Putting LinkedIn conversations at the core of value creation.

The story.

NSK is a giant in the field of premium industrial bearings, but its ambition is even bigger: to grow sales by adding value to its customers’ operations. At the heart of this drive is their AIP Added Value Programme. Embracing a comprehensive range of services including surveys and condition monitoring, AIP helps drive productivity and efficiency improvements into their customers operations, adding profit and value at every step. As it says in the proposition: ‘improvement pays’. To make sure this message reached NSK’s target markets internationally, we focussed our efforts on positioning AIP on NSK’s Global LinkedIn channel.

The thinking.

Our first step – the Explore phase – was to carry out comprehensive market research to gain a deep insight into the audience and key sectors. This gave us a detailed understanding of key topics and trends, as well as the challenges the target audience were experiencing. We used this insight to map out a strategy, based around connecting with senior decision makers and sharing added value content via social channels – specifically, LinkedIn.

Working in close partnership with NSK’s global and European senior leadership teams, we developed a detailed content marketing and digital marketing plan, focusing on ways that AIP could add value and answer needs. We then tailored this for use on the NSK Global LinkedIn channel. This included curating and optimising existing material, leveraging best SEO practice, as well as creating new content. This was centred on a white paper and infographics which converted in-depth industry research into indisputable reasons to believe in the added value potential of NSK’s AIP programme.

Our next challenge lay in making sure this message reached the market and kick-started added value conversations, which we knew was possible through a well thought-out B2B social media strategy. To do this, we built up the LinkedIn and social media profile of the AIP global lead, giving the campaign an authoritative face and voice. And then, we set about promoting the offer globally.

The execution.

To maximise the reach of the campaign, we took a dual approach using every possible tool at our disposal on LinkedIn. On one hand, we used both paid and organic social media including static and dynamic content to get the word out and create awareness: our idea was to ‘stop the scroll’ and keep people fully engaged with the message. On the other, we ensured the global lead was firmly centre stage in the debate. The focus for this was the NSK LinkedIn presence, which was tweaked to give it an AIP perspective.

As a result of this precision targeting and compelling content, NSK saw a dramatic increase in global engagement. The number of LinkedIn followers grew by 332% over the course of the campaign. Similarly, the number of impressions rose from 51,655 in January 2020 to 124,438 by October 2020, an increase of 141%. Above and beyond this, we helped NSK boost average monthly engagement from 2% to 6%, generating high-quality leads while ensuring clear accountability of results – perfectly in keeping with the value-driven focus of AIP.

The story continues.

The success of our combined organic and paid social approach has been proof of the potential of LinkedIn to deliver true value – and we’re still gathering momentum. Using the data analytics we’ve already gathered from the campaign, we’re continuing to build NSK’s LinkedIn profile. We’re also generating new leads with sponsored messaging and dynamic video content, growing awareness and conversations around AIP with a global customer base.