LinkedIn has a reputation among professionals and almost 500 million users across the world. Among the biggest professionals’ network, LinkedIn has definitely made it easier for marketing professionals to connect with their desired audience better and drive more sales through this platform. It’s gigantic user base makes it indispensable for digital marketing and just in
LinkedIn has a reputation among professionals and almost 500 million users across the world. Among the biggest professionals’ network, LinkedIn has definitely made it easier for marketing professionals to connect with their desired audience better and drive more sales through this platform.
It’s gigantic user base makes it indispensable for digital marketing and just in case you were wondering how you can use it get leads, here’s everything you need to know.
Be Professional-Your credibility is important
LinkedIn is a social space that lets professionals connect so before you even start monetizing the platform to get maximum leads, you need to make sure that you are using it right and presenting a credible image of you and your business.
For example, if you offer inbound marketing solutions and you are approached by a shady vendor with no recommendations or authentic client history, will you do business with them? Or what if a random person with an incomplete profile and seemingly fake information on the profile approaches you and offers heavily discounted marketing automation software, will you even pursue this offer?
Most professionals won’t because credibility is everything.
You may not have a lot of recommendations but you can still make your profile work by providing comprehensive and credible information about you.
Fill out your profile headline, give out the major details like how your role helps businesses and professionals, and make your intro succinct. Make sure that you add accurate information about the projects you have worked on and your complete academic and professional history along with your accomplishments.
Don’t forget to give the human touch to your profile by adding about the causes you are passionate about. Your profile data is crucial to helping you connect with people as most will check out your profile before they see your resume and your proposed offer and make a decision. So, make it credible with authentic information that’s spot on and helps your targeted prospects understand how you can help them.
Pro Tip- Be strictly professional but not robotic. Define your profile goals and design to activity to suit the nature of the goals.
Social Selling
Social selling refers to using social media to generate leads and making sales. While paid ads on LinkedIn, among other social media platforms allow you to capture leads, there are also free ways of doing so. Here’s what you should do to optimize your LinkedIn lead generation process:
Engage responsibly
Like I mentioned before, social selling is integral to capturing leads and retaining their attention so your team can convert them.
Part of the social selling process is engaging a prospect. Gone are the days when telecallers made received stacks of papers marked as leads and called to ask if they’d like to get a credit card or a loan. Cold-calling is almost out of fashion and takes far more money and time than social media. So, it’s time you leveraged the virtual proximity and connectivity that LinkedIn offers.
There are people already interested in buying services or products that you offer and there are some facing issues that buying or hiring your products or services can help them resolve. Either way, you need to be able to reach out to these people and LinkedIn is making it easy for you by letting you connect with them.
You can identify your audience, connect with them, start engaging them soon as you connect by leaving them a personalized template to initiate a conversation.
Keep checking your connections’ activity on LinkedIn and engage through relevant, productive and proactive comments when necessary.
Some obnoxious marketers make the mistake of criticizing their target audience in discussions. This is a bad move. Even if the rationale behind the criticism is justified, it can certainly harm your chances of grabbing the lead’s attention and retaining it for conversion if you start criticizing them.
The best way of engaging with your targeted audience and desired prospect is by offering support, helpful insights and identifying their pain point. Plenty of people share their stories, issues on LinkedIn and even journalise their business struggles. Help them understand how your services/products can help them costs while offering all advantages that they need.
Don’t be afraid of making the first move
Engaging is primary to LinkedIn. You can’t simply add a connection and expect the lead to walk to your door and ring your doorbell. You will have to actively seek it, so joining LinkedIn and searching for opportunities where you can participate in a discussion is only one angle of the idea.
The point I am trying to make is that you, as a lead generator, should never be shy of making the first move on LinkedIn. Why wait for people to post about their pain points or even share their stories and comment on them? Why not just personalize your message depending on who you are approaching and start engaging your audience and targeted prospects as soon as you add them.
Add relevant connections
Your LinkedIn won’t start getting you some reliable, qualified and actionable leads unless you start expanding your network. Use the search filter and look for your desired audience and keep on adding them but don’t end up abusing the feature though as LinkedIn only allows a certain number of connection invitations per day for free accounts.
Drop them messages
Don’t let your profile stay idle and make use of the connections you have added by using a personalized and professional template for approaching your clients.
Don’t send the same message to everyone as it may appear tone-deaf to many. Before you start conversing with a connection, understand their business and profile well and determine how you can be of help to them. Follow the golden rule of never pitching your services in the first message itself but don’t be afraid of being a no-nonsense lead-generator so you don’t end up wasting time over conversations that never materialize.
If you don’t receive a response on the first message, don’t spam your connections’ inbox though as it may earn you a spammer’s reputation and even get your account blocked. Most people on LinkedIn end up sending the same message to all their connections and often without understanding the direction their conversation with a certain connection was taking or questions the connection asked.
Participate in discussions
There are plenty of niche specific communities for professionals on LinkedIn that you can join to further participate in the ongoing conversation. In fact, LinkedIn is smart enough to tailor your feed based on your actions and preferences. So, once you get the hang of it, LinkedIn will begin tailoring your feed based on the kind of content you respond well and the content you ignore.
Summing up
With millions of users, LinkedIn is surely a highly potential playground for marketers looking for quality prospects. But capturing their attention and getting sufficient leads depends on how well you use the platform, connect with your target audience and grow your following.
A hasty strategy that focuses only on numbers may earn you traction in the short term but may prove to be futile in the long run. So, focus on engaging people not just on the surface but in-depth. Offer insightful engagement and relevant support as demanded by your target audience.
Most of all, leverage the power of public discussions and add value to them to attract maximum leads. Tailor your personal communication with each connection and initiate conversation for lead generation.