With more than 756 million global users and 55 million registered businesses, LinkedIn is the largest professional network in the world. As per a HubSpot study, lead generation on LinkedIn is 277 percent more effective than lead generation efforts on Twitter or Facebook. Some reports also indicate close to 80 percent of B2B leads come from the social media platform.
Many businesses use the social media platform to generate quality leads, but sometimes they don’t follow the best practices to be effective in their endeavors. As a fast-growing digital marketing company, we at PeddleWeb provide LinkedIn lead generation services to our clients. In this blog post, we discuss seven steps all businesses can follow to generate effective leads.
- Build a strong personal brand
The first step is to build your LinkedIn profile to make it more authoritative and credible. Fill up your name and personal details and build your brand by adding the following:
- Current position
- Previous experiences
- Education
- Licenses and certifications
- Volunteer experience
- Awards and achievements
- and any other relevant information
If you want, request introductions to professionals you want to connect with but don’t know them personally. After that, connect with the professionals you actually know, interact with them, comment on and share the relevant posts. You may request them for recommendations as well as endorsements for your core skills and return them the favor.
The following step is to create a LinkedIn page for your business and enhance its presence. Enter the accurate and latest information, request your employees to update their experience, and ask them to write a short description of the company.
- Build your lead list
Spend some time looking into the contacts of your connections to find out whom you want to connect with but don’t know them personally. Begin with the ‘Recommendations,’ as they are the closest connections of the LinkedIn users you are viewing. Use phone or email to ask for recommendations outside your LinkedIn account, and you may a faster response. Also, follow your existing clients and prospects and find out if they have a company page. If they do, follow and check for regular updates.
- Join relevant groups to connect with potential clients
LinkedIn has thousands of groups that enable professionals from the same industry or those who share common interests to interact with each other. The groups are the forums where businesses find prospects and get access to generate high-quality leads. The groups you join display on your profile, which makes them an extension of your brand as well as your business. In the groups, you can:
- Post relevant content
- Create discussions around a specific topic
- Respond to other members’ queries
- Stay active in discussions
- Use the search bar effectively
The search bar at the top of your LinkedIn profile is an extremely potent tool that can enable you to find business-to-business leads and identify key decision-makers you would want to meet. Using the tool, you can search for companies or people with specific roles in a specific company. After that, send connection requests to those you want to connect with.
- Have a defined content strategy
When you create content for your LinkedIn posts, have a defined content strategy in place. Create a content calendar that will define how frequently you will post new content and posts. Also, determine what topics you would need to discuss at regular intervals. Dedicate some time every day or week to engage with people who engage with you or your brand. Upload useful content relevant to your industry and cover the topics close to your niche to provide value to your target audience. You can take the help of a digital marketing services provider to help you define and create a strong content strategy.
- Leverage LinkedIn lead generation forms when you are using sponsored content
If you want to generate leads from LinkedIn consistently, consider using paid lead generation solutions such as LinkedIn Sponsored Content. Using the tool, you can create ads and communicate your message to your target audience. You can automate your lead generation process by attaching the LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms to those ads.
A lead generation form is LinkedIn’s customized lead generation tool that enables you to include a call-to-action to your ads. Using this, you can request users to take a specific action by clicking on the call-to-action. After that, they will go to a signup sheet to fill up their email address and some other information. After that, they will go to a thank you page. While using LinkedIn lead generation forms, always make sure to:
- Add an impressive headline and description
- Avoid using excessive form fields
- Restrict the number of fields that need manual input
- Use thank you screen to redirect users to your website
- Continuously split test your forms
- Invest a little bit of time consistently
When it comes to building a brand and generating high-quality leads on LinkedIn, consistency is the key. Investing a little bit of time each working day is far more effective than spending an entire working day on the platform and then doing nothing for the rest of the week. Also, posting content once in a while and sharing some of your connections’ updates irregularly won’t help. Focus on building trust and relationships with your contacts and engaging them in meaningful conversations.
Overall,
Sensing the popularity of LinkedIn among professionals, many businesses are using the social network platform to generate leads. It is, however, crucial for them to follow the right steps and best practices to succeed in their lead generation campaigns. Are you considering generating leads on LinkedIn? Connect with our team to understand how our digital marketing services and LinkedIn lead generation services can help your business.
