The Ultimate Guide to LinkedIn Lead Generation for B2B companies
25 million LinkedIn profiles are viewed every day. LinkedIn guru Jeff Bullas has been quoted as stating that one in every three professionals on the planet is present on LinkedIn. These and many more comparable statistics make LinkedIn one of the best ways to generate leads. For the B2B market, it is particularly beneficial. 89% of B2B marketers view LinkedIn as the most sought after tool.
Having established LinkedIn as a front runner in the arena of lead generation, the next logical question that arises is how to leverage LinkedIn for all its glory in the same. From where should you start? What are you missing?
The following article acts as the ultimate guide to LinkedIn lead generation focused on B2B companies. It covers strategies for acquiring leads via LinkedIn and how you can best utilize those strategies.
Strategies
- Polish Your Linkedin Account
Needless to say, your LinkedIn profile is how you showcase your presence to the rest of the professional world that is present on LinkedIn. Hence, optimising each and every aspect of your account should be one of your main focuses when wishing to generate leads using LinkedIn as a tool.
This should begin with the basics. It should be more fruitful if you create two accounts — one personal and another for your company/brand/business. This will allow you to have a more widespread presence on LinkedIn. You should use your personal account to talk about the company as well.
You should include a profile photo and a background cover. On your company page, it will create a more verified look if you include the company logo. Your company page should have a clear and concise brand description.
In the most succinct, transparent, and straightforward way possible on your profile, it will be productive to add a brief description of who you are and what you do, and how you can support users. Think of this if you like as your elevator speech or a 30-sec ad. Include all your strengths in your personal profile page. Your academic background, job title, work experience, professional achievements, etc.
For example, these points should include details such as — Where does your experience lie? Who is your goal crowd? What sectors are you best able to appeal to? A few of the most successful companies in your portfolio — how were they struggling, where did you come into the picture, and how did you help them?
Whereas in your business account, explain all that should be known about your company. This should include the services/products you offer, the years you’ve been operational, the location, your company website URL etc.
Apart from this, you can enhance the chances of your profiles ranking higher by focusing on SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Firstly, you will need to recognize and understand the keywords that will help your profile rank high and then implement them in your pages. This will help you stand out of the crowd.
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2. Publish Relevant And Engaging Content
Having attracted the attention of users, you will need a strategy to retain that attention. This can be achieved by publishing relevant and engaging content at regular intervals. It is also advisable to create a content calendar highlighting the days you will be publishing useful content pieces.
Beneficial content in the form of articles, videos, webinars, blog posts, etc. is the best way to showcase your know-how and expertise in your respective industry. You can post content imparting your wisdom as a way to reinstate the idea that you’re a good fit to provide the solutions that your users might be seeking.
LinkedIn is perhaps the best means to publish industry-related content. With only professionals on the platform, your content has a higher chance of reaching the target audience. Those who follow you will be able to view your content on their feeds, those who don’t can be attracted via the content and be drawn to follow you thus growing your reach and making lead generation more productive. If your profile is openly visible, your content is also searchable both on and off the platform.
There is also a LinkedIn ‘Pulse’ feature that you could use. It helps users to self-publish content right to their audience, accessible on the LinkedIn dashboard. A lot of companies are missing a big opportunity to publish content and don’t know they can use LinkedIn to post complete posts.
Remember, the content you publish should be your original, showcasing your unique perspective, and not run-of-the-mill topics.
You can add references to your work/brand in the content but as a general rule of thumb, you should refrain from blatantly only posting self-promotional content.
The best content for lead generation is one that presents an existing roadblock and ties back to how you can serve as the solution.
3. Post Daily Updates
With 700 million active users on LinkedIn, you have to stay on top of your game at all times to ensure not getting left behind. This includes posting daily updates. “Out of sight, out of mind” they say; this stands especially true in today’s digital era of feeds refreshing every few minutes. Posting daily updates is the best way to ensure you’re always in the minds of your users so should they ever face an issue that you hold the key to the solution of, you’re the ones they call.
This also acts as a great means of absolutely free advertisement. Brands can otherwise have to pay heavy amounts to be showcased in the feeds of their target audience on social media platforms. You can use this as a loophole to avoid spending big bucks.
What you post doesn’t have to be a unique insight every day, but it should be of some value. You can repost a link to some of your old content pieces, share a link to an article that caught your eye and that you think could benefit others, or share your take on the latest industry news.
While you can and rather should use the daily updates to self promote in some way, shape or form, your updates should be kept professional and directed towards being relevant to your audience. You must maintain a healthy balance between the two.
For example, while the updates shouldn’t be only ads, you could use this space to inform your users about a new product or service you’ve launched and how it’s beneficial. Make sure to space out the promotional content in between the professional ones.
4. Join LinkedIn Groups
LinkedIn groups are a great means for like-minded people to create spaces to interact and mutually benefit each other. While LinkedIn groups are in general, mainly meant for engagement, they can also be a great way of creating meaningful business connections and ultimately generating leads.
Ensuring that you add meaning and value to the group as a member while smartly identifying, connecting with and then targeting members of the group that are most likely to become quality leads is the key to generating leads from LinkedIn groups.
Firstly, make sure you become a part of the right LinkedIn groups. You can search for keywords similar to the work titles of your prospects, and click on the ‘Groups’ tab to filter your group search. Read the description of a group carefully to make sure it contains the target audience.
You may apply to join them until you find the best groups for you. While some may have a screening procedure, others may allow you to participate right away. Or, you could just start a group as the admin and build from there.
If you’ve joined a LinkedIn group, take your time to get familiar with the tone of the group. Then, start sharing content that is relevant to the group’s tone and in line with the group’s members. Become an active member of the group and remain regular. Participate in discussions and take the time to address queries put up in the group. This will help you build a rapport with the group members. This you can then leverage to build connections.
Instead of trying to add everybody in the group, it is a much more effective practice to filter out the best-suited candidates as prospective leads and then send them a carefully thought out invitation.
Make sure you personalize the LinkedIn invites you plan to send out and keep them to the point for a better impression and a greater chance of reversion. Include why you would like to communicate, and how they could profit from it. You can start educating them about your services once you’ve paired. Often you can also try to arrange a call for better chances of a more durable business partnership or a verified sale.
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5. Regularly Add Connections To Your Network
In your feed, the ‘People You May Know’ list can lead you to a large number of accounts that could be possible leads. Over the course of your operational years in business, any contacts you make or have made could become LinkedIn connections. There are a lot of missed possibilities that could be made the best out of. A connection can also be made on LinkedIn with anyone who hands you a business card in real life. The more connected you are the more extensive the network is. Take time out every day to add more and more connections to your network.
You may also use this opportunity to reconnect, where a trusted partnership already exists, like with old business contacts. On all channels, such as Gmail etc., collect your contact lists and connect with them on LinkedIn.You can also reconnect with former clients, with a professional relationship already having been established there. Check out their latest ventures, see if you can add value to something or help with.
Since our endgame is lead generation, it is important to remember that there are several ways to build a lead list. One of the ways to do that is by getting referrals from your contacts. Each of your contacts has a huge list of connections of their own. Any of those could be individuals that could be your target audience.
Start by looking at your contacts’ “Recommendations” as they most likely reflect your contact’s strongest relationships.
You may always ask to be introduced. A quicker reply can be assured by using text and contact beyond LinkedIn, such as by email or telephone. It’s always safer to be launched via LinkedIn than on other platforms, as LinkedIn, a professional platform, ensures a business background.
Sending a direct message via LinkedIn is better than sending a cold email, even if you can’t find a way to communicate with anyone, since LinkedIn implies a business background. So you can study their profile, discover their curiosity and decide whether you have anything in common with them to help warm up your call with them while you are checking out a potential client.
You can also use LinkedIn to build your mailing list. There are several tools on the market like AeroLeads that allow users to find emails online from LinkedIn profiles. Simply sign up for the tool and install their free Chrome plugin. There will appear a widget on your screen that can be used to add the relevant leads. You can use LinkedIn Search option to search for people’s profile and AeroLeads will automatically find their business emails, their business phone numbers along with company name, company URL, job title, location etc. The data will be shown on the default prospects page of your AeroLeads account. This mailing list can be used to generate leads and convert those into potential customers.
Conclusion
There are a ton of benefits to using LinkedIn as your choice of platform as a B2B company for lead generation, the biggest of which is that it consists entirely of professionals.
The key to generating leads from LinkedIn lies in creating a clear, to the point, professional profile, remaining regular on the platform by publishing content and daily updates, joining groups so as to optimise any means of making connections, and finally using the opportunity to build your network since any user could be a potential lead.
About the Author:
Anushka having inculcated an interest in content writing, I dabble in tech, sales, and digital marketing blogs. Dabbling in a wide variety of topics is my forte.
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