LinkedIn allows B2B marketers to connect one-to-one with the major decision-makers resulting in fostering authentic business relations. For B2B marketers, LinkedIn is a one-stop shop for achieving lead generation goals.

In this article, we will explain how you can tap into the potential of LinkedIn for lead generation. But before that, here are some interesting statistics about B2B lead generation on LinkedIn,

• 82% of B2B marketers rely on LinkedIn for prospecting, nurturing, and closing potential leads

• 62% of B2B marketers claim that they have successfully generated leads on LinkedIn

  Now, let’s dig into how you can unlock the power of LinkedIn for B2B lead generation.

Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile

Craft a compelling headline and summary

Your LinkedIn profile is your digital identity or digital asset. Showcase the best version of your professional or business skills on your profile. Write a clear, compelling headline and a summary.

Showcase professional experience and achievements

List down all the professional achievements and experience you have and add them to the profile. If you provide services to the SaaS industry, list all relevant skills, portfolio, and expertise. It makes you more approachable. You can connect with the decision-makers within the SaaS industry right away. They are just a click away on LinkedIn.

Use a professional profile picture

A LinkedIn profile with a professional picture receives more connection requests, impressions, and profile views. Put up a professional profile picture to connect with C-suite executives and industry experts. You can use the tools to identify whether your profile picture fulfills the standard LinkedIn requirements.

Request and showcase recommendations

LinkedIn is a great place to display recommendations on your profile that improve your credibility and authenticity. You can ask for recommendations from your colleagues, project manager, team lead, or employer. Showcasing the recommendations would increase the overall health of your profile.

Build a Relevant Network

Identify and connect with target prospects

Identify target prospects using the filters and connect with them. When connecting, it's great to send them a professional note or even offer an online video call to get to know them better. This way, you will be able to make a network of decision-makers within your industry and strengthen your sales funnel.

Do not send connection requests to random people that are not relevant to your industry. LinkedIn considers it spamming. You might get restricted from this platform due to the failure to comply with the terms and conditions.

Engage with industry groups and communities

LinkedIn has an incredible number of industry-specific groups and communities. Join relevant groups and communities to share your ideas and play your part as an industry expert. You can recommend your product/service to the group members and market it through word of mouth to engage prospects.

Leverage mutual connections for introductions

Network with mutual connections, those which are second-degree connections. They are the ones who are most relevant to you. Alternatively, if you choose to connect with people with no mutual connections, it will never leave a lasting impression. In the worst case, a potential prospect will not keep you on the card.

Effective Outreach and Connection Requests

B2B marketers can leverage LinkedIn connections to create a meaningful way by,

• Finding decision makers who can introduce them to their network.

• Taking time to understand mutual interests, and goals before asking for a favor.

• Reading their posts, liking, commenting, sharing, or tagging friends to build a better understanding and rapport.

• Creating a warm intro message to the prospect when sending them a connection request

• Initiating meaningful conversations

• Offering value before making a pitch

  Here’s a heartful example of how Jay Abiona recommends one of his first-level connections who is open to work!

Source: LinkedIn

Content Strategy for Lead Generation

Share valuable industry insights

LinkedIn is a great platform where you can establish yourself as an industry expert. Decision-makers see and read your posts, content, or any knowledge that you share. Publish valuable industry insights, research, data, trends, and technologies to attract and engage potential leads.

Create thought leadership articles, newsletters, or documents

LinkedIn is a knowledge base where people share thought leadership articles, write newsletters or create documents. The main goal of thought leadership articles is to establish you as a go-to expert on LinkedIn. Thus, it improves your credibility and gives you a competitive advantage.

For example, LinkedIn provides an easy-to-design-in-built newsletter template. Fill in all the details, and use your brand colors to create and publish a weekly or bi-weekly newsletter to engage and nurture your leads.

Source: LinkedIn

Utilize visual content: images, infographics, videos

LinkedIn is a visual platform. Deliver high-value information to your audience in the form of charts, images, videos, infographics, and graphics. Engagement rates of images outperform the video content for large-sized profiles. Therefore, brands leverage graphics and images as the go-to content for higher engagement rates.

LinkedIn post distribution by the brands is as follows:

• LinkedIn Image posts: 50.96%

• LinkedIn video posts: 14.06%

Leverage LinkedIn Company Pages

Optimize the company page for lead generation

Update your company page on Linkedin with a logo, branded cover letter, address, contact details, and all the essential information. Your company page is your brand’s digital asset on LinkedIn that can attract the right audience and keep them engaged.

Your company page allows you to collect hot leads via its built-in lead gen form. Create a professional lead generation form by adding engaging copy and CTAs.

• Go to the admin section of your page

• Click on edit

• Go to the leads

• Click on the Lead Gen Form

• Fill in all the details, save, and publish it.

• Capture potential leads seamlessly

Source: LinkedIn Lead Gen Form

Showcase products/services effectively

Post often! If you have recently published a blog post on your website, post it on your company page. If you have recently signed an agreement for a social cause, promote that. If you have done any recent research, publish it on your LinkedIn. Doing all this humanizes your brand and it improves brand credibility.

Encourage employee advocacy and engagement

Your employees are first-hand brand ambassadors. They are the ones who are going to give your brand recognition by sharing with their network.

• Shoutout to the best employee of the month

• Celebrate anniversaries

• Wish them a birthday via the company page

• Warmly welcome new employees

  Together this will improve your brand awareness, engagement rates, and company reach.

Utilize LinkedIn Sales Navigator

Advanced search and filtering for targeted leads

LinkedIn sales navigator is a powerful tool. According to LinkedIn, “Members with Sales Navigator are connected to 3.8x more decision-makers.” LinkedIn sales navigator is an advanced feature that allows you to generate leads seamlessly. This incredible lead generation tool utilizes an incredible list of advanced filtering features to target and retarget your audience.

Sales Navigator allows you to;

• Send 50 InMails per month

• You can see profile views over the past whole year if it’s a potential prospect

• Create custom lead and account lists

• It allows you to do an advanced lead search

• Save up to 10,000 leads

• Get lead recommendation

Source: Sales Navigator Core by LinkedIn

Track lead activity and engagement

LinkedIn Sales Navigator allows you to filter, list, and track leads. You can check the engagement rates and follow up with them to close the leads seamlessly.

• You can create potential lead lists.

• You can automate the process once you save the list of potential leads.

• You can track lead activity and engagements.

• Follow up with the hot leads, and remove if there are any cold leads.

• You can remove your current clients and competitors.

InMail best practices for direct messaging

InMail allows you to reach out to your potential lead directly. Professionally approach your lead.

• Be direct and concise.

• Talk about your mutual goals and affiliations.

• Approach the lead in a conversational yet professional tone

• Never add any URLs to the job.

• Give them a solid reason to respond by asking for some advice, etc.

Run Effective LinkedIn Ads

Sponsored Content

Sponsor your posts via native LinkedIn ads or InMail Campaigns to attract, engage, and capture leads seamlessly.

Native LinkedIn Ads allow you to capture leads via a lead capture form.

Let’s look at this native ad by Kantata.

Source: LinkedIn Sponsored AdOnce you click on the ad, the lead capture form appears like this. Source: Lead Capture Form

It asks for the details like first and last name, company name, size, job title, and country. This is a great lead generation form that companies can leverage to capture leads.

InMail Campaigns

LinkedIn InMail feature allows you to send a direct message to the leads on LinkedIn even if you are not directly connected to them. You can send a direct message to your first-level connections for free. You will have to buy a premium membership to message your lead you are not connected to. You can send a certain number of InMails based on your subscription package. For example, Sales Navigator Core allows you to send max 50 InMail messages monthly.

To make the most of the InMail Campaigns,

• Always InMail with purpose

• Write an irresistible headline

• Personalize your message

• Write a short and to-the-point message, preferably under 100 words.

Targeting Options for Precise Lead Generation

Whether you want to sponsor content, launch InMail campaigns, or introduce lead gen forms, LinkedIn allows you to target your leads via precise targeting parameters including,

• Industry type, and size

• Location

• Job title

• Years of experience

• Seniority level

• Skillset

  Analyze and Measure Success

Track key metrics: connections, engagement, leads

LinkedIn has built-in analytics that allows B2B marketers to track key metrics.. Or you can apply various tools that help with tracking LinkedIn analytics. Tracking LinkedIn metrics is crucial to making informed decisions, and making the most of this incredible lead-generation platform.

You can track the following analytics for your profile, page, or LinkedIn posts.

• Post engagement

• Post Impressions

• Followers' Growth

• Profile views

• Clicks and click-through rate

• Video views

• Company head growth count

• Page Visitors

• Page content views

  For instance, to get the lead generation analytics for your LinkedIn page, go to the admin section, click on the analytics on the left-hand side, and you will see analytics like visitors, followers, leads, content views, competitor analytics, etc.

Source: LinkedIn Page Analytics

Adjust strategies based on data-driven insights

Tracking performance on LinkedIn and adjusting strategies timely is crucial to optimize sales funnel, and ensure consistent growth. Improve your generation efforts continuously to accelerate sales processes.

• Analyze and track the engagement rates to make data-driven decisions.

• Change your content strategy if your posts are not performing well.

• Retarget native LinkedIn ads for better results.

• Run InMail campaigns for better targeting.

Best Practices for B2B Lead Generation on LinkedIn

Consistency in posting and engaging with the audience

Consistency is the key to engaging your audience on LinkedIn. It's crucial to balance posting frequency and timings. Do not overdo it. Otherwise, it will overwhelm the followers. Remember, it is an ongoing process, slow and steady. Leverage content repurposing for LinkedIn to save time and effort.

A/B testing strategies for optimizing content and messages

When generating leads on LinkedIn, it is important to implement A/B testing strategies and fine-tune them based on the results.

• Perform strategies like feedback and polls.

• Experiment with various content types like headlines, copy, graphics, hashtags, and videos. Redesign your content calendar accordingly.

• Target and retarget your audience with InMails Campaigns and Sponsor Posts.

Nurture leads to long-term relationships

Capture and nurture your leads by improving brand credibility and engagement through content and professional outreach.

• Introduce lead magnets like ebooks, discovery calls, and guides via LinkedIn posts and native ads.

• Communicate regularly to build trust and brand credibility.

• Always be professional when communicating with them.

• Share company updates, ideas, achievements, and new launches, such as launching a website or a new product

• Foster long-term relationships by staying authentic, honest, and professional.

  Conclusion

LinkedIn is a powerhouse for B2B lead generation. Its in-built lead gen forms, the irresistible hub of decision-makers, and advanced analytics features provide a one-stop shop for achieving your lead generation goals.

To achieve your lead generation goals, showcase your business as a market leader by creating content and building a unique brand identity. Second, keep consistency in building brand awareness and brand credibility. The third and most important thing is to keep track and analyze LinkedIn metrics for prospecting, engaging, and nurturing leads for better business results and accelerating your sales process.