Using LinkedIn For Your B2B Lead Generation

Using LinkedIn for sales and marketing has become a widespread practice in the B2B space. But the strategies to use LinkedIn for lead generation are constantly changing. Sales reps are now being asked to look beyond Sales Navigator and LinkedIn ads to get the most out of their LinkedIn connections.

To reduce the expenditure on LinkedIn tools, focus on three main factors- building a personal brand, achieving consistency in adding connections, and starting new and interesting conversations.

Build your own brand

Building a personal brand within a few seconds of sale is a tall task. But an easy way to approach the process is by first redoing your entire LinkedIn profile. Instead of just being generic in marketing a product/service, you should focus on the kind of problems that your company solves. Long-term clients who have a great rapport with the company should be requested to share your LinkedIn profile.

This solution-focused approach will help you create a page that immediately tells a new visitor what the product/service is and what issues it can solve.

Treat your LinkedIn profile as an industry expert page. Sharing industry-specific tips and opinions help to start conversations and draw more people to your page. You should work with your company’s marketing team to develop a pre-planned schedule for posting creative blogs and other forms of short content.

The goal of posting all kinds of content is to create conversations on your page with more and more people and start appearing on the recommendation list of more professionals involved in that particular industry. You should encourage people to share their opinions and express ideas about the industry on the content posted on your LinkedIn page. The more conversations happen and the more people interact with your page, there will no longer be any need to push sales actively. Industry professionals who see the page as an expert opinion source will soon automatically get converted.

Consistently add new connections

Most LinkedIn users do not check their InMail or LinkedIn Messaging because it gets spammed with promotional messages from various companies. The best way to generate leads on the site is by adding new connections.

The process begins by using LinkedIn’s search and network features to find connections involved in the same industry. All businesses cannot be targeted, so you need to find those businesses that fit your ideal customers' profile. Once the ideal businesses have been located, you can send connection requests to the employees of those companies.

You should then try to engage with these connections as fellow experts in the same industry. When any new person joins a conversation, it's important to follow up on that interaction and send the person a follow request. Over time a huge network of mutual connections will be created, and more and more people will see your page and your company’s product/service.

Initiating and maintaining conversations

The last two steps have already highlighted the importance of starting conversations with industry leaders on LinkedIn. Once you post regular content on LinkedIn, many industry professionals will start finding you through their feed or mutual connections and common groups. They will gradually start developing interest in your company and its offered product/service. Leads are at the awareness stage now and ready to start moving along the sales funnel.

An easy way to engage with leads more intensively is by starting conversations about what most people are talking about. Sharing member posts, replying and commenting on trending discussions and posting outreach content about relevant popular issues keeps your page at the top of most people’s feeds.

Once LinkedIn becomes a part of your daily workflow, a few minutes will become enough to create conversations and engage new leads. But one thing to keep in mind while using LinkedIn for lead generation is that many professionals are not very regular visitors on LinkedIn, they may come over every few months to add connections but are not consistent enough to effectively engage with company content. So it's important to add new connections to your company’s CRM database so that their contact information can be used to share information with them through different channels.

Outreach on LinkedIn is an important job to increase your network of connections and market to professionals who are involved in the same industry and are interested in your company’s solutions.