You already know how vital it is to get your product or service in front of the right customer. Business development and B2B lead generation in order to find those customers is your first priority — and your biggest challenge in any new market. The best marketing campaigns are founded on strong lead generation strategies. Firm leads and relationships start with good introductions and first conversations that eventually feed your international sales representatives.
LinkedIn is a great place to start a business relationship. It’s the number one professional social media platform for organic and paid B2B marketing activities. So it makes perfect sense to kick off your multi-channel lead generation there. And this can greatly depend on how well you manage your professional identity in the first instance. Your profile may look smooth, your photo professionally taken. Your background reads well, and your company page is up to date with current information. Everything at first glance looks good, but — vitally — is that backed up by your interactions?
Let’s look at some LinkedIn lead generation tips, for good-practice professional networking with great results.
Good LinkedIn lead generation starts with meaningful connections. A first meeting starts with an introduction, not spam. Your B2B lead generation team can either learn and gain a lot by playing the LinkedIn game, or be fast relegated to the spam league.
And there’s a lot of spam. (We’ve all rolled our eyes after rejecting connection requests or archiving lame and lengthy sales pitches.) Greg Dunne, managing partner at our U.S. partner SFE Partners, whose services include LinkedIn lead generation, detailed his thought process on whether or not to accept a LinkedIn invite:
“Did the person send a custom connection request that indicates that they did some research on me and can provide value to me and my network? I rarely accept connections from people I don't know, don't have a lot of common connections with, and don't provide me with any context for the connection request.”
He continued, “Does the person contribute content to the community? I will scan your background, but more importantly I will look at your content contributions and your activity. Are people that connect with you receiving value? Are you active with your thoughts and ideas? Can I learn from you?”
Relevance is key. That will distinguish your message from the noise in the first place. Anyone can draw up a template with an innane message, but unless there is some relevant information to make the prospect sit up and take note, then you are wasting hours of costly time that could be used better elsewhere.
As the market becomes more saturated with advertising ploys and attention spans are getting shorter, you realise that you need to work smarter. If you do not develop a strong lead generation strategy in Europe, then you won’t hook the prospects. Use bold messages, informative videos and clear eye-catching imagery to draw attention to your vertical.
Prove the ROI of your LinkedIn lead generation campaign and generate high quality leads at scale. The first look at your tech service or product has to be one that wows AND be something the consumer wants and needs.
Leverage the LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms. Once prospects click into the attention-grabbing ad you’ve created, they will see pre-filled accurate details such as their name, contact info, company name, seniority, job title and location. This is both useful for you and attractive to your prospects as nobody likes tedious form-filling.
With a single click on the form — and without having to type anything — members can instantly send you their info, thus creating leads for your business. Once they click submit, they will see a “thank you message” — that’s an important moment for customization — and this will in turn connect them to another link of your choice, maybe your website, or a special limited-time offer. Wherever you deem to be the best choice link of the next place you want them to go, you’re laying a trail for your prospects to follow.
There are so many phishing scams and junk messages on the internet including on social media platforms, and unfortunately, LinkedIn is no exception. In these days of heightened cybersecurity awareness, you don’t want to fall for them and you definitely don’t want to gain the reputation of generating spam. Keep your numbers low and your leads relevant to your product or service. Quality over quantity is one of our top tips on LinkedIn lead generation.
Also, casting a wide net might seem like a great idea, but it doesn’t easily allow you to keep track of vital metrics. A smaller, quality list of leads does. You can always scale it later — metrics matter before you scale. Launch your sales campaign and then use the tools available to track your progress. LinkedIn’s conversion tracking is one option where you can track all your conversions and re-engage all your website visitors.
Make your messages personal. A one-size-fits-all approach is just never that. If you have connections in common, mention them. Perhaps you both attended a recent conference, bring it up and talk about the value from it. Is there a question you could ask that is both current and relevant, that might elicit an answer for engagement? Allowing the lead generation team to do the bulk of the work is efficient and necessary, but it’s also important as a business owner to also be seen as involved, and really to be present. That instils confidence and helps to build your reputation, both personally and for your organization.
You want to know as much as possible about your prospective customers. Keep a close eye on your marketing statistics, advises Hubspot. Unlock insights into your demographic — such as job titles, companies and industries to narrow down your chances of connecting with the right people, essential for any startup or tech business looking to scale into new territory. Really, it’s about nailing down the basics and knowing your prospective customer better than the competition.
And try to keep your communication brief. Only about a short paragraph can fit on a mobile screen or pop-up LinkedIn Messenger box, so keep it short and sweet.
As Henry Ford said, "The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time."
The essence of a good LinkedIn lead generation strategy is constant improvement. Making the way your business communicates better.
If you have followed our LinkedIn lead generations tips, then you will have achieved the following:
By using these LinkedIn lead generation tips, tools, strategies and your own strong partner relationships, together with the services of an outsourced sales agency you can refine and enhance your lead generation campaigns to drive clear and convincing results — and always stay one step ahead of the competition.
