An interesting future for LinkedIn.
Last weekend, Bloomberg News got ahold of what it claimed was an internal LinkedIn memo where the company envisioned a $1 billion business by 2017 as an “integrated marketing and sales platform” for business-to-business (B2B) marketers, fueled with its $175 million acquisition of Bizo. Business Insider posted the purported document a few days later. Is this vision realistic? And what does it mean for digital marketing and advertising?
What Bizo does is what marketing automation phrase-makers call “multichannel nurturing.” Most of that nurturing drives either email marketing or advertising re-targeting. In B2B marketing, it’s usually about lead generation and email lists — the path from white paper or webinar through Marketo to sale and back again.
Can LinkedIn pull it off?
LinkedIn’s marketing solutions revenue was $360 million in 2013, and was weighted towards ads and content marketing that complement LinkedIn’s main business of recruiting and career management. Ads for conferences…
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