Welcome back to Marketing Qualified! Let’s close out this week with some marketing talk.

• Be more negative. How to embrace the bad and turn it good.

• Are LinkedIn’s new Premium Company Pages worth it? We give our take.

👎 Be more negative.

Most marketing content endlessly talks about how great a product or service is. But if you want your message to stand out.

We have a different suggestion: be more negative. At least some of the time.

Being negative is unexpected. So it catches attention.

There are two angles you can take with negative messaging:

1) Own it

All products and brands have certain negative qualities. Sometimes, it’s better to admit these outright rather than try to hide them. This way, you have the power to frame the negative aspect(s) however you’d like.

Buckley’s award-winning “Bad Taste” campaign is a perfect example of owning the negative.

Their cough syrup doesn’t taste good. There’s no denying it. But if it works, do consumers really care?

Nope! They’d rather get rid of their cold symptoms.

2) Set up the punchline

We’re huge advocates for using humor in your marketing. Especially B2B marketing!

Using negativity to set up a punchline can be a great tool. For example:

Usually, a one-star review would be a bad thing. But this ad spoofing a bad review from an angry mom uses humor to circle the message back around into a positive.

Your kids won’t listen to you because they’re having too much fun.

Or take this ad from Heineken. They’re pointing out that their audience is out of shape. Usually a negative.

But rather than shaming them or trying to inspire them to hit the gym, Heineken encourages them to embrace it. Keep drinking beer. Keep being happy.

Take a negative, then flip it into a positive. Give it a try.

📰  In the news this week.

💵  Higher earners will be impacted most by AI.

✉️  LinkedIn adds new elements to its newsletter creation platform.

🏰  How to build a strong brand moat with SEO.

👵  Best practices for marketing to seniors.

🤖 ChatGPT stats for marketers.

⚖️ Are LinkedIn’s new Premium Company Pages worth it?

If you missed the news, LinkedIn recently announced its new Premium Company Page offering.

They’ve been testing this subscription option for the past several months. Apparently, the test was a success because they’ve decided to make it available to all users with some additional add-on features.

LinkedIn says the rollout has already begun, and the product is expected to be globally available by the end of July.

So, what’s included in this new subscription, and is it worth the price?

Included features

The new product offers several new features on your company’s profile page and inside your premium business account, including:

Custom CTAs

Users can add custom call-to-action buttons, such as ‘visit website’ or ‘book appointment.’ These will appear at the top of their company’s page, in feed posts, and in search results for increased engagement.

Auto-invites

If users engage with your company’s page or similar pages, you can auto-invite them to follow your page.

See page visitors

Admins can see who visited your company’s page (subject to member settings).

Showcase social proof

Display recent awards, certifications, client testimonials, and press mentions right at the top of your company’s page and in search results.

Golden badge

Premium company pages will receive a gold “IN” badge. Similar to how individuals who pay for a premium personal profile display the badge.

AI-writing assist

Users will have access to AI-writing assist tools to make writing posts and messages quicker and easier.

Is it worth it?

A LinkedIn Premium Business subscription costs $99 per month (less if you pay annually).

So it’s not exactly cheap.

But, if you’re already generating leads through LinkedIn, it might be worth it to you to have access to these new enhanced features.

If LinkedIn isn’t currently an inbound channel for you, then maybe hold off on the premium subscription option for now. Instead, spend time updating and optimizing your page with the features currently available on the free plan.

Once your company page is fully optimized on the free tier, then circle back and evaluate if the added Premium features justify the monthly fee.

😂 Marketing meme of the week.

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