Leverage LinkedIn for Getting Sales Leads

LinkedIn is emerging as the go-to social media platform for all the B2B businesses in order to generate qualified leads. LinkedIn says it with pride that it has 3x higher visitor-to-lead conversion rate than you may get through Facebook and Twitter combined. The reason you may say is the quality of people who are using the platform.

The facts say that you can find nearly 30% of B2B businesses on LinkedIn.

According to a study 90 million people out of 600+ million people using LinkedIn hold a senior-level position in any of the organization. Moreover, another 63 million people listed themselves as the key decision-makers. Among these 150+ million people, 76% users check their LinkedIn accounts and engage with the latest published content every day.

Apart from these businessmen, 60% of users on LinkedIn have an annual household income of at least $ 100,000. This is an impressive quality of engagement, isn’t it? However, the way to reach this audience out and engage with them is different. Let’s explore the ways to leverage the LinkedIn Platform in the best way:

Best ways to Leverage LinkedIn for Leads

In this blog, I am going to discuss about different ways to help you generate more B2B sales leads on LinkedIn without making a hole in your pockets.

1. Optimize LinkedIn Profile Properly

The chances of attracting the potential customers totally depend on the effectiveness of your LinkedIn profile. As per the studies held LinkedIn users who have completed their profiles get the chance to be found in searches and receive queries from potential customers 40 times more (https://www.yesware.com/blog/linkedin-profile/) than those who don’t complete their profiles.

The lead generation features which you will be able to access also depend on the completeness of your LinkedIn profile. Furthermore, You’ll also need to optimize your LinkedIn profile in the same manner with blog posts and landing pages. The reason to do that is LinkedIn’s search algorithm works also same as Google’s.

Here are some tips on how to do that:

● Add keywords within your profile 

If your target is to get in front of target audience and you want to use LinkedIn for generating leads then don’t forget to include long-tailed keywords in the following areas:

● Profile’s Headline

● About Section,

● Description or Work Experience, and

● Your Skills

● Use bullet points

People who are checking your LinkedIn profile may not have the time or patience to read through the large text or content. By listing the key points with the help of bullet points will make your LinkedIn profile much easier to scan for readers.

● Only provide relevant work experience

Please do remember that you have no need to include every single job you have done on your LinkedIn profile. Instead you need to choose those work experiences that will contribute to establish your authority and reputation on LinkedIn among the people in your niche.

2. Make use of a Company LinkedIn Page

LinkedIn allows you to promote your brand though as well as to generate B2B sales leads through your own profile but it is better to Create a LinkedIn Company Page . Following are the main benefits you should create a Company Page:

● The first advantage is that the logo of your company appears on your LinkedIn profile as well as with the profiles of your employees. It helps businesses to promote their brand and to make other people aware of your brand.

● The second advantage is that it allows you to create specific Showcase pages depending on your products and services. And when you create these showcase pages on your company page, it’ll be easier for your prospects to learn more about what kind of products/services you have to offer to your client base and convert them into sales leads for your business.

● Third benefit of creating a Company Page is that your LinkedIn page can serve as the hub of your company from where your employees can pull content and can share with their connections. This is the strategy used by the AICPA (American Institute of Certified Public Accountants) for increasing their membership by up to 40%.

However, LinkedIn has a few requirements than other platform which you need to meet before they allow you to create a Company Page. Few of the important requirements are as follows:

A. Your LinkedIn profile should have reached to a “All-Star” or “Intermediate” ranking.

B. Moreover, you’ve also got to have several connections.

C. Most importantly, you must have included this company in the work experience in your profile.

3. Share Quality Articles in LinkedIn Pulse

This micro-blogging feature is the one which makes the LinkedIn Platform unique from other social media platforms. It is also one of the most cost-effective ways to generate B2B sales leads on the LinkedIn platform. By publishing an article in LinkedIn Pulse you can receive valuable backlinks to your site. Let’s Explore:

● LinkedIn Pulse Articles are Public unlike the posts which you share on LinkedIn because these are limited to your connections. However, your LinkedIn Pulse articles can be seen by everyone who is using the platform.

● Secondly, you get to reach those LinkedIn users that fit your buyer persona. Meanwhile, you also get an additional platform where you can establish yourself as an authority and build a trustworthy relationship with them.

● Moreover, as mentioned above publishing an article in LinkedIn Pulse gives the valuable backlinks to your site, in this way you can directly drive quality traffic towards your landing page of the website where you can convert them into your customers.

● And the most importantly, Google indexes the articles which are published in LinkedIn Pulse. And Google considers LinkedIn as a much reputable site, so there are chances that your LinkedIn Pulse article can rank higher than those which are posted on your website. 

For all of these things to happen, you need to first make sure that you have written a high-quality article. Please have a look on the following tips to help you out:

● Use an eye-catching headline that make people click through and read your article.

● Answer the questions you find which your target audience is commonly asking.

● Try to make your articles easy to read with simple language and short paragraphs.

● Also add some relevant links to your website’s content

● Use some subheadings and visuals to break up the text content.

4. Make use of InMail Feature to send Cold Emails

InMail is one of those features that is only available to those people who possess a Premium Account. It works like your conventional email provider where you can segment audience and send email messages. In this way, you can target your messages more effectively.

Please Note: LinkedIn has put a limit on the number of InMails you send per month, so you need to make sure that each mail you send out counts.

One tip you can keep in mind is that you should make sure that the cold prospect you’re sending inMails matches buyer persona of your product. You can use tools that provide you with a list of the decision-makers of the companies which you want to target. This information helps you to customize the message you send to make it more personal.

At the same time, it makes you stand in a better position where you can know which of your products will best meet their needs. Another tip you can use is the use of AIDA model at the time of crafting your cold emails. Use this model while writing landing pages and ads because it will help you to structure your ad copy so that the one reading that ad will be ready to take action.

5. Join Maximum no. of LinkedIn Groups

LinkedIn has several different niche-focused groups. You can join those groups and connect with prospects that can eventually be converted into leads. But please make a note you should never start pitching your products and services in the groups you join, in fact by doing that you can get banned from the group.

Instead, you can follow these tips:

● Ask thought-provoking questions.

Asking these kinds of questions can help you in following three ways:

● At first, it provide you many new ideas and topics that you can write about thereafter either on your blog section of website or in LinkedIn Pulse.

● Secondly, it will also give you insight into possible queries that your target customers can have about your product/service. In this way, you can be prepared to answer those questions so that you can convert the prospects into sales leads.

● Lastly, the answers that you get on the thought provoking questions from the group members will help you find out those who can be your potential sales leads. You can then continue the conversation with those potential ones privately or encourage them to visit your landing page so that they can learn more about your product offerings.

● Try to Answer the Maximum no. of Questions

One of the important reasons why people on LinkedIn join the groups is to find out some people who can help them solve their problems. When you answer their questions and become one of those people who provide them with practical solutions to their problem or make them experience a result then you will earn their trust. And it will make them more open for learning more about you as well as your business.

● Don’t make Your Conversations Strictly about Business

You shouldn’t always share your thoughts on the conversation related to your business but converse on the conversations that have nothing to do about your business. This becomes crucial when you want to build a relationship with some of the members on LinkedIn. If you don’t do this then anyone won’t notice you and there will be much less chances to get a sales lead.

6. Make use of LinkedIn Paid Ads

LinkedIn paid ads are the quickest way to generate quality B2B leads for businesses because it helps you to get in front of those users that match your customer profile, even if they are not in your network or connections. There are two different kinds of LinkedIn ads. The first is the Sponsored Content. You can find comprehensive guide on LinkedIn and find out how to turn the content published on your Company Page into a sponsored post. You can also find the guidelines and best Practices to maximize your results.

The second type of ad is the Premium Display Ads. These ads can be created through LinkedIn’s Advertising Partner Solutions “Self-Service Feature”.

You can follow the following tips to help your ads to get clicks and generate business leads:

● Add an image.

The paid ads which are created with images are likely to get 20% more clicks than those that don’t use images because using these images you can help make your ads more eye-catching.

● Be direct with your copy.

LinkedIn paid ads’ headlines have a character limit of 25 characters only, while the ad’s body allows enter just 75 characters. Therefore, getting straight-to-the-point will help you not go beyond that limit.

● Use localized keywords.

This is important when you have got a physical office/store for your business or when you are the only one offering products in specific locations. Because around 29% of people who are searching online have chances to visit a store within their area that is too within 24 hours.

7. Get the Support of All the Employees to Spread the Brand

Please do remember that your sales and marketing team people are not the only ones who can help you generate leads for your business on LinkedIn but every single employee of your organization can be your biggest brand ambassador.

Just Imagine, if you got 10 employees, and each one of them has got an average of 300 connections on their profile, that means 3,000 of potential people you can connect with and possibly even convert them into leads!

Therefore, you can make every single one of your employees a brand ambassador. By creating an employee advocacy campaign within your organization is among the most effective ways to get you each employee on board to help you get more leads.

Conclusion:

LinkedIn is not just a social media platform for the people looking to find a job. It now helps businesses to generate quality business leads. The tips I have discussed above are paid strategies and also the ones you can implement for free. If you use a combination of these strategies then you will most likely be increasing your website traffic and conversions. Any strategy you may choose to implement but make sure that you always put your focus on your target customer and on meeting their needs. This is ultimately make them to notice you, trust you and buy from you.