Using LinkedIn resources is a great way of generating leads but even seasoned businessmen sometimes scratch their heads once they get to LinkedIn. It has been my desire to provide everyone with a step-by-step guide and I decided to suggest to my readers 12 lead generation secrets for working with LinkedIn as a lead generator.
Before I start, I would like to say a couple of thing about your general strategy in working with LinkedIn. To make sure that LinkedIn is effective and viable in the future not only for you but for other entrepreneurs as well, make your information relevant. The market is indeed huge and there are quite a few big groups of users who hypothetically would want to hear what you have to say. Thus, it should be your priority to find those who are interested and not to dump the info on everyone else just for the sake of numbers. The second rule is that of contacting those who are interested in hearing from you. Try to be personal with people and it will help you a lot in your business.
Here are the lead generation secrets that came naturally from my experience with LinkedIn. Effective and simple, they are listed in the chronological order and can, thus, be used as a step-by-step guide for lead generation:
1. The first thing that you will need to do is to get registered and create a great account profile at LinkedIn. This is crucial and will require some effort
2. There are many special interest groups on LinkedIn. Even though you might be tempted to join all of them to generate as many leads as you can at the time, it would be wiser to sift through the groups and find those that are the closest to your area of activity.
3. It would be equally helpful to study the groups that you have thus singled out. This can be done by reading the postings and discussions. Group dynamics vary from group to group and you may well find a group that has over 20,000 members but where only a few are indeed active in discussions and postings. Look at recent discussions and analyze those. Group size is not the only important factor, it is equally vital to have activity in the group.
4. I suggest joining only the groups with your potential clients and disregard those groups that are created for the sole purpose of finding jobs.
5. When you join a group be personal and use your real name and not the name of your company etc. A personal touch will work wonders for your business.
6. If you want to build relationships and be trusted, post only comments that are informative and worth reading.
7. Answering posted questions can be a great opportunity for finding the necessary doors online. Look especially for questions that come from important people from the companies you are interested in. If you can answer such a question, demonstrate your knowledge, and your chances of being hired or finding a great client will be guaranteed after several postings like that.
8. Don’t just sell to the group – let them comment on what you have by starting a conversation and offering a link.
9. Create landing pages specifically for your groups. As dynamics and characteristics of different groups are different, you might want to send them to pages that have been customized for them and not to a standard landing page.
10. If you are familiar with Facebook’s AdWords than LinkedIn’s DirectAds will not be a totally new idea for you. It allows you to post advertisements to specifically selected sector of subscribers’ database.
11. Make LinkedIn a major part of your marketing plan. Make a point of mentioning it in presentations, webinars and on your site.
12. Create your own LinkedIn groups. Having your own groups will give more control over the content and the kind of audience that joins it.
These lead generation secrets will help you use all the resources of LinkedIn to your best advantage.
Go ahead and connect with me on LinkedIn!
