LinkedIn, renowned as a potent B2B platform, fosters brand recognition and revenue growth. The data from the social media giant reveals that audiences that interact with brand messages on LinkedIn are six times more likely to convert. However, without a lucid strategy, and the right setup, the task of lead generation on LinkedIn might appear daunting. To get you started, here is a list of tips and techniques to help guide you through setting up LinkedIn so your lead generation has the best chance at success.

The Concept of Lead Generation

To begin with, let’s refresh our understanding of lead generation. It encompasses all the activities and strategies employed to attract potential customers. The importance of generating leads cannot be stressed enough as, with proper nurturing, potential customers can transform into paying customers that utilize your products and drive revenue. LinkedIn’s typical audience consists of professional decision-makers vested with purchasing power, enabling you to communicate directly with potential customers who can transition into paying customers.

That’s what makes LinkedIn so powerful! There are very few ways to sidestep gatekeepers on your way to decision-makers, and LinkedIn might be the best of them. But before you start targeting prospects through paid content, InMail, and direct messages, it’s vital to set up your LinkedIn Page and profile, to support your lead generation initiatives.

The Importance of a Strong LinkedIn Presence for Executives

The first step on LinkedIn can often be perplexing. Should you prioritize creating a compelling LinkedIn Page and start posting content to your business’s feed immediately? Or should you begin by advertising all your job openings to attract fresh talent? We suggest starting by optimizing your Company Page to create a robust first impression. Make sure your Page is comprehensive and up-to-date with pertinent information like a business description, logo, website URL, and industry. Check spelling and grammar — first impressions are critical to quickly building trust!

However, a frequently neglected opportunity to generate leads lies within the individual employees’ pages. Persuade your team to create well-crafted personal profiles with professional headshots and detailed job experiences. A consistent brand applied across your team members’ profiles builds credibility with potential customers investigating your company.

Consider the leaders at your company and their current LinkedIn presence. Could they contribute more thoughtfully to LinkedIn groups within your industry or post more often to their feeds? Your executives could likely enhance their LinkedIn engagement. Have them leverage LinkedIn to construct a personal brand that will assist their followers in finding valuable content related to your business. That way, when a need for your service arises, your company will be top of mind.

Building a robust LinkedIn Page for your Business

Once your executives have established a strong LinkedIn presence, it’s time to develop an impressive Page for your business. You should ensure your page is active, featuring thought-provoking content and contributing to conversations already happening on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn Pages is a free product that can bolster your company’s visibility on the platform. It’s also a crucial place to house your brand’s thought leadership content, such as videos, commentary from executives, and curated information from other sources. Use your page to showcase successful case studies and make it easy for prospective clients to learn how your company can solve their problems.

Posting Relevant Content and Audience Engagement

To strengthen your LinkedIn page and profile, consider posting various content types, including videos. Showcasing industry-relevant content can help you position yourself as a knowledgeable source and establish relevance and credibility with potential customers.

And remember to respond to comments. Answer questions to foster relationships with your audience and showcase your expertise. When others recognize you as an insightful, valuable source, you’ll begin to develop connections with like-minded professionals that fit your ideal customer profile. If you post often, you’ll become a recurrent feature on their feed, and familiarity makes it easier to initiate further conversations.

If you assume that your LinkedIn connections are professionals within your industry, they can introduce you to new audiences with the content you post. When your connections click ‘Like’ on a post you’ve made, it may appear on the feed of a potential lead. This lead will observe that your shared connection has liked your post, vouching for your credibility and authority, potentially prompting them to send a request to connect.

To ensure you’re releasing content that resonates with your audience, follow your page analytics to discern what resonates with them the most and create accordingly.

Leverage LinkedIn Groups

At its core, LinkedIn is a social platform akin to any other. Just as you can on Facebook, users can create groups centered around industry-relevant interests, and you should join these groups and engage in conversations with other professionals.

You can post content and updates to encourage discussions about relevant topics or simply discuss the services you offer. If you’ve joined groups wisely, your potential customers can see your contributions and begin to recognize you as a source of valuable information. You can also use groups to learn more about your audience.

If members are active, learn from their discussions, discover common industry pain points, and how leads expect these issues to be addressed. Use this information to your advantage, and create hyper-targeted value propositions when you reach out that speak directly to your customer’s needs.

Strong Sales and Marketing Alignment is Essential

You’re likely all too familiar with the recent shift in consumer buying behavior. Nowadays, customers conduct extensive online research beforehand and typically use marketing content to inform their purchasing decisions before even reaching out to a sales rep.

With savvier consumers, it is now critical that marketers meet the needs of consumers who are further along the buyer’s journey and then seamlessly hand them off to the sales team. Sales must have the context about which stage of the buyer’s journey the consumer is at. Additionally, many salespeople deeply understand the target customer, so leveraging sales reps’ knowledge when creating marketing materials is vital.

All of this implies you must align your sales and marketing teams since they play equally valuable parts in finding prospects and closing deals, and they overlap more heavily now than ever before.

Leveraging Connections with Current Customers and Clients

LinkedIn’s primary appeal lies in networking, and you should use this feature to your advantage for lead generation. Connect with current customers and clients on LinkedIn and learn from who their industry connections are, as they may be relevant to you as well. If you have relationships with existing clients you connect with, ask for referrals and references, or simply learn how to get in contact with a connection they have that matches your customer profile.

As LinkedIn is a professional network, such requests are less pushy, spammy, and sales-like than cold calling someone after finding their number online. Leads can receive your request to connect, browse your profile, and see your shared connection as a guarantee of trust. In addition, when you connect with new leads, you’re using warm outreach. This means that you already know a bit about them and can immediately make propositions that relate to their interests, providing value to them right off the bat.

Consistent Presence on LinkedIn

Just like all of your other social media sites, LinkedIn requires consistency. If you post an article once a week and then log out, you’re not establishing yourself as a consistent presence with your connections. You also want to communicate consistently with your leads. Disappearing in the middle of a conversation is not a good look and does the opposite of furthering their interest in doing business with you.

Additionally, to ensure you’re reaching the right audiences, consider leveraging LinkedIn Matched Audiences to retarget website visitors. Using LinkedIn Matched Audiences, you’re able to retarget website visitors and create audiences using email lists or CRM data. It’s much easier to convert people who have already shown interest in your company, so finding ways to re-engage them is a must.

Also, use platform analytics to learn about your audience’s interests, when your posts get the most traction, and create a strategy that will keep you consistently present and visible on your target audience’s LinkedIn feed.

Common Mistakes Marketers Make With LinkedIn Lead-Gen Strategies

What is the biggest mistake marketers make when it comes to LinkedIn lead gen strategies? Per Jim Habig, the VP of Marketing at LinkedIn: “People underestimate the impact that creativity can have in growing your business and attracting new leads. In a recent report, we found that 69% of people said B2B purchasing is just as emotionally driven as B2C. Creativity is a powerful way for businesses to build their brands, differentiate themselves, and tell compelling stories about the problems they’re solving that will pique the interest of their audience.”

This is good news for many marketers — who likely got into marketing for the storytelling in the first place.

In conclusion, LinkedIn is a potent platform for B2B businesses to generate leads and foster growth. With the right strategy and consistency, businesses can leverage LinkedIn to attract potential customers, engage with them, and ultimately convert them into paying customers. The key is to understand your target audience, optimize your page and profile, create and share relevant content, and maintain a consistent presence on the platform. By doing so, businesses are set up to use LinkedIn’s paid prospecting as a powerful tool to drive revenue and growth.