Business owners and marketers used to look at LinkedIn as nothing more than a useful tool for networking.
That perception has changed. As LinkedIn has evolved into a giant with more than 300 million monthly active users, the marketing opportunities on the platform developed with it.
Thanks to several useful features added over the years, LinkedIn has become an excellent place to build brand awareness and generate leads. This is especially true for businesses in the B2B space.
If you want to learn how to use LinkedIn for lead generation, this is the article for you. We’ll be covering every step of the lead gen process on this powerful platform, and by the end of this article, you’ll have a thorough understanding of how to use LinkedIn to attract more potential customers.
LinkedIn isn’t your average social media platform. It was built specifically for professionals to network, and therefore offers access to many high-profile individuals you wouldn’t be able to communicate with on more casual platforms like Facebook or Instagram.
If you have a product or service you want to market to other businesses or professionals, there’s honestly no better place to be. LinkedIn is where the business world congregates, so it’s where you need to focus your efforts if you want to obtain the contact information of executives, directors, managers, and other people who can make purchase decisions for their companies.
Presentation is the foundation of your success on LinkedIn. No matter how good your content is, many people will judge you based on your profile photo and the completeness of your profile.
So, make sure your profile contains everything necessary to convey an image of success. Here’s a checklist of essential items to include.
Your personal page needs to be sharp and up to date, but you’ll also need a separate page for your business. This page should include critical details like location, size, years of operation, the products or services you offer, and anything else you think is relevant. You should also include your brand logo and website address.
Most people automatically think of Google when they hear the term “SEO.”
However, search engine optimization isn’t the sole domain of whole-web options like Google and Bing. You can also optimize your accounts on social platforms like LinkedIn to rank higher for internal LinkedIn searches.
Doing this is especially crucial for lead generation on LinkedIn, as you’ll get a lot of your leads from people typing in keywords into the LinkedIn search bar.
If you want to optimize your profile for the LinkedIn search feature, use the following tips.
The first step in optimizing the search presence of your LinkedIn profile is to figure out which keywords you want your profile to rank for.
While this might seem like a quick and easy process on the surface, putting a bit of extra thought into it can help you find keywords that aren’t as competitive.
Here’s an example. Say you’re a lead generation consultant based in Atlanta. It would be easy to target the most apparent keyword ‒ “Atlanta lead generation consultant” ‒ and call it a day. However, there may be 50 other people trying to rank for the same keyword.
Instead of fighting among them for the coveted top spots, you can opt to go for a less competitive keyword like “Atlanta lead generation specialist” or “lead gen consultant in Atlanta.”
There might be fewer people searching for these alternative keywords than there are looking for your preferred keyword. However, the lack of competition might bring in more leads than if you targeted the more competitive keyword.
Content is king in every form of lead generation, and LinkedIn is no exception. To get additional traffic from the search results (both Google and LinkedIn) and build trust with prospects, you need to write content that targets keywords your target market is searching for.
Not only do you need to write content that targets specific keywords, but that content needs to be good too.
Writing sub-par content might be worse than writing nothing at all in the long run, as the prospects who find your content will get the impression that you’re unprofessional and don’t know what you’re talking about.
If enough people see that mediocre content, you might earn yourself a poor reputation that can be mighty hard to shake off.
There have been many books and long-form guides written about creating engaging content, so I’m not going to provide a comprehensive rundown here. I will mention the essential tips, though.
You could write the most informative and entertaining piece of content on the planet, but no one will read it if the headline isn’t compelling.
There are several ways to write compelling headlines. Some tried and tested methods include keeping it short, making it stand out from competing articles written on your topic, and incorporating a sense of urgency or mystery to entice people to click.
I’ve already covered the importance of helpful content, but it’s so important that I’m mentioning it again.
Whatever you write, it needs to provide the reader with valuable information. This will help establish trust with your target market, make prospects more comfortable with giving you their contact information, net you more social shares, and help you get a better rank in the search results.
Making sure your content is error-free is essential no matter where you’re posting it, but it’s especially important on LinkedIn. Use a tool like Grammarly to review your content for spelling or grammar mistakes before publishing.
LinkedIn lets you see who has viewed your profile recently. This feature is excellent for lead generation, as it tells you who your prospects are and gives you the ability to reach out to them directly.
Reaching out to profile visitors will not only increase the number of leads you generate but will also help you perform valuable market research. You can ask these visitors what their pain points are and use their responses to finetune your marketing messages and content creation strategy.
If you have a lead magnet that you think people on LinkedIn will find useful, link to it on your profile and your blog content. You should also design a landing page for your lead magnet, as it will make your conversion rate higher than if you were just using a simple signup form.
LinkedIn groups are where much of the conversation happens. If you’ve got an opinion and content that others in your industry will find valuable, don’t be afraid to get involved in the conversation.
Don’t restrict yourself to groups solely within your industry or niche. Join everything that has any relevance at all to what you do. As long as you provide useful advice and insight, group members will be happy to take in what you have to say.
Just make sure you don’t go too heavy on the self-promotion side of things. It’s fine to link to your website or blog when it’s relevant to the conversation, but you should avoid promoting your business for the sake of it. Not only will this annoy the group members, but you risk getting your content deleted by LinkedIn’s spam filter.
LinkedIn is a lead generation goldmine, especially if you’re in a B2B industry.
By filling out and optimizing your profile, creating valuable content, and interacting with others on the network, you can establish your brand as a trusted thought leader in your industry. And as long as you have a solid sales funnel to complement your lead generation efforts, using LinkedIn to attract new leads is an excellent use of your time.
