedIn Sponsored Updates to demographically and geographically target Franchise Candidates.

What are LinkedIn Sponsored Updates?

With other social media sites already ahead of the curve, such as Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr, it was only a matter of time before LinkedIn joined the ‘Sponsored Updates’ party.

Currently more then 3 million Company Pages exist on LinkedIn, some of which are Franchise LinkedIn Pages’.  These pages are becoming a highly valued source of relevant content on LinkedIn.  The Sponsored Updates allow these companies to build relationships with their ‘followers’ and more importantly with individuals that are NOT followers, by delivering content into the homepage newsfeed of all 225 million members on LinkedIn.

If you’re a marketer, Sponsored Updates allow you to promote your message to others outside your company page following. At the same time, you can demographically and geographically target who sees that message, so your marketing efforts can be focused on the right people in the right place.

Step 1:  Create your post on your LinkedIn Company Page for your Franchise Organization.

As a Franchise Organization you can post an update that contains a link to a Webinar on Franchising or a ‘Success Story about your Franchise Opportunity’ on your LinkedIn Company Page.  Once you have posted the updated, look for the ‘Sponsor Update’ button.
 

Step 2:  Give A Name To Your Campaign:

While setting up your campaign give some thought to the naming convention in order to allow you to see what it is about at a glance.  You may call it, ‘Nashville Franchise Leads Alpha’ as an example.

Once you have set up the first campaign criteria, you may want to replicate that same franchise lead generation campaign across multiple geographic markets (see below).   You can easily duplicate the same campaign criteria saving a lot of time.

Step 3: Demographically targeting for the ‘Right Franchise Candidate’

Often when working with our Franchise Clients doing Online Lead Generation for Franchisors we are told that an individual with a certain background make for the ‘Right Franchise Candidate’.  Some Franchisors may want to target advertising to military personnel, others may want to target ‘C’ level executives.

LinkedIn Sponsored Updates allows you to target who sees the Sponsored Update based on the following criteria:

• Location – by country, state, city/metro area
• Company –  by size of company or by name of company or by Industry (eg. If FORD was laying off individuals, we can target the sponsored update being shown to only Ford)
• Job title – by title or category
• School – by school name
• Skills – by skill name
• Group – all or a particular group, or exclude
• Gender
• Age – several age brackets to choose from
• Geography – if Franchise Territories are only available in certain areas, the updates will be visible to those within that geography

Step 4 : Show Me The Money  (well actually show LinkedIn the Money)

Once you have finished selecting the appropriate criteria to target your sponsored updates, you have to choose the budget and whether you want to pay every time someone clicks on your sponsored update  (CPC- Cost Per Click) or pay every time a certain number of people see the sponsored update (CPM – Cost Per 1,000 Impressions)

You can also select how long the campaign should last.

Step 5 : Preview your Sponsored Update

This will show you how your LinkedIn Sponsored Update will appear to your target audience.

Step 6 : Split Testing the Conversion on Your Landing Page

If you are generating Franchise Candidate Leads using LinkedIn Sponsored Updates or getting people to register for a webinar about Franchising, you definitely want to split test the landing pages or Multi Variant Split Testing.  This is an area often overlooked by many Franchise Lead Generation Campaigns.  Try different layouts and different CTAs (Calls To Action) on your landing page.  Increasing conversion from click to leads will have a huge impact on the ROI of your online marketing campaign.

Step 7: Measuring the Results

Once you have created the post and configured the campaign, remember the old adage, ‘You can’t manage what you can’t measure!’

Below the Sponsored Update on your LinkedIn Company Page you will be able to see how your audience is interacting with the post.  Interactions occur when someone clicks like, shares or comments on your post.  The engagement rate refers to the number of interactions divided by the impressions.

You can gain more data and insights by clicking on ‘Linkedin Campaign Manager’

In Summary:

LinkedIn Sponsored Updates is a great way to demographically target Franchise Buyers with specific backgrounds in specific geographies.  It is just one more method for Franchise Lead Generation.

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About the Author  : Google

A serial entrepreneur with extensive background in franchising and interests in multiple online business channels, Jamshaid (Jam) Hashmi has played an instrumental role in the franchise development and success of a renowned international franchise company. His most recent entrepreneurial interests include launching ClickTecs, a Digital Marketing company specializing in Search Engine Marketing and Social Media Marketing as well as Website and Mobile Application development. In 2007 he co-founded WSI Search Result, an online marketing company that supplies services to Internet Marketing Consultants. A sought after public speaker, Jam has been the featured keynote at many franchise conferences and international summits. He regularly trains ‘C’ Level Executives and supports both new and seasoned business owners on Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media Optimization, Mobile Marketing, Brand Reputation Management and Conversion & Measurement through web analytics. When he’s not scaling the heights of the Internet world, Jam ‘unwinds’ on extreme thrill-seeking adventures from the jungles of the Amazon to the highest summits. His passions include working with NGOs on humanitarian missions to areas around the world affected by disasters and poverty.