Decision-maker targeting on LinkedIn for your B2B manufacturing brand.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Lead Gen Forms and corporate content. Reach purchasing decision-makers directly by job title, industry and company size.
B2B Manufacturer + LinkedIn Marketing: common problems
- We cannot reach the decision-makers at our B2B customers
- We have a LinkedIn profile but no content
- We do not use Sales Navigator and search manually instead
B2B Manufacturer + LinkedIn Marketing: why it works differently
In B2B manufacturing, the buyer base is narrow and identifiable. Your target is the purchasing and technical staff of a few hundred companies of a certain size in a certain industry; an advertising approach aimed at a broad audience does not land here. Nor does one person make the decision: purchasing looks at price and payment terms, the technical team at the specification, quality at certificates and samples, and senior management at supply risk. That is why contact takes a long time and is not closed with a single message. What makes LinkedIn valuable in this picture is that it can address people by job title, industry and company size; outside trade fairs, few channels offer targeting this precise.
The real difficulty manufacturers face on LinkedIn is not the channel itself but going into it unprepared. The company page is often empty, employees are not linked to it, and the last post dates from years ago. When you send a message, the other person looks at your profile and page before replying; if they see a gap there, the conversation ends before it starts. The second difficulty is how the company tells its story. A manufacturer often sees its product as ordinary, treats its process as confidential and thinks it has nothing to say; yet capacity, line set-up, quality control methods, tolerance ranges and the industries it supplies are directly valuable information for the technical staff on the other side. Not sharing this makes the company indistinguishable from dozens of similar manufacturers in the industry and squeezes the conversation back down to price alone.
In practice, the groundwork is laid first: the company page is reorganised to explain clearly what you make, which industries you serve and what your production capacity is. Then targeting is set up: account and contact lists are built in Sales Navigator with filters for industry, headcount, geography and job title, and the lists are saved to track job changes. Content is tied to a regular rhythm, because direct messaging only gets a response when there is visible production behind it. On the advertising side, pre-filled Lead Gen Forms are used; because users no longer have to type their details, a sign-up can be collected in exchange for a technical document or catalogue. The final step is turning message copy into templates and revising them according to the reply rate.
B2B Manufacturer + LinkedIn Marketing: what the package delivers
Scope in writing, process step by step, results reported. The fee depends on scope, number of channels and, for ads, the ad budget; a written proposal follows the first call.
- 01 LinkedIn Company Page optimisation
- 02 Sales Navigator set-up and account and contact lists
- 03 LinkedIn Lead Gen Form (pre-filled) ads
- 04 10-15 corporate posts and articles a month
- 05 Decision-maker outreach scripts + InMail campaigns
| Scope item | What it is for |
|---|---|
| LinkedIn Company Page optimisation | The first place the person you message will look. When what you make, the industries you serve and your production capacity are written clearly, every later contact gets a better response. |
| Sales Navigator set-up and lead list configuration | Takes the guesswork out of the target audience. Account and contact lists are built with filters for industry, headcount, geography and job title; the lists are saved and job changes are tracked. |
| LinkedIn Lead Gen Form (pre-filled) ads | Removes the burden of typing details by hand. Contact details are collected in exchange for a catalogue, technical document or sample request, and sign-ups come directly from the targeted job titles. |
| 10-15 company posts and articles a month | Keeps the page alive and backs up direct messages. When the production process, quality control approach and industry knowledge are explained, the page becomes a source worth reading for technical staff. |
| Decision-maker outreach scripts and InMail campaigns | Moves messaging from personal improvisation to a measurable process. Copy is written to vary by job title and revised regularly according to the reply rate. |
The tools behind the B2B Manufacturer + LinkedIn Marketing package
| Platform | Its role in this package |
|---|---|
| LinkedIn Company Page | The company's corporate shop window; content publishing, employee connections and a visitor's first impression are managed from here. |
| LinkedIn Sales Navigator | The research layer where target account and decision-maker lists are built and continuously tracked with saved searches. |
| LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms | The form structure that collects sign-ups inside the ad with pre-filled fields; contact details come directly from the platform profile. |
| LinkedIn Ads | The panel where campaign budget, targeting and delivery are controlled; content and form ads are distributed from here. |
B2B Manufacturer + LinkedIn Marketing: frequently asked questions
Why does LinkedIn matter for B2B?
LinkedIn lets you target by job title, industry and company size, which makes it better suited than most channels to reaching the named people who make purchasing decisions.
Is Sales Navigator paid?
Yes, it is a paid LinkedIn tool; LinkedIn publishes current licence prices and the licence fee is paid to LinkedIn directly. One to three licences for your sales team is usually enough, and we run the operation.
What budget does LinkedIn Ads need?
Cost per click on LinkedIn is higher than on most channels, in exchange for narrower targeting. We set the budget with you based on the size of the target company list, the campaign goal and the target country, and share a recommended range in writing; ad spend is paid to LinkedIn directly.
Who produces the content?
We do: using what we learn from you about your sector and products, we write corporate posts and articles and send them to you for approval before publishing.
What is LinkedIn Sales Navigator, and what is it for?
LinkedIn Sales Navigator is the paid search tool LinkedIn offers to sales teams; it is used to build lists of target companies and decision-makers with filters for industry, headcount, geography and job title. In this package we set up Sales Navigator, build your account and contact lists, and save the lists to track job changes. Messaging therefore rests not on guesswork but on a named target list.
How do you advertise on LinkedIn?
You advertise on LinkedIn by defining the target audience in the LinkedIn Ads panel by job title, industry and company size, then choosing a budget and an ad format. For B2B manufacturers we use pre-filled Lead Gen Form ads, which collect contact details in exchange for a catalogue, technical document or sample request. Before advertising, the company page is put in order, because the person you contact looks at your page before replying.
What is B2B lead generation, and how does it work for manufacturers?
B2B lead generation is the process of identifying the companies that could buy your product, and the decision-makers within them, and collecting contact details and enquiries from them. In manufacturing the buyer base is narrow and identifiable, so we build the process on LinkedIn account and contact lists drawn up by industry, headcount, geography and job title. Enquiries are collected through pre-filled Lead Gen Form ads in exchange for a catalogue, technical document or sample, while direct messaging runs on copy that is revised according to the reply rate.
What determines the cost?
The fee depends on the number of posts a month, the scope of the Sales Navigator lists, the volume of direct outreach and the number of LinkedIn Ads campaigns. Sales Navigator licences and ad spend are paid to LinkedIn separately.
What do you need from us?
Product and technical documentation, a list of target industries and countries, admin access to your company page, the sales team profiles used for outreach, and one person to follow up incoming enquiries.
Book a free 30-minute initial call
We look at where things stand today for this package and give you three concrete recommendations. The first 30-minute call is free; the scope of an on-site discovery, and its fee if any, is agreed in writing during that call.