How to Use LinkedIn for B2B Lead Generation

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LinkedIn is the best platform for B2B lead generation. The platform has 90 million senior-level influencers, with 63 million being in decision-making positions.

This makes it an ideal way to reach out to influential and high-value prospects, connect, engage, find new leads, and boost your business’s sales. We suggest you use Dripify the best LinkedIn lead generation service to automate your actions and save time.

What Is B2B Lead Generation?

B2B marketing on LinkedIn is the process of creating and cultivating interest in a product or service with the goal of eventually converting that interest into a sale. Marketers and sales professionals use the B2B lead generation strategy to attract customers to their products or service.

Marketers use inbound and outbound outreach methods to increase visibility, awareness, and interest among prospects within a specific target demographic. In fact, generating leads on LinkedIn is the first phase in the buyer’s journey, which is aimed at moving prospects through the funnel to the ultimate sale.

As such, capturing leads and feeding them into the sales funnel are crucial in the LinkedIn lead generation strategy. The goal is to grow your sales and revenue by generating more qualified leads.

Why LinkedIn Is the Best Place to Generate Quality Leads

Here is why generating leads through LinkedIn is the best approach you can take to grow your business:

Users with decision making power

Over 20% of LinkedIn users have the authority to make purchasing decisions on behalf of their companies. Plus, LinkedIn is the most popular social networking platform among Fortune 500 organizations, so your target demographic is likely already on the network.

Active user base

LinkedIn has aroun 1 billion overall members, with over half of them using the platform monthly. This means there are a lot of prospective decision-makers on LinkedIn to interact with regularly.

Most effective lead generation platform

With more than 100+ million decision-makers active on LinkedIn, it is a goldmine for sales professionals. According to a study by the platform itself, LinkedIn makes for 80% of the B2B prospects that businesses draw through social media.

Cost-effective lead conversion

The best part is that you can even generate leads on LinkedIn without spending money. And even if you opt for a paid plan, you will save a lot of money compared to a similar ad campaign on a search engine or another social networking platform. That’s because LinkedIn is cost-effective and results-oriented at the same time.

Select the Right Objectives for Lead Generation

Setting the right objectives is crucial to making the most out of LinkedIn as a B2B lead generation platform. Here’s how to choose objectives for your campaigns:

1. Make a detailed strategy

Ask yourself about the primary motivation behind your campaign. After that is sorted, think about how you will execute the campaign. You must have a clear plan for how your campaign will run, whether it is solely through LinkedIn or a combination of channels. Then you may start thinking about some of your campaign’s objectives.

2. Make a list of your objectives

Write down your objectives for your LinkedIn campaigns. And remember that before you attain your ultimate goal, there are likely to be several smaller objectives and targets that you might to strive to achieve. This is the point at which you should start becoming detailed and realistic.

Also, make sure your objectives are SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound.

3. Run calculations and evaluate your campaigns

It is also crucial to run certain objective-oriented campaign calculations. Whatever objective you choose for your lead generation using LinkedIn, you should calculate exactly what success would look like and in the end. You can then assess how well you did at the end of the campaign and use the feedback to establish more precise targets for your next campaign.

The Benefits of LinkedIn for B2B Lead Generation

LinkedIn has many benefits for B2B marketers. It’s a huge professional network, giving a unique opportunity for sales.

If you’re looking for reasons to use LinkedIn, here are some of the main advantages:

It’s designed for reaching out to high profile clients and decision makers
Users are extremely active and engagement is high
Implement automated LinkedIn lead generation
Conversion rates are higher than Google ads
You can target audiences easily with LinkedIn ads

Right now, more marketers are discovering how to use LinkedIn to generate leads. This means that, if you want to keep up with your competitors, it’s essential to adopt LinkedIn sales strategies.

LinkedIn Lead Generation Strategies

Do you want to know how to get business leads on LinkedIn?

As we’ve previously mentioned, LinkedIn is a powerful platform for lead generation. But, to get top results, you need to know which strategies work.

Here’s how to generate leads on LinkedIn successfully:

Optimize your profile

When using LinkedIn for sales leads, your profile must stand out. There’s a lot of competition on the platform, so before getting started, make sure your profile is fully SEO optimized for LinkedIn B2B lead generation.

First, it’s essential that your profile is 100% complete. It should always include:

A professional profile photo – ideally a headshot
A professional LinkedIn background photo
An awesome, unique headline
A short LinkedIn summary that encompasses key points
Your portfolio and education
Your volunteer experience if you have one
Skills and endorsements
A customized, highly searchable URL

In your profile, focus on selling yourself or your business and brand. Talk about your achievements. Provide links to your website, blog, and other social media pages. Even more importantly, show people how you can help them, solve their problems, and provide value.

In addition, your page should be optimized for SEO purposes. Include as many relevant keywords as possible – especially in the page heading and your description. This will help you be more visible on the platform and on search engines.

Connect and engage

One of the best ways to generate leads with LinkedIn is through outreach and connecting with others. This is, primarily, a social media platform – so be sociable!

To grow your followers or connections, being by connecting with people you know. This can be employees, colleagues, existing customers, or anyone else in your network.

After doing this, start researching your target audience. Find prospects that are an excellent fit for your business, and find out as much as possible about them. Then, send out connection requests.

You should always personalize your messages. Some tips for creating messages that get a good response are:

1. Focus on your target audience

Rather than going straight in for the sale, focus on the prospect. What interests or problems do they have? And how can your product or service benefit them?

2. Avoid generic messages

It’s important to strike a balance between being professional and personal. Try and be as friendly as you can so you sound like a real person, and avoid sounding too salesy.

3. Be clear and concise

Avoid rambling as much as you can. LinkedIn messages are limited in length – plus, it can be very easy for the reader to lose interest. Try and stick to the point as much as possible.

4. Have a clear call-to-action

Always include a clear call-to-action in your messages so they know what to do if they’re interested. It’s unlikely they will commit early on, so keep it casual.

Once your connection request has been accepted, remember to send a follow up message within a few working days to thank them and start a conversation.

Using Dripify means you can automate this process and create a personalized lead generation funnel, complete with LinkedIn actions, conditions, and delays.

This means you can automatically send invites and messages, view profiles, endorse skills, and more, saving you time and helping you reach out to more prospects.

Join LinkedIn groups

If you want to know how to generate leads through LinkedIn, another great strategy is to join LinkedIn groups to grow your network. You can do this by searching for groups that are relevant to your industry, either by name, or by looking for groups people in your network are already in.

After joining, engage in the groups, interact with other members, answer questions, and post in them regularly. This can help you meet new contacts and establish yourself as an authority in your niche.

You can also create your own groups and invite your connections to join. Owning a successful group is great for generating leads. By building your interaction in this way, you can make the most of LinkedIn as a platform.

Publish content regularly

Statistics show that LinkedIn is the best channel for B2B marketers to create and share content. There are 9 billion content impressions on LinkedIn feed each week; however, only 3 million users say they share content weekly.

Publishing engaging content is a fantastic way to generate leads from LinkedIn. We recommend sharing at least two posts a week, plus additional articles on Pulse.

You can make your posts stand out from the crowd by:

Keeping text posts short and concise
Using video content to grab your audience’s attention
Showing personality and making them interesting
Avoiding using too many links
Using a hook to boost engagement
Sparking conversations to get more likes, comments and shares

Additionally, you can use LinkedIn Pulse to publish long-form articles. This platform allows you to reach a large professional audience using LinkedIn for lead generation.

When creating content, remember to make it relevant to your niche and appeal to your target audience. Try including pictures and videos to break up the text, and ensure the content is well-written, engaging, and helpful.

Lastly, it’s important to be consistent with your content. Create an editorial calendar with what you’re posting and when – and stick to it!

Retargeting outside LinkedIn

When considering how to generate leads on LinkedIn, another effective strategy is to use retargeting and marketing campaigns outside LinkedIn.

To do this, you need to export your LinkedIn lead data – like contact information of leads – and then use them for Facebook ads or email marketing campaigns.

Dripify allows you to do this easily, as you can export your LinkedIn contacts to a CSV file in just a few clicks. This gives you email addresses, phone numbers, and other important information from your leads that can help you set up new marketing campaigns and retarget.