Linkedin Marketing Strategy & Marketing Mix (4Ps)
Marketing Strategy of Linkedin analyzes the brand with the marketing mix framework which covers the 4Ps (Product, Price, Place, Promotion). These business strategies, based on Linkedin marketing mix, help the brand succeed in the market. Let us start the Linkedin Marketing Strategy & Mix to understand its product, pricing, advertising & distribution strategies:
Quick Glance:
Linkedin Product Strategy:
The product strategy and mix in Linkedin marketing strategy can be explained as follows:
LinkedIn is a leading global professional website which connects business professionals across the world. LinkedIn is an employment related social networking platform which primarily focuses on creating a network of professionals from various industries who can connect with each other. The services in its marketing mix facilitates companies to promote themselves by posting about the current jobs, business and their activities and insights.
LinkedIn facilitates recruiters to hire employees through profiles which the people make on the website. At the same time job seekers can see each other’s profiles, find friends working in organizations and look for jobs and at the same time build connections with the people pertaining to their industry.
image:wikimedia
Linkedin Price/Pricing Strategy:
Below is the pricing strategy in Linkedin marketing strategy:
LinkedIn is a free service as far as downloading the app or accessing the website is concerned. It was initially funded by Sequoia Capital and later by other venture capital funds.
LinkedIn has around 200 million monthly active users out of which about 50-60% pay for the special services. This is the premium membership where the profile is visible to key decision makers and recruiters. Also, the users can search unlimited people and also know who viewed their profile. This membership costs at a rate per month after the first month which is free. LinkedIn also gets revenues from companies who want to recruit on the website or market their services there. However, these prices are undisclosed.
Read more about Linkedin
Linkedin Place & Distribution Strategy:
Following is the distribution strategy in the Linkedin marketing mix:
LinkedIn is headquartered in California and has branches in other locations like London, Mumbai, Dubai, Hong Kong, Japan, Australia, New York, Canada, Dublin, Amsterdam, Milan, Paris, Munich, Madrid etc. It has around 10000 employees. The services can be accessed through the website where all the recruiters, job seekers, company handles are present. All LinkedIn offices have plush interiors with color scheme which sometimes matches that of the website.
The offices are in upscale locations and have state of the art facilities available in them.
Linkedin Promotion & Advertising Strategy:
The promotional and advertising strategy in the Linkedin marketing strategy is as follows:
LinkedIn does not promote itself through traditional channels like TV advertisements, radio, newspapers or magazines. It develops its customer base through word of mouth marketing where the users recommend it to their friends and that’s how the network grows. LinkedIn also have their influencer program where they invite great leaders like Satya Nadella, Bill Gates, Tim Cook, Narendra Modi etc. who give their insights about the current business scenario. It also promotes itself through tie ups with other company websites where the job applicants can share their LinkedIn CVs through an easy link. People can also follow thought leaders to read about their insights about the various business trends and also at the same time post about their experiences and thoughts about their understanding of the current business scenario.
Since this is a service marketing brand, here are the other three Ps to make it the 7Ps marketing mix of LinkedIn.
People:
There are around 10000 employees in all in LinkedIn. LinkedIn employees are extremely skilled in their respective domains. The recruitment takes place from top universities like Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Dartmouth etc. Jeff Weiner is the CEO and Reed Hoffman is the chairman. Followed by this the next level of the hierarchy consists of five department heads namely CFO, communications and marketing, solutions, legal and secretary and talent organization. Then later it breaks down into a number of roles like finance, assistant control, product marketing, sales, content, customer assistance etc.
Process:
LinkedIn has several processes on the website along with many business processes. The process starts with the users making their profile on the website where they fill information regarding their education, work experience, skills, languages and projects along with their personal information which includes profile photo, name, age, gender, email id and location. They are then provided with a list of probable contacts which are derived from the Facebook, Gmail or other social profiles whom they can start following. After that they can follow thought leaders, companies and start looking for jobs after uploading their CVs. LinkedIn users can write a few lines in recommendations for others or endorse skills of their friends. They can also upgrade to the premium membership if they find the website useful and if there is an urgency for finding a job.
Physical Evidence:
LinkedIn’s service is internet based. The physical evidence comprises of aspects like user interface of the website where the users can easily find contacts, relevant jobs, follow relevant people and get a good news feed through recommendations. It also involves aspects like the communication through this platform which has to be hassle free when a recruiter wants to contact a potential candidate he or she should be able to do so easily. Also, the other aspect of the service is the ease with which the users can synch their LinkedIn profiles with independent company job links. The color scheme and design of the website also play a key role as they convey the sophistication of the service and are soothing to the eyes of the users. Hence this completes the LinkedIn marketing mix.
About Linkedin:
LinkedIn is a social networking service founded in 2002 and launched in 2003. It was founded by Reid Hoffman, Allen Blue, Konstantin Guericke, Eric Ly and Jean-Luc Vaillant who used to work at PayPal and socialnet. The main focus of the company is to form a network of people looking for jobs, companies offering the jobs and people hiring for the jobs.
LinkedIn is headquartered in California and has offices in 20+ other locations having around 10,000 employees in all. It has been voted as the one of the most famous social networking website in the world.
This article has been researched & authored by the Content & Research Team. It has been reviewed & published by the MBA Skool Team. The content on MBA Skool has been created for educational & academic purpose only.
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