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LinkedIn is a long game, but as this LinkedIn marketing case study shows, a consistent strategy can deliver big results.
I’ve written before how hard marketing to the C-suite is. It can be done, of course, and I loved being on a small team that proved it.
LinkedIn Marketing Case Study
The challenge
If your clients are in the C-suite, how do you stay in front of them so when they have a need, they call you first?
In the case of an executive leadership coach, the answer was LinkedIn marketing. Based on research, we knew that many of her clients, potential clients, and referral sources were active on LinkedIn, making it the ideal channel for building relationships.
The solution
As part of a small marketing team, we took a years-long, multi-pronged approach:
- We shared actionable leadership tips for common or immediate leadership challenges. Many included client stories to show the real impact she had on helping leaders become even more effective.
- We actively sent invitations to people who fit her ideal client profile. (This was tracked in a very long spreadsheet!)
- We created and sent a monthly LinkedIn newsletter.
- We engaged with her network’s posts in a meaningful and genuine way. If she needed to respond to a comment or post herself, we let her know.
As an aside, one type of LinkedIn post was most effective in generating a lot of engagement. And no, it was not about leadership at all. It was about real life. Specifically, vacations.
She worked with many leaders who didn’t think they could take PTO without the world falling to pieces. Two summers ago, she took a long, much-needed, very relaxing trip to Greece with her husband and adult children. A couple of weeks after she was back, we posted about how unplugging completely re-energized her. The engagement was off the charts.
Back to the case study….
The result
In just a year, our client’s network tripled in size, and over the next few years, her client roster grew so large so quickly that she invited more coaches onto her team to handle the load.
Because of her network, client list, and stellar reputation, she was able to sell her company earlier this year. I really miss working with her. Not only had she been my oldest client (we started working together in 2012!), she had also become a dear friend.
LinkedIn marketing is a long game, but it does pay off
If I had to sum up the advice in my recent blog post, The Complete Guide to LinkedIn Marketing in 2026, it would be this:
- Sprinkle in personal posts
- Write posts that are worthy of a save, like a step-by-step process
- Ask questions at the end to kick-start conversations
- Spend time in your feed commenting on others’ posts (social media is a conversation, not a bullhorn)
I have gotten clients from LinkedIn, because I do my best to share helpful information and engage with the people in my network.
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