9 LinkedIn Strategies For B2B Lead Generation

It’s no secret that LinkedIn is a hot spot for B2B lead generation.

But did you know that—between Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn—LinkedIn accounts for over half of the B2B traffic driven by social media? It’s true.

 

So the real secret lies in how to master this platform to get the maximum number of prospects, new clients, and future clients.

We’re not just going to leave you to figure it out for yourself, don’t worry. We have created a guide that will ensure you get the most out of your LinkedIn lead generation.

Use this guide and you’ll blow up your business so big, you’ll be forced to hire more staff or raise your prices to keep up with an onslaught of demand.

LinkedIn For B2B Lead Generation

1. Send Personal Messages To Connect With Prospects

Before you can start generating leads, you need to connect with prospects.

One of the great features of LinkedIn is advanced search.

This feature helps you find your ideal prospect. You can narrow potential prospects by location, their affiliations and other attributes that you’re looking for.

Once you put in your preferred attributes, LinkedIn will provide you will potential prospects.

The key to connecting with prospects is to build a meaningful relationship right off the bat.

When you go to connect with someone on LinkedIn, you will be given an option to send a message with the request to connect.

Sending a personal message shows the prospect that you care about them. Do this every time. We’re going for quality and quantity, but prioritizing quality first.

A personal message also allows you to show the value you’re going to bring to them.

You should include the following in your message:

1. A greeting with the name of the prospect
2. Your reason for wanting to connect (You respect their professional experience, you went to the same college, you saw them in the press, you have common interests, you have a common connection)
3. The value you can bring to them
4. A conclusion where you thank them for their time and encourage them to connect with you

Whatever you do, don’t go for a sale right here. It’s too early, and you ruin your chance of a solid first impression.

Starting the relationship off by establishing common ground and being friendly is a great way to grow your network and increase your leads.

2. Start A Company LinkedIn Page

You can grow LinkedIn connections through your personal profile and a company page.

Setting up a company page is pretty easy.

The first step is to click on ‘Create a Company Page +’. You can find this under the work tab when you log into LinkedIn.

There are only two steps to officially set up a company page.

The first step is to choose the category for your page.

There are four categories:

1. Small businesses
2. Medium-Large businesses
3. Showcase page
4. Educational Institution

Chances are you’re going to fall into one of the first two categories.

LinkedIn gives you criteria that will help you determine if you’re a small business or a medium-large based on their standards.

The next step is to fill out some basic information about your company.

This includes the name of your company, your logo, the type of industry you’re in, and a description about your company.

There will be two images that you will include on your page: a profile picture and a cover photo. The profile picture should be your company’s logo. The cover photo should be an image that grabs the attention of the user.

These visuals should immediately create interest.

Once you finish filling out the basic information of your page, it’s ready to go live.

3. Generate B2B Leads From That Page

Now that you have a company page, it’s time to use it to generate leads.

Let’s start with revamping the basic information you filled in when you were signing up.

Your page should offer more than just a description of what you do. It needs to be engaging. You should be focusing on what your business can offer to the visitor.

Take our page for example.

As soon as the viewer clicks on our page, they are greeted with a call to action to visit our website.

Our website is where the viewer can find the services we offer and make the first step in becoming a client.

We also have a simple description of what our company does and how it will benefit the user.

There is no need for the user to search our page for what we do and how to reach our services. We make it clear by providing it as soon as the user clicks on our page.

You should also share your content on your LinkedIn company page.

We share our blog posts to help keep our followers interested in our company.

A business owner might find this post in his feed and read it because he doesn’t have a domain name. After he reads our post and finds it provided him with valuable information, he might go to our page and look at other posts we have created.

Just in that example we have created a relationship with a potential client.

Generating leads with your company page isn’t rocket science. All it takes is knowing how to show the viewer that they’re going to benefit from a relationship with you.

4. Create Showcase Pages To Segment LinkedIn Leads

Some companies offer a wide array of products to specific audiences. It can be hard to advertise every product you offer if they have very different purposes for different people.

Thankfully, LinkedIn has a solution for this.

One of the categories that you can choose when you’re setting up your company page is showcase. A showcase page is used to promote different products, brands, events, etc. that have specific audiences. It’s kind of like LinkedIn’s version of a landing page.

Showcase pages are also called affiliated pages. Even though it’s completely separate, it is still connected to your company’s main page.

Take Procter & Gamble.

On the right of their page they have a section for their affiliated pages.

It would be a disaster for P&G to try and advertise all of their products on one page. Crest toothpaste is wildly different from Ariel India. Each has their own consumer.

Creating a showcase page has allowed P&G to create content specific to the audience that uses Crest.

When your company as a whole targets a broad audience, use showcase pages to offer relevant content to specific audiences.

There’s always edge in segmenting your audience.

5. Publish Quality Content – Daily

One of the reasons LinkedIn requires extra effort to generate leads is that you have to be constantly active.

It is much better to spend 30 minutes per day publishing content instead of spending 6 hours one day updating your page.

There are two different types of content you can use to keep your page active:

1. Other’s content
2. Your own content

It is okay, and encouraged, for you to share others posts on your page. Sharing posts that are relevant to your niche can actually improve your status on the site.

When you share a post and offer some commentary about your opinion on the topic, you are reaffirming the values and opinions of your company.

It can be hard to publish original and innovative content every single day. Sharing posts can save you time while still keeping your page active.

You can’t rely on sharing posts all the time though. You need to also be publishing your own content as much as possible.

The content you publish for your LinkedIn is slightly different than what you would post on Facebook or Twitter.

Since LinkedIn is a site for professionals, the content you post needs to be both original and innovative.

Your content is going to be the way you establish authority in your network. If you want to be one of the major players on LinkedIn, it’s time to step up your writing.

To begin, you should only be posting original content. If you’re going to share an article you wrote offering tips for SEO, you need to come up with tips that haven’t been seen before.

Innovation and originality will prove to the viewer that you’re an expert in your field.

Establishing yourself as a leader in your network will guarantee that your LinkedIn is going to generate leads.

You want people to look to you when your industry starts changing directions. This allows you to control the narrative when change happens.

And daily content is the foundation for becoming a major player on LinkedIn.

6. Use Data In Your Posts

Original and innovative content will no doubt help you stand out and establish your authority on LinkedIn.

But to take it to the next level, you need to add in solid, reliable data to support your content.

Using data from a reliable source will solidify what you’re saying in your posts. It’s the trusted backbone of your opinions.

We can rave about how great LinkedIn is for generating leads and how the tips we are giving you will guarantee that you’ll see improvements. However, without the data proving those claims, the reader can’t trust that what we’re saying actually works.

Don’t panic! This is where all of the case studies and research you’ve conducted come into play.

We have done case studies on paid advertising and SEO, and use the data we gathered to support our blog posts. Remember how we started this post? With a B2B stat that LinkedIn drives 50% of B2B traffic.

It’s ok if you’re writing about a topic and you haven’t done your own extensive research for it. You can use data from a third-party source as long as you credit them for it.

The origins of the data will not affect the credibility of your post. What’s important is that the data is there and it’s effectively supporting your claims.

The formula for a great post is original content + innovative ideas + relevant data.

Having those three elements are going to prove that users can trust your company to provide them with effective ways to improve their business.

Trust plays a key role in generating B2B leads.

7. Take The Best Content And Sponsor It

Surprise! LinkedIn has paid advertising options.

Sponsored content is an ad-form that helps you reach a wider and or targeted audience.

The cost-per-click is more expensive compared to what you’re used to with Google and Facebook.

Luckily LinkedIn has created a few different types of ads and ways to pay for them.

There are three budget options that the site offers:

1. Total budget. This option is for sponsored content that you want to be published immediately for as long as your budget you set allows.
2. Daily budget. This option is for sponsored content that you want to run daily and will be shown as long as your daily limit allows.
3. Setting bids. This option allows you to set how much you’re willing to pay for clicks, impressions, etc. LinkedIn will stop your sponsored content once you’ve reached your maximum.

The budget option you decide to choose depends on your content and what you think is best.

There are two pricing options:

1. Cost-per-click. This option charges you when someone clicks on your content.
2. Cost-per-impression. This option charges you when people see your content.

The most common pricing option companies will choose is cost-per-click. That’s a safe option we recommend to clients.

When you make the decision to sponsor your content, you get to choose who you want to see it.

This is your chance to ensure that the right audience will see what you’re posting.

You can start considering sponsored content once you see positive results from your posts.

You’re only going to want to promote your best content to make a good impression on your targeted audience.

Since LinkedIn ads can quickly become expensive, you shouldn’t consider promoting your posts until you’re 100% confident with your content and budget.

8. Create Your Own LinkedIn Group

Joining LinkedIn Groups is a great way to engage with other businesses and build relationships with decision makers in your industry.

Not only is it ripe for networking and prospecting, these groups often have domain experts sharing the best strategies for you to learn and apply yourself.

Once you get a feel for what makes a quality LinkedIn group that provides value to all members, has strict rules, and is a safe-place to share opinions, we recommend you consider starting your own group.

That’s the goldmine. Being the owner of a large and successful group is a guaranteed way to generate B2B leads.

You do need numerous connections before you can even think about starting your own group.

The connections you build in the groups you join will help you with your goal to starting your own groups. So don’t skip the recommended action step number one, above.

LinkedIn requires effort to generate the results you want.

You have to put in the time to engage with others in your field, continue posting original content, and establishing your company as an authority figure in your network.

Start joining a few groups that are relevant to your business and start building momentum to making your own group in the near future.

9. Target High-Value Prospects With Ads

I’ll cut to the chase. Using LinkedIn ads is the best way to make sure your prospects are seeing your posts, staying top of mind, building brand equity, and generating sales.

Yes, it is known for being one of the most expensive pay-per-click platforms. However, there is a reason that they’re so expensive: they work.

Like any social media platform, you get to decide who is going to see your advertisements.

The trick to getting the bang for your buck is targeting your most profitable prospects.

You’re going to want to have a solid plan for your ad before you decide to experiment with LinkedIn ads.

This includes research about your target audience, testing the ad, and making sure you have all of the aspects that make up a great ad.

Once you’re confident in your ad, you should start paying to get it promoted on LinkedIn.

The beauty of LinkedIn ads is that there is a guarantee that your specified prospects will see your ad.

Target your most profitable prospects and let the advertising algorithm do the rest.

Inspiring LinkedIn Case Study

To hit home the power of LinkedIn marketing, I want to introduce you to a Robben Media customer, Dr. Leah Houston.

We started working with her a month and half ago. By putting this guide into practice, we’ve produced the following promising results:

• Got her to 10,718 followers for her personal account (started with 3,821 followers)
• Got her to 1,862 followers for her company account (started with 43 followers)
• Published a LinkedIn post with 12,203 organic views (record high at the time)
• Posts regularly receive 1,000 – 15,000 views and 70+ comments (used to get 100 views)

Again, that’s only after 45 days of marketing work. This is major progress for just getting started.

What’s this mean for you? Be inspired that you can achieve similar results since LinkedIn is ripe for opportunity.

Conclusion

LinkedIn holds the B2B marketing crown. Your B2B company’s online marketing should reflect that with a serious push to optimize this platform.

The results may come slow at first. But you’ll see your efforts compound over time and you’ll come to appreciate every second and dollar you invest into this platform when you get clients weekly, maybe daily.

Use our guide to begin your LinkedIn journey.

Seriously, with this surefire way to generate leads at your fingertips, why would you not get everything you can out of LinkedIn?