Why is LinkedIn Good for B2B Lead Generation?
In the beginning, LinkedIn was a simple professional networking site. But today, LinkedIn is potentially the most important social media platform for B2B businesses to be using. With millions of professionals congregating and interacting with one another in one online space, LinkedIn is the proverbial B2B lead generation machine. And the numbers prove it.
In this report released by HubSpot, a whopping 63% of companies surveyed indicated that generating traffic and leads was their top marketing challenge. But LinkedIn has found that 80% of social media B2B leads come from LinkedIn and over 46% of all social media traffic to company websites is directed through LinkedIn. In fact, LinkedIn is 277% more effective at generating leads than Facebook or Twitter!
With LinkedIn, you can do market research, generate B2B leads, maintain relationships, share insights, elevate your reputation, and create an entire online community unique to your business. But how do you unlock this amazing B2B lead generation and relationship building potential? How should you really be using LinkedIn to find these valuable, qualified people to do business with?
In this article, we’re going to share with you 4 tips that will help you use LinkedIn as a powerful B2B marketing tool.
Your Company Page is a Lead Generation Tool
The truth is, a successful lead generation strategy is something you will have to work for. You can’t expect leads to just fall out of the sky and into your sales pipeline. You will have to be intentional, and this includes how you present your business online.
On LinkedIn, you can accomplish this through your company page by using it as a lead generation tool. Instead of just sharing your basic business information and facts, use your company page as a pipeline to your website:
Learn How to Get More Leads with LinkedIn
Make LinkedIn your lead generation machine!
Use Showcase Pages for B2B Lead Segmentation
You can use showcase pages to promote unique aspects of your business and target specific lead types. It’s the perfect way to segment your inbound LinkedIn leads.
LinkedIn writes, “Showcase pages are designed for members who want to follow specific aspects of your organization… It makes sense to create a showcase page when you want to establish a dedicated page to represent a brand, business unit, or organization initiative.”
Showcase pages differ from company pages in that they are intended to target specific groups of people rather than a general audience. They also have larger header images, more above the fold copy space, and more ways to provide links. Your showcase page should be optimized for conversions just like your company page, only more specifically targeted and relevant to your unique audience.
Build Your Target Audience Using LinkedIn Search Features
You don’t have to have a Premium LinkedIn membership to make use of their advanced search features. It’s the perfect way to identify the exact type of audience you should be targeting with your LinkedIn content.
You can filter your search by location, company, industry, school, language, nonprofit interests, and more. What you’ll gain is a real, actionable list of focused results and a chance to connect with new people.
Building your personal network is the key to finding valuable, qualified B2B leads through LinkedIn. So, while advanced search will let you filter through the entire network, your best leads will come from connections at the first, second, or third levels and these are the people you should be reaching out to.
Once you’ve created a targeted search, you’ll want to save it. This way you can run the search again without having to re-enter the criteria. You can also set alerts so you’ll know when new possible connections enter your audience parameters.
Make sure to search for groups to join as well and become active in them. It’s a great way to create and nurture new leads. You won’t have the same advanced features that people or company searches do, but you can still narrow them down a bit with relationship levels, categories, and languages.
Any groups you join should be relevant to what you’re looking for in a target audience, or perhaps consider starting your own. Additionally, LinkedIn ranks groups according to activity levels, so select groups that are listed as “very active.”
Attract B2B Leads with Published Content
You can support an inbound strategy for building up your B2B lead generation by using LinkedIn’s powerful publishing platform and posting lots of content. This will draw in users who are interested in your business and services.
Share stories from your employees, case studies, or industry specific news or tips. You can also use images, videos, slide presentations, documents, and more to keep viewers engaged with your business and responding to your feed. Be sure to include links to your website in your articles and posts.
Make LinkedIn Your B2B Lead Generation Machine
LinkedIn offers tons of opportunities to build up your B2B lead generation strategy, but the 4 tips listed above will give you a great start even if you don’t have a premium account.
For more information about LinkedIn Lead Generation or to get help developing your strategy contact us today! We help B2B companies generate leads and increase sales through LinkedIn and marketing automation, and we can make LinkedIn your B2B lead generation machine.