Would you like to increase Lead Generation to convert prospects into customers for your enterprise? Wondering how to identify potential leads organically and nurture them on LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is a social platform developed for professionals who want to establish business relationships and generate leads to grow their network. However, the platform seems like a person who is insanely smart and brimming with potential, but potters about indifferently. This is surprising for people who would like to see that person for what he/she could be and realise that potential. This is especially frustrating for social media marketers who are trying to use the platform for sales and marketing.

Here, you will find a 3-step plan to develop long-standing relationships with people built on trust, without spending money on ads.

Why LinkedIn is a tremendous source of prospects for marketers

LinkedIn has over 600 million users worldwide who represent a wide range of industries. The platform’s robust targeting and search features will help you connect with the right professionals and enterprises. It also offers background intel on large and small organisations for subscribers and free users.

The platform’s algorithm is marketer-friendly and gives exceptional reach for local content. However, there are a few reasons why it’s difficult to market yourself and your business on LinkedIn:

• Low engagement rates for LinkedIn messages like InMail.
• Measuring ROI can be challenging if LinkedIn is integrated into a large market.
• Cold connection requests can be regarded as spam and ignored.

LinkedIn is a great platform to find success, however, you need an innovative strategy that capitalises on its strengths and how it can be implemented into the type of industry you are part of. Social selling is the next big thing on LinkedIn, where marketers and professionals are exceptionally active on the platform to generate leads and drive conversions.

The basic stages of a Social Sales Funnel

• Exposure – The prospect receives information about your business’ products and services.
• Interest – The prospect is allured by the value propositions of your products and services and dives deeper to know more.
• Connection – The prospects establish constant communication with your business.
• Relationship – The prospect gets the pitch and is encouraged to get nurtured with more information and take it forward with sales.
• Conversion – The prospect becomes a customer.
• Retention – The customer interacts with your team and is in constant communication with you to drive repeated sales, thus building loyalty.
• Referrals – The customer talks about the experience with you to their network.

This general framework outlines the customer journey and helps businesses map various ways to influence a prospect to become a customer during the sales process. If the marketing strategy is well-formulated and properly executed, it’s a big win for your business.

Digital marketers can break every step down to determine what a customer needs so that they commit to a purchase and every stage can be measured comprehensively. That funnel is comprised of a sequence of specific tactics:

Google Ads → Landing Pages → Retargeting Ads → Secondary Landing Pages → Lead Nurturing Email Campaigns → Abandoned Cart Advertising → Product Purchases → Post-Purchase Promotional Offers

LinkedIn Marketing can play a lot of major roles in a sales funnel for it to be effective. A B2B funnel is comprised of a sequence of specific tactics after fully integrating the LinkedIn approach:

Creating prospects on LinkedIn → Establishing LinkedIn connections → Nurturing leads with LinkedIn content → Converting prospects to customer by closing sales → Gaining loyalty and customer satisfaction → Nurturing customers for retainment → Researching for prospects through networking → Generating requests for referrals

Identify leads by creating a List of Prospects

With so many professionals using LinkedIn, there is a high chance your prospects are there as well, even if they are not regular users. You can comb through the connections of your most loyal customers to find prospects you want to meet and then ask for an introduction. Always limit the frequency of request referrals from a particular client for the sake of sustaining your business relationship. Make it once a quarter or twice a year just to be on the safe side. You can then start doing cold outreach so that you have a pipeline of new opportunities. You can use LinkedIn’s search functionality once you upgrade to Sales Navigator or Premium to identify prospects. After creating a list of prospects, follow these simple tips:

• Use different job keywords and job titles to find prospects that fit your industry
• Browse through the target company’s employees to find a point of contact
• Always be on the lookout for shared connections. You may know someone who can give a good introduction
• Have a script prepared before cold calls. You can work with a sales coach to sharpen your telemarketing skills
• Hold off making connection requests to prospects unless and until they have engaged with you in a meaningful way

Be personal and organic. It’s all about your creativity and communication skills that will win prospects over. Whatever messages you send, make sure you are not spamming anyone. Spark enough interest so that they want to meet you in person.

Initiate lead nurturing Activities

Most marketers drop their prospects into a drip marketing system after the first meeting. This is because they are not sure if the sale is likely to close in the immediate future. To extend the relationship with a prospect, savvy marketers try a variety of techniques like follow-up calls, direct mails, and webinars. You can use LinkedIn to initiate lead nurturing, which includes:

• Sending connection requests with engaged prospects
• Commenting/Liking on prospect posts, if appropriate
• Using the 'Viewed your Profile' notification as a gentle reminder after a few months gap
• Demonstrating your level of expertise through the type of content you share

If you had the first meeting through an email or phone call, you should send a request to connect. Your prospect will invariably view your profile and relate to the first meeting both of you had. This is when you should make sure that your LinkedIn profile page is well-developed and matches with your marketing message. Your newsfeed is a passive way to engage with future prospects. You can make your LinkedIn posts effective and engaging by following these simple tips:

• Post on a consistent basis, probably once or twice a week
• Bring your brand’s unique value proposition to the table by sharing original content
• Curate content that will keep your audience within the platform’s ecosystem
• Post interesting videos whenever possible
• Extend your posts’ reach by using two or three industry-related hashtags

Engage with your Leads on a Deeper level

After you have implemented the basic strategies for LinkedIn marketing, you can build on it by using more advanced methods and techniques to connect with more prospects, nurture them, drive sales and referrals. Try out these ideas that can be added into your regular activities:

• Tag people of high-value in your network. This puts you and your business in front of a different community of professionals who can become your future customers
• Congratulate prospects and clients on major accomplishments or business milestones
• Announce the launch of a new service, product or project and tag the clients you worked with
• Give your clients credit by sharing an insight or meaningful quote you got from them with the tag
• Be meaningful and sincere in communication. Spam does not work
• If you run a Digital Marketing Company or Social Media Agency, you will often collaborate with experts in different fields like content writers, web developers, SEO experts, and so on. Extend that collaboration on LinkedIn by sharing each other’s content and commenting on each other’s posts. This is an interactive way to share expertise across various networks.
• Sign up for premium services in LinkedIn. It may not be mandatory, but it sure is helpful to set the ball rolling in the right direction with added features.

This guide can help you kickstart your LinkedIn Lead generation activity, but the major takeaways should be utilising the power of original content and the value of consistency. Make sure that everything you do offers an educational, positive and entertaining experience for your prospects. If you need help with Social Media Marketing, get in touch with Spinta Digital. Our Inbound Digital Marketing Company in Chennai will help you grow your business and increase your online presence through LinkedIn Social Selling. Give us a call if you’d like our help. Contact us at +91 99625 08585.

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