There is a lot of FUD around - how to use Linkedin for Lead Generation. Businesses and Sales people invest months together to gain Sales Leads on Linkedin using various activities but fail miserably -
Sending connections requests or direct inmails.
Creating content and sharing it
Sharing other’s content
Tagging people into posts, Hashtags
Following influencers and commenting on their posts
What Sales People don’t realize is, generating sales leads on Linkedin needs a strategic approach before you could realize its immense potential. Here let me break this down for you. Please note that the below process involves bit of planning and preparation but the results are guaranteed.
Linkedin Lead Generation Strategy is a 5 step process and involves following steps :-
Identify
Identify your target audience. You should have an answer to the following questions.
Who is the decision maker & Influencer in your Sales Process? For a marketing agency, the decision maker can be the marketing head or CEO and the influencer can be the marketing manager.
Do you wish to target the Decision Maker or the Influencer?
Do you wish to target any particular region or location? Narrow focus deliver quicker results.
Do you wish to target any particular industry or segment? Again, narrow focus deliver quicker results.
What problem are you trying to solve for the identified Segment and Decision Maker? This is key to success. You should identify the highest level of pain point that is addressed by your product.
Position
Next step is to position yourself as the solution provider before you could reach out to your target audience.
Update your profile section with the right description using key words that directly relate to the pain of your target audience. Keywords are important and should match to the search criteria used by your target audience. This is needed for your target audience to find you while searching for a solution and/or help them recognize the value in connecting with you in case of sending/receiving connection requests etc…
Seek recommendations from your existing customers. Recommendations should highlight the feedback for the products/services sold by you. If your customer’s recommendations are purely focused on you as an individual then its better to call them up and ask for Product recommendation as well.
Include Product/Brand introductory videos and images on your profile banner section as well as in other relevant places of your profile.
Opt for an Paid Sales Navigator Linkedin Account for Lead Generation.
Now, you are all set to connect with people.
Connect
There are multiple ways that you can choose to connect with identified target audience. I strongly recommend to follow all the ways for maximum results.
Use Linkedin Search option / Linkedin Group Members to search for decision makers and send connection request. You can choose to send a direct connection request but that barely gets you any results or you could choose to include a message along with your request. Including a message along with the request raises your chance of being accepted in 7 out of 10 cases. However the question is, what message should be included? Well, my recommendation is to first establish a familiarity by putting a line or two mentioning how did you find him and what interest or value do you see in connecting with him. Finally, you should include a line mentioning what value the other person will receive in connecting with you. Here is an example for you to frame your message -
“Hi fname, found you through a common connection/Group. [Establishing Familiarity]
Would love to add you to my N/W to receive & share Business & Sales insights. “ [showcasing your interest for the connection and value he can expect in return]
2. Use Linkedin Follow Option - Linkedin connection request has its own limits. I would suggest to stick between 20 to 50 connection requests per day. In addition to it, you can use Linkedin Follow option to search and follow the accounts. There isn’t any limit to it but again, restricting yourself to 20 to 50 per day should be good enough. The benefit is, if you are following someone, he gets an alert and if your profile is properly beefed up and interesting, he will follow you back, putting him right into your community.
Engage
Next step is to engage your audience using TOMA Strategy [Top of the Mind Awareness]
As a daily activity, go over the posts you have been seeing on your wall from your target audience. Start liking it and put meaningful & value adding comments.
Start sharing their post on your wall. This will extend its reach to other decision makers that you have in your network. Similar interest will buzz and keep the community alive.
Create your own posts of your products, blogs, events and anything worth sharing and start sharing it in your own community as well as other groups to attract similar audience.
This will ensure your community is engaged and you are in front of them all the time.
Sell
The last step is to sell. This will effectively work as inbound and outbound.
Inbound sell will happen as soon as the buying window open on customer end. If he feels a need for your solution, you will be the first one he would approach due to the TOMA effect.
Outbound Sell - If you have a promotion or event coming up, create a post and share on your wall.
Secondly, you can start sending individual messages to let customers know about this special event or promotion happening and the beauty is , they won’t find it intrusive. Infact, they would love you for this as it would been seen as a value add.
And, that’s how you can conquer Linkedin. It is a one time effort to setup and follow the pattern above but once you get in motion, it all happens automatically. Furthermore, the results will spike after a stage and you will see that connection requests and follow up will turn around from outbound to inbound i.e customers will start sending you requests and follow you. That's it.
Let's hear it from you. What is the strategy that has been working for you? Share it in the comments for all of us learn and use.
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