Tag Archives: Lead Generating Tactics

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Top 7 Ways to Generate Sales Leads With LinkedIn

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LinkedIn is one of the best online platforms for generating sales leads—B2B sales leads especially. It makes sense because LinkedIn is a social media platform for business-related purposes and it’s a very successful one. Forty-four percent of its members have an income of more than $75,000 and 50 percent of users turn to LinkedIn when making their purchasing decisions.

If you aren’t using LinkedIn to build your sales pipeline, then you are missing out on a lot of potential customers, but don’t jump in without a plan. When using LinkedIn to generate sales leads, you should do so strategically—from developing a targeted profile to building successful advertising campaigns. Follow these seven steps to make the most of your LinkedIn account and increase your sales numbers dramatically.

Perfect Your Profile

“Your LinkedIn summary (all 2,000 or fewer characters) will likely be read by more people than any other version of your bio.” – William Aruda, Forbes

Your LinkedIn profile is your first impression to most leads, so you should spend time making sure that it’s a good one.

Choose the Right Picture. Choose a professional image for your profile picture. Wear clothing that is appropriate to your job—for most that will be a suit, but if you belong to a more casual industry, be sure to wear an elevated version of your usual attire. You don’t need to go to a studio to get a picture taken, but don’t use a selfie. Instead, ask a colleague or friend to take a few pictures of you against a nice backdrop, even outside in natural light.

Customize Your Headline. Most people use the default headline of their current job title, but that’s a wasted opportunity. You should be using it to hook potential clients. How will you help potential leads? Include your title, company, and how your product helps clients. For instance, “Sales Representative at [company] helping companies increase sales by [percent] with [product name].” Stay away from jargon as much as possible. Instead, use easily understood terms that potential clients will be using in their searches.

Create a Stellar Summary. Since you’re using LinkedIn as a lead-generation tool, direct your summary to your potential clients. Tell your audience how passionate you are about setting companies up with the amazing products you sell because of the ways those products change their lives. Make your summary easy to digest by adding bulleted lists to summarize key points and including media to enhance your message like links to videos explaining your products.

Use a Custom URL. When you join LinkedIn, they assign you a generic URL, so make sure you’ve changed it to something more personal and easy to remember. Most people use their name, but if you have a common name, you may need to add another identifying detail like the company you work for or use a well-known nickname. You can change your URL up to five times in six months, so don’t worry if use job-related terms and then change jobs. As long as you haven’t used up all five edits, you can easily update your URL.

Add Current Contacts

“There is no overstating the value of happy customers who become advocates for your brand.” – Alex Rynne, LinkedIn

Yes, you already know your clients, but LinkedIn is an elaborate web of “who knows who,” so be sure to connect with all of your current and past clients once your profile is set up. Send them a nice note with your invitation, letting them know how much they mean to you. Cultivation doesn’t end with the sale or even after a client leaves. One day, they might come back to your product or transfer to a different company that can benefit from your product.

Don’t forget that many of the companies you’ve worked with (or want to work with) also have a presence on LinkedIn. Spend some time finding and following their pages to stay up-to-date on their latest news.

Add New Contacts

Everyone you talk to about business or meet during the course of the business day is a potential LinkedIn connection. – Jeff Haden, Inc.

From now on, every person you meet is a potential LinkedIn connection. If you meet someone at a party or standing in line at the store, and the conversation turns to work, consider connecting with them on LinkedIn. If they aren’t a potential client, they might know someone who is.

When sending them a connection invite, take the time to write a personal note that references your conversation and sends them something useful—like a link to a relevant article or an offer to refer them to one of your other connections. Unless your in-person conversation quickly turned to their interest in the product or service you’re selling, stay away from overly sales-like messages. Instead, connect with them with the purpose of being helpful to their job. They’ll take note and look for ways to return the favor.

Customer review rating business concept, Woman hand using mobile phone

Ask for and Write Recommendations

“A glowing recommendation from an existing customer provides social proof that can put new prospects’ minds at ease.” – Emma Brudner, Hubspot

Recommendations can act as powerful customer reviews for you and the products you sell, but recommendations that you write for others are an overlooked way to get your name and profile in front people who aren’t a part of your network.

Asking others to write recommendations for you is a great way to build your profile. Good reviews are a guaranteed way to improve sales records for products. In fact, having at least five reviews can increase the likelihood of purchase by 270 percent compared to having no reviews. When it comes to gaining leads on LinkedIn, both you and what you’re selling are under review, so when asking for recommendations, request that customers include a reference to the product as well.

You should also write recommendations for others. This way anyone looking at their profile (to hire them, connect with them, etc.) will see your recommendation as well as your headline and a link to your profile. If your review and headline are memorable enough, they may click through to learn more about you.

Find Leads

“80 percent of social media B2B leads come from LinkedIn.” – The Sophisticated Marketer’s Guide to LinkedIn

When looking for leads, you should use the advanced search feature. The advanced search feature allows you to filter LinkedIn members with information like their location, company, industry and how closely you are connected to them. If you upgrade to the LinkedIn Premium, you have access to additional filters like function and years of experience to target more specific leads.

After the initial search, narrow your results down to the best leads by finding 2nd-degree connections. Depending on how well you know the 1st-degree connection that links you to your lead, you can ask for an introduction. To make the introduction easier, include a draft email that your contact can use when connecting you to your lead.

For some leads, you won’t have a 1st-degree connection. You can still use LinkedIn to make the cold call warmer. Look through their profile information and find things you have in common. Did you go to the same school? Are you members of the same organization? You can, of course, immediately contact leads using the commonalities you find, but you’ll get a better reaction if you first cultivate a relationship with them. Join the same LinkedIn groups and enter into non-sales related conversations about shared hobbies or career topics. Be genuine and try to help them by referring them to others or vice versa. They’ll find ways to pay it forward to you as well.

Engage in Groups

“Offer massive value to every member. Connect anytime that they reach out to you. Try and genuinely solve their problems.” – Neil Patel, Forbes

Groups on LinkedIn are a place where like-minded individuals share information with each other—usually with articles and blog posts or by answering questions posed by other group members. Starting your own group isn’t usually the best method of gaining leads unless there is a specific topic you want to discuss, but no group in which to do so.

Starting a group is easy in theory, but it takes a lot of work. If you choose to start your own group, have a backlog of articles, blog posts and conversation topics to share on a daily basis and populate the group with several posts before you invite connections to join. Starting your own group is one of the best ways to cultivate connections on LinkedIn, but don’t go in blindly. Be prepared to spend a good amount of time managing the group.

Whether or not you create your own group, you should join any groups in which your potential clients participate. If your product or service targets marketers, join all marketing-related groups. If you want to target managers, join groups that are management-related and so on. Once a member of the group, you should share blog posts and articles that are relevant to that group. If an article about your product or service is relevant, share it, but balance it by mostly sharing and participating in non-sales posts and conversations. To make a lasting impression, share blog posts that you’ve written showcasing your knowledge on the topic at hand.

In addition to adding your blog posts and articles to relevant groups, you can also post them as status updates in LinkedIn to let your connections know what you’ve been up to as well. It may lead to fruitful conversations with leads among your own connections.

Advertise through LinkedIn

“In the history of my marketing experience at this school, I’ve never seen us convert that quickly.” – Elizabeth Hogan, Duke University, on Sponsored InMail

LinkedIn advertising is more costly than other forms of social media advertising, but for B2B companies, the access to a highly targeted professional audience is without compare. LinkedIn understands the value of marketing to their members and has invested a lot of time in developing their advertising features. They are constantly rolling out new features like carousel advertising and matched audiences which allows you to upload your internal database data to target leads better, so stay updated on what new offerings they have available.

Currently, LinkedIn has five ad types to choose from.

Sponsored Content

Sponsored content is much like ads on other social networks, where you are pushing a “status update” of a popular blog post, a video featuring your product, or a thought-provoking question to an audience beyond your immediate connections. Much like Facebook advertising, you get a headline, intro copy, and an image or carousel of images like any status update, though you should keep the copy short and to the point for an 18 percent increase in engagement.

Sponsored InMail

The most unique form of advertising available, sponsored InMail, allows you to create an email to send to your target audience via InMail. As with standard emails, you create a subject line, body copy and include a CTA button and image. Use a personal profile to send the InMail to increase open rates and keep the body copy short with a strong call to action to get the most response from viewers.

InMail is one of the most effective ways to market to your target audience because LinkedIn only sends the message to people when they are active on the network. It also limits the number of sponsored messages a user sees, so they don’t feel inundated with advertising emails. This ensures your audience is more receptive to the sponsored InMail messages they do receive.

Dynamic Ads

Dynamic ads are another high-performing LinkedIn advertising option. Dynamic ads work well when you want people to follow your page, join your group, visit your website or download your content. The system will pull in the targeted audience’s username and profile picture to create ad copy that specifically addresses them. The copy is very short and should explain how the user can benefit from clicking the CTA button.

Programmatic Display Ads

Display ads are image- or video-based ads that appear in users’ sidebar when they are using the platform on their desktop. Use eye-catching media and messaging to grab the users’ attention. To get the most out of your video-based ad, keep the video under 30 seconds, but get to the main message within the first 10 seconds.

Text Ads

Text ads on LinkedIn are much like Google AdWords, where you choose between PPC and CPI ads, set a bid for the audience you want to reach and set a budget to ensure you don’t overspend to reach that audience. You can choose our targets based on demographics like age and gender, career details like industry and position, and LinkedIn activities like to which groups they belong. Because you don’t have as much real estate as other advertising options, focus on your strongest CTAs.

 

LinkedIn is one of the best ways to generate new leads, especially for those in the B2B marketing industry, but it must be used strategically. Develop a presence as a thought-leader through your profile and in groups, and maintain continuous touchpoints with your contacts, whether it’s congratulating them on a promotion or referring them to another connection.

Add a few minutes to your calendar every day to check and update content on the platform. The key is to keep it slow and steady, and after a few weeks, you’ll begin seeing all of your hard work beginning pay off!

Kenneth Hitchner is a communications strategist who protects and promotes brands. He is currently the director of public relations and social media at Creative Marketing Alliance and CMA Association Management. In prior assignments, he served as the spokesman for NJ Transit, the deputy press secretary for a Governor of New Jersey and the chief content officer for a nonprofit that put downsized, college-educated professionals back into the workplace during the Great Recession of 2008.

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9 Lead Generating Tactics That Convert To Sales

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Did you know that you are probably making sales too difficult? Selling does not have to be painful. It can be easy and natural.

The key to moving from selling pains to selling pleasure, though, is in generating the right leads and enough leads. If you use strong lead generating tactics, the leads will convert to sales without you having to pull any teeth.

The trick is to work smart with the right marketing efforts. Here are nine tactics that will generate the leads you need:

Public Relations:

1. Get Featured

A sure-fire way to generate leads that will convert to sales is through editorial outreach. A few decades ago, this meant getting your business, product, or service featured in a magazine, on the radio, in the newspaper, or in the news. Unfortunately, these outlets can be very challenging to get a spot on. It was and still is, highly competitive. And while this type of coverage is still great to aim for, there are other, easier editorial outlets.

You can send your product to an Instagram, SnapChat, or YouTube celebrity. They can feature the product on their social media channel and tell their followers about it. Alternatively, you could find blogs that your target market might follow and send it to them. These platforms have thousands, if not millions of people, who closely follow them. If the product or service resonates, you will start seeing a significant increase in website traffic and phone calls.

Social Media:

2. Post Gated Content

Maybe you have a lot of followers on Facebook and Instagram. Maybe your website traffic is growing. For some reason, though, this is not translating into sales. The reason for this is that you must get these followers and visitors into the sales funnel. At the moment, they are just peeking in through the window. It’s time to open the door for them. You do this by finding a new point-of-contact: Email. You need to get emails and grow your email list.

The most effective way to do this is to create valuable content. However, you do not just give it out freely. You should allow access to it only through a landing page where visitors have to provide details, like their name and email address. Now all you have to do is write a description of the content, add the link to the landing page, and post it on your social media platforms. All of a sudden you have a mailing list that is twice as long as it used to be.

3. Customize Facebook Contests

Social media is one of the best lead generating tools available. You just need to use it wisely and harness the power of vast networks of friends. One of the best ways to do this is by paying attention to what the latest research is saying: More than a third of millennials like brands on Facebook and follow them in order to get access to competitions that they hold. If this is what consumers want, provide them with it and make it easy for them to access the competitions.

Through your Facebook page, you can hold competitions for a free product or a discount coupon. The requirements for entry can simply be to follow your page and tag two of their friends in the comment section below the post. More often than not, those two friends will also follow your page and tag two of their friends. This has a snowball effect, allowing you to identify countless new leads who are all interested in your product.

To create this ease of access, use custom Facebook tabs. To do this without the help of a developer, all you need is a Facebook tab app. You can use Pagemodo, Tabfoundry, or TabSite. These apps are all very easy to use and enable you to create very professional looking tabs.

Content Marketing:

4. Create A Webinar To Get More Information From Leads

Webinars generate leads and they generate the type of leads that turn into sales. They do take time and effort to develop, but if your webinar offers training, helpful information, or expertise that can not be found anywhere else on the internet, you will bring in hoards of new leads. And because Google’s algorithm does consider the value of content in its ranking, the creation of a webinar may lead to your website’s ranking going up a few spots in Google queries.

To get started, identify the main questions and problems your target market faces. Create an outline for how to help them answer and solve these. Develop a presentation, record it, post it, and put it behind a landing page. This way you can ask for visitors’ information before they view the content. You might also consider asking them a few questions about other information they would like. Based on their answers, you may even consider creating a webinar series.

5. Make Sure Your Content Converts

Why would you spend the time creating content if it does not lead anywhere? You can produce all the white papers, consumer reports, and videos that you want, but if you do not have a strong conversion path, you will just have site visitors, not leads.

This is why every piece of content you post should include a three-step conversion path. The first step is a Call-to-Action. This can be a button or link that is posted at the bottom of a blog or it can be a link that pops up mid-way through your YouTube video. All this CTA does is point the consumer to the next step. You decide what the next step is—submitting their email address, buying a product, contacting you, etc.

The second step is a thank you page. This page can pop up as soon as a visitor has downloaded a content file from your website or it can be a slide at the end of a video. It is simply a nice way to tie things up and politely suggest another piece of content or to follow your brand on social media.

The third and final step is a follow-up email. Within 24 hours of providing their email address, visitors should get an email that engages them further. It might contain similar information to the thank you page (i.e. If you like that content, you might also be interested in this content). You could also use the email to offer them a limited-time promotion.

Email Marketing:

6. Segmentation Is Your Friend

Every email address is not the same. There is a different person behind each one. They are at different places in the sales funnel. Some are active users, who open every email you send. Some are inactive users, who have not opened a single email. These email addresses represent people who have bought from you and people who have not. Not all of them are interested in the same product or service that you offer. You need to understand this and identify who falls where. Most email campaign programs provide you with some analytics–use these to segment your audience.

Have one segment of emails that is for brand new leads. Have another that is to re-engage inactive customers. For each segment design a personalized campaign that addresses exactly where the people are in the decision-making process and leads them to the next step of the sales funnel.

Web Design:

7. Your Website Is Never Finished

You need to regularly update your website. These updates might be recent news, blog posts, or new pictures and videos. It is up to you. But it should be fresh and valuable. The first reason for this is that the more content you have, the more keywords you will have. This means that your website will become more visible to a wider audience. The second reason is that when you update your website, Google takes note. They have to index the website again. In other words, with each fresh update to the website you get another opportunity to move up in Google’s search rankings.

Search Engine Optimization:

8. Keywords Keywords Keywords

SEO is all about increasing your ranking in search engines so that when people search for something that is connected to what you do or what you make, you will come up as a top result. The first place you should start is with keywords. If phrases on your website match a person’s search query, you will rank higher.

Choose the keyword that you concentrate on based on a balance. On the one hand, you need the keyword to be searched for enough. If you have a very specific product with an unusual name, you should not use this as your keyword. No one will ever search for it, therefore your site would not be ranked highly. Instead, you should choose a phrase that describes the product or what it does as the keyword. On the other hand, the balance comes from not making the keyword something too broad. If it is a single word or extremely common phrase, your site will likely get lost below Wikipedia and other information providers. A good way to check on the popularity of the keyword is through the Google Keyword Planner.

9. External Links

Another massive aspect of Google’s algorithm is external links. External links are other sources pointing to your website. Basically, it just means that others trust you–Google likes that. This will take a little bit of work. You will need to pitch yourself to bloggers and online news sources. You could also consider partnering with others in your industry that provide complementary products and services. You could post links to their website and they could do the same for you.

Accumulating strong leads can seem like an uphill battle. As soon as you find one, the last one slips through the cracks. But it does not have to be this way. And by using the above lead generating tips, it won’t be.

Kenneth Hitchner is a communications strategist who protects and promotes brands. He is currently the director of public relations and social media at Creative Marketing Alliance and CMA Association Management. In prior assignments, he served as the spokesman for NJ Transit, the deputy press secretary for a Governor of New Jersey and the chief content officer for a nonprofit the put downsized, college-educated professionals back into the workplace during the Great Recession of 2008.

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