Michelle Wallace, Product Marketing. The Simple Data Strategy that Helped LinkedIn Boost Business- Services Revenue by 85%

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1 Michelle Wallace, Product Marketing The Simple Data Strategy that Helped LinkedIn Boost Business- Services Revenue by 85%

2 2 Every day, millions of users log in to LinkedIn.com. From businesses to students to professionals either actively seeking employment or simply growing their networks, LinkedIn s users have a wide variety of backgrounds and needs. Since its launch in 2003, LinkedIn has become the world s largest professional networking platform. It now offers a range of business-oriented services, from recruiting solutions to capabilities for growing brand recognition. As one of the Web s modern-day giants, LinkedIn has access to extensive data, including siteusage statistics, prospect behavior, and general industry trends. But LinkedIn knows as well as any leader that data isn t valuable until it s understood and then used to drive action. Though millions of companies have profiles on LinkedIn.com, thought leaders at LinkedIn wanted to up the ante for B2B sales by using more data. But rather than throw all of their stats at the sales team, they decided instead to develop a new, wildly simple sales analytics platform. With a focus on just three core values, two measurable dimensions, and a user-friendly front end, the new platform has guided insight-to-action so well that LinkedIn s business-services revenue increased by 85 percent year over year. Here s how. 1. Three key values to start it all. 2. Billions of data points, two simple dimensions. 3. Design so simple it s like magic. 4. Identifying the events that matter.

3 3 1. Three Key Values to Start It All We think simplicity really matters, says James Raybould, the Senior Director of Marketing at LinkedIn. But while simplicity might have the appearance of laziness, it s usually the effect of painstakingly planned details. In the case of LinkedIn, the design of its new sales analytics platform began with three carefully selected core values. These three elements were paramount to the platform s design, and continue to help the sales team act upon various data rather than spending all of its time crunching it. The three key values that started it all are: The account lens: LinkedIn made a deliberate choice to view all leads from the lens of the full account rather than seeing each prospect as a separate person. But that doesn t indicate a depersonalized or antisocial perspective. Rather, LinkedIn sees individuals as decision-makers or buyers who act on behalf of companies and approaches its data in a way that keeps those connections clear. Analytics: LinkedIn s strategy also focused on pooling multiple data streams. With relevant information spread throughout Salesforce, Teradata, Oracle, Hadoop, and other data environments, LinkedIn wanted its sales team to have just one portal to reach it all. Analysis would become simpler, and more time could be spent making decisions with available data. Automation: Clear information and searchable tools aren t just for customers. LinkedIn was helping 238 million users navigate business networks with powerful automation and a simple front end. Why not make a similar product for the sales team to navigate data with? LinkedIn knew it would help the team act upon information more quickly and with better results. Today let s discuss 3 A s: Account lens. Analytics. Automation. ACCOUNT LENS Buyer Data ANALYTICS 9 Also known as the three A s, the key values that influenced LinkedIn s new salesplatform design are automation, analytics, and the account lens.

4 The surgical service teams at Seattle 2 : : Some kind of Header Here place, the person who makes sense of the data first is going to win. 4 Rather than having salespeople spend hours trying to gather information, we 5Speed: Get want results it to be as easy to find information 10 to 100 as it times is when faster you go to LinkedIn, Facebook, The surgical service Twitter, teams or at Seattle Google. Information is right 2 : : Some kind there of Header at your Here fingertips, extremely easy to digest and extremely easy to share. Tableau is fast analytics. In a competitive place, the person who makes sense of th first is going to win. James Raybould, Senior Director of Marketing, LinkedIn

5 5 2. Billions of Data Points, Two Simple Dimensions LinkedIn s B2B divisions felt confident that the planned sales platform would Simplicity leads us toward high adoption and successful results. Simon Zhang, Senior Director of Business Analytics, LinkedIn deliver strong analytics with user-friendly automation. But what about the third A the account lens? Analyzing data from an account-focused perspective was, ultimately, what the new platform would be all about. And the key to its success would be in its extremely simple set-up. LinkedIn began by plotting its prospective clients along two axes: temperature and size of the prize. Temperature refers to the likelihood of the sale to close, whereas the size is simply the magnitude of the potential deal. In the account lens, individuals are seen as extensions of their companies. So LinkedIn calculates the temperature of each account by considering the activities of individuals who are associated with it. Size of the prize is based on the company as a whole. A company s location on the resulting grid determines the steps that sales should take to pursue it.

6 6 Prospects can land on one of four quadrants: We know when the investment is worth it to have field sales people making a big effort. James Raybould, Senior Director of Marketing, LinkedIn Low temperature, small size: Although these accounts rank low in overall appeal, it s important to nurture them. LinkedIn uses marketing automation as a low-cost method of building awareness and warming up any receptive accounts that fall into this quadrant. Low temperature, large size: LinkedIn also uses marketing automation to nurture accounts in this category. But due to the high desirability of these accounts, it s worthwhile to devote more resources to them so LinkedIn also uses field sales to pursue these accounts. High temperature, small size: Recognizing that these accounts are very important to care for yet not quite cost-effective to pursue through field sales LinkedIn deploys an inside sales strategy to capture as many deals as possible from this quadrant. High temperature, large size: For any prospects that fall into this category, LinkedIn can really roll out the red carpet. Everyone from support personnel to sales executives may be involved in efforts to gain these accounts. By plotting each prospect along just two dimensions, LinkedIn can get an at-aglance picture of each of its leads and pursue those accounts with actions that matter. The simplicity of the design also makes it adaptable; Raybould notes that every company in existence could, in theory, be plotted on this chart. We focus at account level and consider how big? & how likely? High Size Of Prize How Big? Mktg automation + Field Sales Mktg automation Red Carpet Inside Sales Low Temperature How 15

7 7 3. Design So Simple It s like Magic Next, meet Merlin. No, we re not talking about the wizard but rather the analytics platform that LinkedIn developed for its sales team. Dubbed Merlin for its apparent simplicity, the We have a super valuable data asset behind the scenes. We use several data sources and come out with a formula so our sales reps can prioritize. Simon Zhang, Senior Director of Business Analytics, LinkedIn user-friendly platform has a lot going on under its surface. LinkedIn aggregates data from multiple sources to determine its leads scores along the size and temperature dimensions. Data from Salesforce, D&B, Eloqua, Oracle, and more couple with LinkedIn s robust usage data to create powerful sales metrics. As Simon Zhang, LinkedIn s Senior Director of Business Analytics, explains about the platform, we try to hide all the bottom data and infrastructure. The resulting simplicity allows sales reps to focus on key indicators and actionable steps just as LinkedIn users do when they re navigating professional networks. The data platform Merlin was actually modeled after LinkedIn.com. Users can easily search for sales prospects, and data from multiple sources are presented in the same place. Users don t need to dive into several databases to get the big picture in all its glory; instead, they can interact with charts and graphs to learn more about any given prospect. LinkedIn s internal sales-data platform, Merlin, can create branded sales presentations customized with individual prospects data in mere seconds.

8 8 If you re a rep, now you can spend three hours creating your own deck, or you can spend one minute taking our story and customizing the look. If you estimate saving two hours each time, that s saving 100,000 hours which is 50 fulltime employees worth of time since we released this. James Raybould, Senior Director of Marketing, LinkedIn Users can leverage this platform to quickly create sales presentations. In about 20 seconds, Merlin can pull information and pictures into a customized PowerPoint that tells the story behind any company s data. Raybould estimates this capability has saved the team some 100,000 hours over about a year and a half. The data visualization component of the platform is built with Tableau, which pulls LinkedIn s multi-channel data together to create interactive visualizations. For instance, the following metrics are just some of those used to make the interactive chart that shows a lead s temperature and size : The activity of company influencers on LinkedIn.com and its enterprise site The amount of views that a company page regularly receives The number of LinkedIn.com users associated with the company, and whether they demonstrate active or passive use of the site The number and activity of company recruiters visible on LinkedIn.com The location and size of the company, as well as the size of its industry But while accurate diagnostics and powerful analytics are crucial, it s the story behind the data that helps create profit-driving actions. When sales reps can see a company s story without having to wade through the back-end data, they can act upon that information and become a part of that story.

9 9 4. Identifying the Events that Matter Like any good tale, a company s conversion story is composed of a few major events. Because of its simple, usable design, LinkedIn s new sales platform is helping reps see those events sooner, so they can proactively reach out to prospects. Now, the sales team can quickly notice the telltale signs of an account that s warming up. And because LinkedIn assigns individual accounts rather than territories to salespeople, their reps can watch for key signs of interest instead of making outbound calls and passively monitoring territories. This simple strategy, which LinkedIn calls Event-Based Account Management (ebam), is driving huge revenue spikes and greater sales productivity for the company. And with a strong, usable and dare we say it fun platform, LinkedIn s new data strategy has ultimately allowed the company to: Improve conversion rates and ROI in the B2B sector Dramatically reduce costs while simultaneously improving profits Empower sales personnel to make data-driven decisions At the end of the day, LinkedIn has put engaging data in the hands of its employees and boosted revenue by 85 percent in a single year. Those are the events that matter for LinkedIn and the rest of us. Merlin looks a lot like LinkedIn.com, and includes powerful, interactive data visualizations created in Tableau.

10 10 About Tableau Tableau Software helps people see and understand data. Tableau helps anyone quickly analyze, visualize and share information. More than 17,000 customer accounts get rapid results with Tableau in the office and on-the-go. And tens of thousands of people use Tableau Public to share data in their blogs and websites. See how Tableau can help you by downloading the free trial at About this Story This paper was adapted from a webinar hosted by the Sales Management Association in August To learn more, watch the full presentation. Additional Resources Download Free Trial Related Whitepapers Why Business Analytics in the Cloud? 5 Best Practices for Creating Effective Campaign Dashboards See All Whitepapers Explore Other Resources Product Demo Training & Tutorials Community & Support Customer Stories Solutions Tableau and Tableau Software are trademarks of Tableau Software, Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.