LinkedIn Lead Generation 2021

LINKEDIN LEAD GENERATION 2021

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How to generate leads from LinkedIn? – Summary

1. Select the right LinkedIn lead generation tool for personalizing your connection requests
   
2. Build and optimize your presence on LinkedIn
   
3. Find relevant groups and engage in discussions
   
4. Use LinkedIn ads for greater reach

Almost every major company uses LinkedIn for marketing purposes. It is the world’s largest social network for professionals, making it the ideal platform for finding leads that are primed and quite interested in what you have to offer. 

If you haven’t already created an ironclad LinkedIn lead generation strategy, you are simply leaving money on the table. Generating leads from LinkedIn should be one of your top priorities.

Instead of going to networking events, people prefer networking over the web nowadays. As digitization pervades through every industry and changes our ways, especially since the pandemic hit, platforms like LinkedIn have seen a boom in user growth. 

LinkedIn currently has 756 million members in 200 countries. Here’s a breakdown of membership distribution around the globe:

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And, here are some interesting statistics about LinkedIn that every digital marketer should know:

• 57m+ companies listed on LinkedIn 
• 43% year over year (YoY) growth in conversions on the platform in Q3 FY 2021
• 64% YoY growth in Marketing Solutions in Q3 FY 2021
• Virtually all (92%) Fortune 500 companies use LinkedIn.

According to the US Digital Trust Survey, LinkedIn is the most trusted social platform in the world. It’s also interesting to note that the average user on LinkedIn earns $46,644 a year, which is the highest out of all other social platforms. 

These platforms have a huge number of users worldwide and hence offer a large audience for businesses. People who use LinkedIn are actively scouring for opportunities and new ideas. They are not just absent-mindedly scrolling through their feeds like on other platforms.

This is significant considering that a higher percentage of these are looking for business insights compared to users of other networks. Broken down by country, the user count is as follows:

A strong presence on LinkedIn makes a huge difference because people join the platform to make connections and expand their networks. So, when you approach them with a tantalizing offer, the chances of conversions are automatically higher.

Generating leads from LinkedIn is a great way to boost your online presence and add to your revenue if you choose a viable automation product. But why should you spend the money on automating your lead generation strategy? That’s because the return on investment is well worth it.

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Lead generation includes all processes and activities that attract potential customers. A large number of LinkedIn users are professionals with significant decision-making power, so you are targeting people who are already motivated when generating leads from LinkedIn. 

With a decent LinkedIn lead generation automation tool, you can increase targeted traffic to your LinkedIn page and sales funnels. 

What Makes LinkedIn So Popular for Marketers?

Numbers are one thing, but the real reason why LinkedIn lead generation is so successful is because of how specific you can get when targeting your audience. 

Unlike other platforms, LinkedIn allows you to target your audience by segmenting through a variety of factors, such as:

• Location
• Current company
• Previous employer
• Geographical region
• Language
• Nonprofit interests

The sheer level of detail when targeting your audience using the LinkedIn Sales Navigator makes it the ideal tool for sales prospecting. Also, you can connect with anyone on LinkedIn, so you can really put your laser-targeting efforts to good use and generate leads that are primed and ready to go.

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If you already have a lead-conversion sales funnel, you can capture plenty of leads through LinkedIn, nurture them, and eventually convert them into your customers. With time, these leads will eventually turn into brand advocates! Here’s a brief infographic that highlights why LinkedIn B2B lead generation is so beneficial:

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The 4 Best LinkedIn Lead Generation Strategies

By now, you should realize the potential that LinkedIn has to offer. The following section will give you all the information you need to create an effective, efficient strategy that offers excellent returns on your marketing expenditure. 

1. Select the Right Lead Generation Tool

If you are wondering how to generate leads from LinkedIn, you need to start by selecting a robust lead generation tool. There are a bunch of different tools out there that you can use for LinkedIn lead generation. However, as mentioned before, you need to be a bit careful when deciding which one to go with. 

LinkedIn discourages automatic lead generation tools, and in case your account is flagged for robot-like behavior, you will be banned from the platform.

Therefore, you need to select an appropriate tool that works well with LinkedIn. Growth-X is one of the best choices for brands that want to generate leads on LinkedIn without having to worry about their accounts getting banned. Growth-X is an excellent choice because of the following reasons:

a. It’s Incredibly Safe

Growth-X isn’t a full cloud service, nor is it an extension that you install on your browser. Because of this, it works parallel to your LinkedIn account, allowing you to access all the features through a clutter-free dashboard. 

It also allows you to create custom message sequences and personalize them how you see fit. 

b. Customer Success Service

Many people who are only just getting started with LinkedIn lead generation don’t really know much about how to automate the process. For instance, if you are not A/B testing your message sequences, it’s going to be difficult for you to figure out what works and what doesn’t.

Growth-X has a dedicated team of customer success managers that hold weekly status calls to determine the success of your campaigns and give you advice on how to improve. 

This is critical because it will give you a better understanding of how to optimize your message sequences and connection requests.

c. Experience

The company has worked with several Fortune 500 companies around the globe. They have considerable experience in growing products. Their team consists of professionals with expertise in content, user behavior, and psychology, all of which can play an important role in maximizing your engagement on LinkedIn. 

Selecting a lead generation tool is the first and most important thing. Keep in mind that you will also need access to LinkedIn Sales Navigator, which is a paid service that makes it incredibly easy to build and grow relationships with leads and existing customers. 

2. Build and Optimize Your LinkedIn Presence

Sending the right messages isn’t enough on LinkedIn; you also need to build and optimize your presence on the platform. 

Specificity is highly valued on LinkedIn, so if you have a half-baked profile or LinkedIn page which was updated several months ago, you can’t expect a decent response from potential leads. 

For instance, is your LinkedIn page complete? Is the information accurate and updated? When a recipient navigates to your profile, they are going to check all of these things. 

More importantly, you need to optimize your presence on LinkedIn, and the best way to do that is by sharing engaging and interesting content. 

The key business executives in your company play an important role in this. People automatically gravitate towards business executives who share advice and contribute thoughtfully to discussions on different LinkedIn groups. Here’s an example of Betty Liu, the Chairperson and CEO at D and Z Media Acquisition Corp:

Betty consistently shares and comments on posts by peers. This shows that she has an active presence, and allows others to engage with her on LinkedIn.

By creating a strong presence on the platform, Bettyis able to create a personal brand that helps her connections get access to interesting and relevant content.

The upper management of your company needs to do the same. It will help considerably in your LinkedIn lead generation strategy and will help in humanizing your brand.

According to LinkedIn’s guides published on their business website, your company’s page is its “professional home”. You can associate 3 hashtags with your company and look at content suggestions to see topics that are trending that you can post about. 

Continue to share relevant content to create a face for your company.

Tips for Optimizing Your LinkedIn Presence

There are plenty of things that you can do in order to optimize your presence on LinkedIn. Here are a few helpful tips:

• Start posting content consistently on your LinkedIn profile. 
  
• Don’t just post long-form articles. Differentiate your content by posting videos, infographics, and other interesting pieces relevant to your industry. This will help you in building credibility for your business.
  
• Start engaging with connections on your page. If someone has “liked” a post, you may want to comment on it and give your thoughts about it. 
  
• Keep a close eye on your page’s analytics. Find out what works and what doesn’t, and then tailor your content accordingly. This will give you a better idea of what your audience really likes. 
  
• Embed the “Follow” button on your company’s website to get more people on your LinkedIn page.

3. Find Relevant LinkedIn Groups and Start Posting

Like all other social platforms, LinkedIn allows you to create groups that are focused on specific topics and industries. 

You can post thought-provoking articles in those groups, discuss recent events and talk about anything you feel is relevant to your industry. Using LinkedIn for lead generation will also help you build an active profile.

According to a LinkedIn guide, an active page can result in 5x more views, and even weekly posts result in 2x higher engagement. Never forget that LinkedIn may be tailored to professionals and businesses, but it is still a social network at its core. 

Go ahead and join groups, share relevant information, and have conversations. The people that stand to utilize your services might find you there!

More importantly, you can post your own content in relevant LinkedIn groups and then track its performance to figure out how it resonates with your audience. It is important to grow organically. 

Posts should be original. The company should encourage its executives to mention the page with an “@” whenever possible. The page can also share the best mentions the company gets on LinkedIn and other forms of media. 

Posts being liked by existing connections will be seen by their connections which could be potential LinkedIn leads. It is important to connect with the community you are trying to build. Replying to comments and messages on time and fostering conversations relevant to your business is a way of doing that.

There are other ways to engage connections and potential LinkedIn leads. Companies can share live video streams and host virtual events as well. Companies can also create “Showcase Pages.” 

These should be used to present key categories of products and services and can be shared with product marketers. 

Additionally, your page and content must be SEO optimized to rank higher in search results. This will make generating sales leads on LinkedIn much easier.

4. Use LinkedIn Ads

You can browse through potential leads manually, but LinkedIn also offers paid marketing solutions. Ads through LinkedIn’s comprehensive advertising platform may reach over 600 million users.

You can use your existing LinkedIn account to create a Campaign Manager account, which will allow you to set up ads, run campaigns, and even fix an ad budget. You start by choosing an objective (select lead generation), then set your targeting criteria as shown below:

Once you do that, you just need to select an appropriate ad format. Your options include:

• Sponsored content
• Message ads
• Dynamic ads
• Text ads

Finally, you can set your budget and then launch your campaign. Over time, you can measure and optimize your campaign to generate more engagement. A common mistake marketers make when using LinkedIn for lead generation is to make your target audience so specific that your ad does not reach enough people.

It is important to avoid this when launching a new campaign. You can target based on profile, as well as account and likelihood of higher buying intention. Linkedin helps you avoid hyper-targeting your campaigns as well.  

While ads are a viable option, it’s hard to personalize them for your audience. That’s why using a LinkedIn lead generation tool like Growth-X works so well. You can personalize and tailor your messages for each specific audience, resulting in higher engagement and more conversions.