Have you thought about LinkedIn to get leads? Well, you should. LinkedIn has more than 690 million registered members. In fact, 20% of LinkedIn users are decision makers in their companies and 80% of B2B leads generated through social media come from LinkedIn. Also, its users are extremely active.
The network has 303 million active monthly users, 40% of which visit the site daily. 90 million senior-level influencers and 63 million decision makers use LinkedIn. Also, people are far more willing to respond to LinkedIn messages, InMail response rate is three times higher than a regular email. All of that makes LinkedIn one of the most important business social networks.
Now, the importance of using LinkedIn does not rely on the number of contacts you have. The key aspect it’s to connect with people who are in the market for the type of service or product you are selling. To start with, it’s necessary to understand to what extent do you have leads. Leads are not simply potential customers or your target audience. A lead is someone who has demonstrated interest in your products or services.
Lead generation is a long-term project, so don’t rush. Especially on LinkedIn, your results will improve through making more connections and building credibility. In this part of the process it’s important to develop a strategy and keep in that line.
Once you figure out the importance of generating leads on LinkedIn, you should focus on converting your website traffic into leads. To do so, there are three main aspects you can start working on. Armed with the right strategy, you can grab LinkedIn users’ attention and grow your business. You can also use LinkedIn to increase website traffic and reinforce your brand credibility.
- A memorable profile
As LinkedIn has more than 600 million people, it’s crucial to build a professional profile that “stops people on their tracks”. LinkedIn profile is not about your name and last name, either you use your real name, it’s a good idea to “jazz it up”. To use icons, emojis and descriptive words is going to give you an identity. Images are powerful. So, when creating your profile headshot photo, remember to choose something related to your target audience and keep in mind the values you want to transmit.
Your headline should talk about your field of action, but also can show your expertise. It’s useful to mention the location of your services if necessary. Here it is useful to choose keywords that allow other people to understand the services and products you are in.
Remember to include your professional experience. Even when your headline is talking about yourself, the information presented in your profile summary should be enough to close a sale. To do so, keep your summary short and to the point and don’t include information that is no longer relevant. To write in first person is also a good strategy, it makes you look more friendly and unique.
Recommendation section is where other people do marketing for you. This part is vital because it presents proofs about what you are saying on your profile. So, make it a common practice to ask your customers for a recommendation on LinkedIn. It’s how your prospect sees that they should work with you.
Infinite group conversations are taking place on LinkedIn every day. These discussions give you the opportunity to prove your authority in your area of expertise. Also, they can help your drive traffic through the links you share. Just remember to keep those conversations less salesy and more helpful, you don’t want to become spam. Your aim through this activity is to connect with relevant people and give them the right impression.
To keep a balance between marketing and being social will connect you with relevant people who can become leads. The key aspect is to provide a profile that shows the expertise and high-quality that your services or products already have.
- Connect with relevant people
Focus your efforts on finding leads in your target market. Think about what kind of people and businesses may need your services. If your answer is “everybody!” you have a problem. You see, the #1 reason why marketing efforts fail is because of poor targeting.
The thing is that most freelancers are scared of niching down to a specific segment. How can I find more clients by targeting less people? Reducing the size of your target market seems counterintuitive right? But truthfully, narrowing your targeting actually brings higher quality leads.
To do so, you should identify the characteristics of high-quality leads for you. If you have a Sales Navigator membership, you can do an advanced search on LinkedIn. There are more than 30 filters you can apply such as company, location, connection and industry. Using the correct keywords will give you the data you need to reach professionals in your target market.
But truthfully if you are starting on LinkedIn, you don’t need to spend $79.99 for a Sales Navigator Membership, you also have plenty of options with a basic LinkedIn account. The thing is that you need the right strategy and an effective process.
This also will expand your network. Don’t forget that in sales, relationships are everything, so focus on prospects that also are long-term connections. In other words, who would you like to keep in contact with? Remember that your ideal client should be someone you enjoy working with. This is also true for the people on your network.
Also, to stay in contact with your target customers you can join groups like groups for entrepreneurs, small businesses and startups. Those groups on LinkedIn will let participants know the services you provide. You can also create a new group in which you can share your expertise and build a community. Take advantage of those spaces to discuss and ask for advice when you need it. These groups are not only for marketing, they also could be helpful to others and to you.
- Share valuable content
People like to hang out with cool people. On Linkedin that means with interesting, thought-provoking people that share valuable content. But here’s the thing, you also need to keep it real. And that should be a good thing! As long as you remain truthful to who you are and what you think, more people will interact with your content.
However, the content you post on LinkedIn does not always have the impact you are expecting. Unfortunately, to get people to interact with you post it’s not as easy as it looks. Some content could seem irrelevant and will compete with other similar posts.
To achieve that high-quality posts, you also need to constantly improve the content you share. Bear in mind that to have better content requires more time and research. Yet, you are going to find other professionals interested in your products and services. The more you create and comment on content, the more you establish your expertise on LinkedIn.
Sharing long-form posts will start new conversations so keep an eye on it and be ready to respond. Getting a stronger presence on LinkedIn is going to take you some hours of your time at the beginning. But working on that is going to show progress quickly, even if you set aside a few minutes every day. Once you can see the advantages of using LinkedIn effectively you will see the difference it can make on your business.