When it comes to generating B2B leads on social media, LinkedIn is way ahead of the competition. No other social site gathers the volume of like-minded executives, professionals, and business owners in one platform in quite the same way LinkedIn does.
LinkedIn offers a number of marketing tools that you can use to drive more people to your website and generate sales leads for your team. LinkedIn also allows you to research your prospects’ interests, problems, challenges, and motivators, which can help you gauge your prospects’ fit for your business or craft your sales pitches based on what you already know about them.
These and a host of other reasons make LinkedIn a good tool for inbound lead generation and prospect research. So, without further ado, here’s how you can drum up your lead generation strategies on LinkedIn.
1. Use Your Company Page as a Lead Generation Page
Your company page on LinkedIn can drive leads to your company’s website, so make sure you’re maximizing the use of each element on your LinkedIn page.
For example, you can craft your business or company description in such a way that it identifies and differentiates your target audience, value proposition, and the type of service that you provide. This will act as a barrier to filter out unqualified leads and tailor-fit your message so that it appeals more to your best prospects. Mission accomplished.
2. Create Your Showcase Page
LinkedIn lets you create a “showcase page” for other brands that form part of your company. You can create multiple showcase pages, especially for units that drive the biggest sales for your business.
The showcase page is especially useful for zeroing in on specific, highly targeted leads amongst a larger customer segment and driving them to your LinkedIn page. Make sure to distinguish your showcase page from your company page by placing a larger header image and posting news updates above the fold.
Last, but not least, your showcase page should always include a link to your site.
3. Encourage Your Employees or Coworkers to Link to Your Profile
You can’t just rely on your connections to maximize your reach on LinkedIn users. Your employees, coworkers, and colleagues are like brand ambassadors who can help you promote your company to people in their network and to help you discover new connections that you can nurture over time.
Never underestimate the power of internal connections and promotions. They’re already brand advocates (being in the same company and all), so all you have to do is ask.
4. Add CTAs to Your Content
One of the things that B2B companies like about LinkedIn is that it provides them with a content publishing platform to make their buyers’ journey a success.
What’s nice with LinkedIn is that it doesn’t prevent you from adding a CTA to your content, unlike other third-party publications, so you have another opportunity to generate sales leads in a way that also engages your readers.
5. Form Groups
Having your own group on LinkedIn is another useful technique in B2B marketing. This strategy works for the simple reason that you’re creating a group to target potential customers who can benefit from connecting with you. It also establishes your brand as an industry expert that can help businesses address their challenges, needs, and pain points.
You can post content or initiate discussions in your group to find out the pulse of a particular customer segment and gain insights on how you can best put your brand in front of them. You can also branch out and form other groups whenever you identify new audience segments that have a different set of needs or problems.
6. Search for People and Groups
There are two ways you can search on LinkedIn: advanced search and group search. The former helps you discover the people you should be connecting with based on demographic data such as location, industry type, or job title, as well as more advanced filters like your common connections, past affiliations, and nonprofit interests.
Meanwhile, group search helps you find which ones are relevant to your niche market. You’ll want to focus your search on groups that have a high activity level, as this means they’re spending a lot of time on LinkedIn. What this means is that you’ll have many more opportunities to engage them on the platform.
7. Keep Track of Who’s Tracking You
The “Who’s Viewed Your Profile” feature is a great way to find sales prospects and gather information about them—thanks to LinkedIn tools that show you details about those visits. LinkedIn will tell you what kind of device a certain lead used to access your profile, where that lead works, and what type of work your lead does.
At this point, it’s your turn to discover more things about your prospects such as what your common interests or connections are. From there, you can start connecting the dots on why they may have sought you out in the first place and reach out to them with a personalized marketing message.
In the age of personalized marketing, LinkedIn’s tracking analytics make it a great platform for monitoring potential prospects.
Wrapping Up
LinkedIn is likely to be the best professional network for your B2B company. It can help you discover leads and determine how well they fit with your brand’s business model, which is virtually all you need to justify an outreach effort.
Ultimately, LinkedIn enables you to establish yourself as an industry leader, which makes closing more sales easier for your team. So, don’t neglect the potential of this awesome B2B lead generation channel. For best results, showcase your brand, monitor your target audience, and engage with your community!